Published: March 15, 2026 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 87 | Scripture: Romans 15:13-16
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Turn with me please to Romans chapter 15 this morning coming to the second benediction verse 13 verse 13 be looking at a slightly larger passage
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in context of the benediction actually following from the benediction itself we'll be looking at verses 13- 16 Romans Romans chapter 15.
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Now may the God of peace fill you with all joy and peace in believing. Excuse me. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope
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by the power of the Holy Spirit. And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of
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goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to admonish one another. And I have
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written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again because of the grace that was given to me from God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to
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the Gentiles. Ministering as a priest the gospel of God that my offering of the g to the gentile my offering of the
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Gentiles might become acceptable sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Let us pray.
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Father, we do ask that you would open your word to us this morning by the Holy Spirit that indwells us. You would give us understanding. Help us to grow in our faith. Help us to
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receive the purpose for which you send your word into our hearts and into our minds. Encouragement, minds. Encouragement, conviction, reproof, even rebuke.
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that as your children we would sit at your feet as our father and hear through your son Jesus Christ and by his holy spirit. So we pray that you would be
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blessed by the ministry of the word and that you would bless the ministry of the word in this building and in every part of the earth where our brothers and sisters gather this Lord's day to hear
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from their heavenly father. We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
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It seems to me that a person should reach a certain age before writing an Perhaps they should reach that age where the greatest danger is living long enough to finish the autobiography.
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But politicians like to write autobiographies when they have yet accomplished nothing. And it's a good thing because we also live in a world where certain politicians get the Nobel
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Peace Prize for having done nothing. And there's an autobiography that uh I imagine none of you have read. I myself have not read it. Uh it's titled The
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Audacity of Hope. Uh written by a uh state senator from Illinois in his first term in the US Senate having just been elected
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president. a bit early for an autobiography, but as typical political autobiographies, it it is a political screed. It it's it's talking about hope
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in a human system of democracy within the United States and particularly hope for minorities.
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for minorities. And that sort of autobiography and that sort of political screed is actually a very great danger to evangelical Christianity. By the way, that phrase is
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redundant because there is no other Christianity but that which believes in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The hope that is offered in books like
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that is are based on a false premise because they're they're hopes that are founded on a human system of government and society in which younger people can
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can can grow up anticipating something better for themselves. The hope is sourced in this world and bounded by it.
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When I was a child, the question was, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Now, children are told, "You can be anything you want to be when you grow up." These are false hopes. At least the
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first one had the implication uh that you would have to work for it. The second one basically has the promise that it's going to fall into your lap.
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Hope is something that is essential to human life. human life. Sociologists, anthropologists, Sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists have all learned,
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especially in the medical profession with regard to serious and even terminal illnesses, that the loss of hope will withstand any medical treatment.
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military generals understand that when the troops lose hope, the war is lost. I know the greatest of these is love,
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faith, hope, and love. But I believe love is the greatest because it's the one that abides forever. Our faith will someday become sight. Our hope will
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someday become fulfilled. But I think in in this life, the human condition of those three most demands
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hope. But books like The Audacity of Hope Lead us astray. Again, I have not read it. The title, I judge the book by the title, okay, by its cover. Yeah, I really was not even
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tempted. I like to read the biographies of men and women who are dead. um because there's no chance of them messing up what I'm reading. Okay, it's done. It's finished. So, I didn't even
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look at the book. But the title itself, the audacity of hope is is really to me almost sacriiggious almost sacriiggious because true biblical hope in Jesus
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Christ is incredibly audacious. And the hope that the world gives is incredibly impotent. incredibly impotent. It's a lying hope.
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But but we as Christians in the 21st century, we face an almost insurmountable challenge insurmountable challenge and that is everything in our world encourages us to hope in this life and
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to work in this life to improve ourselves in this life. Almost nothing is said about storing up in heaven treasures that cannot rust and that cannot be
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stolen. In other words, what the scripture teaches us, we ignore. And even with our children and then our children's children, we encourage them to advance and to have a better career
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than we had and a bigger house than we had. And your hope is in a college degree. And degree. And no, it's not. What benefit does it bring a man if he
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should gain the whole world and even the presidency and yet lose his soul? So when this benediction says, "And the God of hope,
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may the God of hope grant you peace, the God of hope," he's called that because he is our only hope. He is our
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hope through Jesus Christ. And without him, we were told that before we became believers, we we were without God. We were separated from God.
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and what without hope in this world. And I think we need to remind ourselves and this is the challenge that when we look out into the world, we
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see a realm of utter hopelessness. It doesn't matter who lives in the White House. It doesn't matter who has a
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majority in the Senate. It doesn't matter who's bombing who. The world is hopeless. Paul says the form of this world is passing away.
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Peter says this world is being reserved for judgment by fire. Don't be so close that when it happens, you get singed. But here's the challenge.
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Are we to just let go and let God? Are we just to to ignore our lives in this world? Are we to not to do nothing to reverse the effects of the curse on humanity? Are we just to isolate
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ourselves in closters or monasteries? No. We're sent out into the world. And it's my opinion that in any legitimate field of occupation, Christians should excel.
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There there's no legitimate field of occupation in which Christians should not be at the head. We should be diligent. We should be responsible. We
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should be hardworking. We should seek to improve ourselves. because that is our mandate as bearing the image of God. We are to conquer and subdue the world.
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Now, even though we know this world is passing away, and we look forward to a world, a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, yet we we have proverbs, we have wisdom,
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we we have admonitions from the apostles that we are to to be diligent, we're to be honest, we are to have integrity because that that is the that is the
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reputation that we put forth as Christians in the world. We should not be lazy. For if a man does not work, he should not eat. We should not be
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expectant that someone else will take care of us, whether the government or our parents or whatever. We should be diligent. We should be about improving our minds
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even more so than improving our bodies. But we should never put our hope in that. We should never put our hope in
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the world system, whatever system it may be. We should never think that because we here in the United States have liberties undreamed of throughout human history, that that is somehow our
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salvation. That that is somehow our hope. We have midterm elections coming up in November. Where is your hope? Are you hoping that one party retains the
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majority or that the other party gains the majority? every cycle, every political cycle, and not just in our country, but throughout history, since at least the dawning of republics,
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people have put their hope in political systems. Are you putting your hope in education? Are you thinking that by going to college, you'll get a better job and and
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you'll make more money and and life will be better for you? Is that your hope? Well, there's a scriptural principle that basically teaches that if that is
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your hope that when you attain it, you'll have received your reward in full. You will be paid off. It will be stamped, paid. You may have gained the
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world, but be careful you don't lose your soul in the process. So, hope is is really at the epicenter of Paul's teaching, especially to the
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Romans. And he's teaching us that because of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ in grafting us into that one olive tree which which sprung out of Abraham, we have hope. He writes to the
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Thessalonians that that when when uh our brothers and sisters fall asleep, he said we we should not grieve as the rest who have no hope.
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He speaks of this very frequently and and I think it's interesting to note that most of Paul's letters are not negative. We can look at first and second Corinthians and of course Galatians and yeah they had problems but
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Romans he wasn't really aware of any major problems in Rome. Philippians was was a great church. He loved them. There were no real problems. Little oddities about the Lord's coming in
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Thessalonians, you know, but and Ephesians and and Colossians are basically about the church. So most of what he's writing is is is kind of good news. You're all doing well,
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doing well, but don't fix your hope on anything in this world. And I think we and I hate to say this because, you know, you don't always say that it would we have it harder than than our parents or
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grandparents or you know, but I do think in this regard the modern church has a greater challenge in front of it than that in
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the first century. See the Roman Empire, we learn in first Corinthians that that most of the believers and the churches there were of the lower classes, even of the slave
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class. The the world of that time did not offer any hope to any but the patrician class, any but the highest. And I think if we look at our own
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society, we realize that that hope is also graded by socioeconomic source. Those who have more money have more hope in this world and in this life.
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But we do live in a very strange time in human history where where hope is available to far more people in terms of what they
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may accomplish in this life than in any other culture in the world today and in h in history from the beginning. So I think this is a particular challenge that we have in our uh in our culture
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and that is to to strive for progress in our own lives, in our families,
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and in our culture. I do not think that it is the Lord's intent that we should allow our culture to simply freely without any hindrance
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descend into corruption and decay. It will do so. Yes, there is nothing in history or in
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scripture that would encourage us to think that any given culture will abide eternally. It will not. God has appointed for every people the boundary and the time of
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their existence and of their influence of their power. And there's no reason to think that the influence of our country today will still remain a hundred years
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from now. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but there's no reason to expect it. And yet we are light in the darkness. We are levan in the world. We are salt. What
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salt did in the ancient world was not to flavor things but rather to slow down the process of corruption. And for that reason we are as he is in
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the world. the world. And that means that yes we should pursue education. We should pursue democracy or freedom, liberty, the things that the
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church has always brought with it, the gospel has always brought into societies. We should pursue. we should support but we should also remember that this is
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not our home and that biblically there there is a limit to which this world can be improved. There's a limit to to the amount or to
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the degree that the corruption that is brought about by sin can be arrested and slowed down. In Romans 8, Paul doesn't say that creation is waiting for the political activism of
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the sons of God. No, it's groaning as if in childbirth, waiting for the the revelation of the sons of God in that consummative day
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when Christ returns, when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But we have been given a charge to go into all the world making
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disciples, baptizing, teaching all the things that he has commanded. That is our charge. our charge. But Paul also says to work humbly with our hands
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our hands to live honestly to live with integrity and to oppose corruption and sin wherever we encounter it.
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Our our families are to be of Christ in Christ. The the definition of our relationships
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should be as Jesus had his. Who who are my who is my mother? Who who are my brothers? Who are my sisters? Those who do the will of my father. They
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are my mother and my brothers and my sisters. He says, "If any man love mother, father, sister, brother more than me, he's not worthy to be my disciple."
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That's that's really hard. Those are hard words, hard words, but they're words that represent a people whose hope is founded on a rock,
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whose hope enters into the veil, into the presence of God himself, whose hope the world does not give and the world cannot take away. Just like the peace of Christ, the hope of God is uniquely ours
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in Christ. And so with that hope and with the knowledge that that hope is not merely wishful thinking but rather has been secured by the resurrection of
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Jesus Christ from the dead. That's what secures our hope that our Messiah went to his death on the cross but did not remain there. His victory over death
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means death no longer has any sting. It has no power. It cannot hold us. That's our hope. The hope of those or
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the the death of those who have no hope that Paul refers to in Thessalonians is because all they can count on at that point is judgment. For it is appointed
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to man once to die and then judgment. They don't even have the hope of 10,000 years in purgatory. It's a truly hopeless existence without
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Jesus Christ because it is so incredibly short. When you think about the lifespan of man, it is so incredibly short. And the
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writer of Ecclesiastes makes that very clear. We're here, but like the grass, we wither and die, and our place remembers us no more. That's one of the most
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powerful images powerful images that I get when we travel, especially when we go through the old churchyard cemeteries. And there are all the monuments,
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but they are illeible. Time has worn away the writing. And there's a stone. There's a place,
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but it no longer remembers the person interred there. How many generations will remember you?
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remember you? I remember my grandfather. There only two generations. I never knew my great-grandfather. my great-grandfather. You see that there's no hope here. And
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and if our hope were anchored in this life, it would truly be a facade because we we should just eat and drink for tomorrow we die. And you know that's
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what the world's telling us because we're nothing more than a package of chemicals with little electro electric shocks going back and forth. We're nothing more than matter and so death
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doesn't matter. We just go back into the earth from which we came. There's any hope in that? I guess the audacity of that hope is that it is so
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incredibly empty and stupid. That's audacious to put your hope in the political system, to put your hope in this. Maybe that's just true audacity
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that you can actually think you can bring about a new world out of the power of your own political will. Well, I guess that's audacious. It's also empty and stupid. We have a real hope. We have
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a hope that has conquered death. And so when we when we bless one another in the God of hope, what we're saying to one another is we we really do have a hope.
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We have in this life reverses. We heard of one this morning, the loss of a job. We have reverses in health. We heard of that this morning. We have reverses in
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this life. Those reverses are themselves reminders that this is not uh the scope of our existence. This is not the the scope or the sum total of our hope.
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And yet we continue to strive for better health, for good jobs. Yes, we do that. But don't be encompassed by it. Don't be
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defined by it. John Murray says, "God himself is the ultimate hope of the people of God because he is their portion, their
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inheritance, and their dwelling place forever. That that's true hope and in the world that kind of hope will come across as
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What is sad is to say today that in the church that hope will also appear audacious. It it should not be that way. So was there a problem with the Roman church? Was Paul uh chastising them for
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being a hopeless bunch of whining children? No. No. He goes on in this passage to say that that he's convinced that they were full of goodness and
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filled with kindness. And I think that what he's saying here, we tend to think that the number one enemy of Christianity or the life of the
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church is is sin. Well, sin is certainly a great enemy. It's not the greatest enemy. We know that to be death, the last enemy. But I
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think in practical terms of daytoday, week to week, yeartoyear life within the community of faith, there is a greater enemy than sin.
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And that is complacency. an attitude that we have arrived. We've reached our goal and from now on
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we're going to keep status quo. We're going to maintain what we have. But what Paul says in his letters is you can't do that because as soon as you
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stop progressing in faith, in growth and grace and the knowledge of God, you will retreat. It's like a physical, at least a moral
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law that if we're not growing in grace, we're not just maintaining a level. We're retreating. We're retreating. We're actually not applying that preservative quality of the salt of the
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gospel and of his word. We are permitting the decay of our fallen nature to continue unhindered. Complacency. So Paul says here, I I'm
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convinced and he and he uses I myself am convinced that you yourselves, these are emphatic terms. When the pronouns are actually used in the Greek, he doesn't
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say I'm convinced that you I myself am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness and filled with kindness. In other words, you're doing fine.
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You're doing great. But that does not stop me from writing some things boldly. By way of reminder, Peter says essentially the same thing in
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his letter.
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He says, "Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them and have been established in the truth." He
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says, "I don't have a problem as long as I am in this dwelling house, in this flesh, of stirring you up by reminder, even though you already know these
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things and you're established in them." You know what that means is when something bold and something even harsh comes to us from the scripture
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and therefore hopefully from the pulpit that doesn't mean there's a problem
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because at any point in time we may be doing well but we can always do better. At any point in time, we may be full of goodness and filled with kindness, but we can't stop there. Paul writes to the
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Thessalonians in the same vein as Peter's admonition in his letter. He says, "Finally, brethren, we request." This is, I think, an interesting way of putting it. We request and exhort.
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Which one? Which one? Both. I mean, what's an exhortation? An exhortation is something that comes from someone who has the authority to
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basically admonish. An exhortation comes from a coach, comes from a father, comes from someone higher up. Where's a request come from?
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Okay. I I don't think that a football coach sends in a request to run this certain play. certain play. But Paul says, "We request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that as you have
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received from us instruction as how you ought to walk and please God and then in parenthesis just as you
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actually do walk that you may excel still more." still more." So I want to address the the whole idea
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of what Paul says the scriptures do for us that they are profitable for instruction. They're profitable for reproof, for admonition, for training.
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And I want to try to to teach at least my my own opinion in terms of how to differentiate between preaching that is targeting
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and preaching that is with integrity to the word. Now I'm sure everyone here I know I have but I'm sure everyone here has thought at some point in time that
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the sermon was directed at me. I I have been told that. I have been told that after sermons
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most of the time I can honestly say that that was not the intention. Whether you believe that or not is is up to you. But you can be sitting in the in the pews and you hear a sermon, you think, "Oh my word, that was right at
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me." Was it? How do you know the difference? There there are it is used the pulpit is used that way. It is. And it shouldn't be, but it is
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used that way. Well, I I want to give you some maybe litmus tests as to how to differentiate between targeting and preaching. Well, first of all, does the comment,
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the exhortation, the instruction, or even the rebuke fit the text? Okay, does it fit the text or is it
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coming from somewhere else? Now, in terms of what we're reading here, there there is no rebuke. There is no there is no condemnation. And so the text doesn't allow that sort of thing to
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be said. What it does say to us, however, is that you you've attained goodness. You've attained kindness, but keep going. Keep going. And how do we
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keep going? But by the ministry of the word. That is what the Holy Spirit uses to sanctify us. Paul refers to it as the washing of the water of the word. And so
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it's an ongoing process whereby we are sanctified as Jesus said in the truth. Thy word, Father, is truth. So that's
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that's it. That's that's where our hope is grounded and that's where our sanctification comes from is God's word. But just because something is said from a passage that is that is hard to hear,
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doesn't mean you're actually a foul of that. It may not be. And this is something that that you have to examine yourself. It may not be spoken because there is a problem, but rather spoken
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because we want to avoid the problem. And so the the meaning or the the impact of the word spoken
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has two basic pillars that hold it up. First, the integrity with which it is delivered. In in other words, it must be anchored
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in the text and and the second is the way it's received. Is it received with an open heart and one that seeks to be taught by the Holy
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Spirit? In which case, the Holy Spirit has been given to convict of righteousness and sin and judgment. And it doesn't matter who the preacher is.
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If what he says does not correspond with a particular sin or problem in your life, then it it is not a correction.
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It's an encouragement. It's it's not, oh, you're not doing this right. You better fix it. It's excel still more.
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still more. Now, if you happen to fall under a passage preached from the pulpit that hits home with a particular problem, then it
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certainly isn't saying excel still more. Okay? And so, how it's received, this is the this is the power of the word because it's the Holy Spirit that
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inspires it and sends it forth and it's the Holy Spirit that receives it. It's the same Holy Spirit. And yet, if it's not the same spirit, that is for
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each one of us to discern. And perhaps the answer might be to the one preaching, you know, not what spirit you are of.
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That that that's that's what the spirit gives us. He gives us discernment. And so, the word of God can be encouraging. It can be convicting. It can be rebuking
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and reproving. It can be instructing. But what it can never be to a believer is condemning is condemning because there is no condemnation now for
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us in Jesus Christ. And so if you are feeling condemned by a passage,
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maybe the preaching is not good or maybe you don't understand grace. Reproof is not condemnation. The father reproves and disciplines the son whom he loves. Right? And what does
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he say in Hebrews? If if you receive no discipline, what what are you? Well, let me sanitize it a little bit. You're not a legitimate son. Okay. So, the word of God has all of
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these manifest impacts upon us. It encourages us that we're full of goodness and we're full of kindness. And yet, it says, "Excel still more." we receive the instruction that teaches us
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how we ought to walk with God and please him and yet it says excel still more. It often says things repetitively and Peter says that's not a problem. I don't
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have a problem with repeating myself to remind you and stir you up by reminder and he says that is my ministry and Paul
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says that is my ministry and he speaks this is the only place where he speaks of himself as a priest which is very odd it's worth studying but he speaks of
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himself as a priest bringing an offering to God of the Gentiles
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apostles. And yet the apostolic office through the faithful handling of the word of God is the mantle of a pastoring elder because
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they are called, they will be called to give an account. So when pastors minister their their act is an act of
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sacrifice but to whom are they responsible in most churches today they are responsible to the trustees they're responsible to the session in
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the Presbyterian polity the pastor is actually not a member of the church he's a member of the session and I remember when When I first heard
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that, I was somewhat gobbmacked. And I asked why. And the answer was to protect the pastor from the
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congregation. I'm like, you got big problems. You got serious problems. If that's the way you're arranging your church to protect the pastor from his flock, that
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that is so unbiblical. The pastor is the shepherd, the undersheperd of the flock. Each pastor shepherds the
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flock of God as ones who will give an account. So it's very analogous. It's an offering. It's a ministry. It's a it's a service. And the the same word
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lata which is used in the Greek Old Testament to speak of the tabernacle and the temple service is what is spoken of of the service of elders in the church. So when Paul says, "I want to present a
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sacrifice, an offering acceptable to God." And the only way that any pastor can do that is to remain true to the word.
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Long ago, the elders of this church determined that the safest form of preaching is exeetically verse by verse through a
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book of the Bible. Are we told anywhere in scripture to do that? No. In fact, no less a light than
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Charles Spurgeon taught his students, "Don't do that. That's quenching the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will let you know what to preach each Sunday.
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Well, he was a unique man. Most of us mere mortals, if allowed to come up with our topic Sunday after Sunday, will get on a soap
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box and pound the congregation into fine dust. Whether it's political, whether it's doctrinal, whether it's practical,
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but by going verse by verse through the scripture, we are confining ourselves to the revelation of God as he has given it. Now, our responsibility goes beyond
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that and that is to faithfully handle the word the word and that is largely yours to determine. But but over time hopefully
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an element of of of trust will develop where you can say okay our elders are faithfully handling the word. They're not getting up in the pulpit
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each Sunday to to to to beat a dead horse or to to target particular things that happen during the week to use the power of God's word as a bludgeon
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rather than the power of the Holy Spirit to nourish, to convict, to reprove, to teach, to instruct. All of those things
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happen during a sermon, but they happen differently depending on where each recipient is in life at that time. It it is it is a multi multiaceted majesty of
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God's word that it can it can be a soothing balm soothing balm in the heart of one person and a burning acid in the heart of another depending
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on where they are with the Lord at that time. It is It is it is a very challenging ministry. But I believe that the way to look at it
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is exactly the way Paul looks at it, exactly the way Peter looks at it. And that is it's no problem to continue to remind you to stir you up by way of reminder that whenever we encounter the
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a similar topic within the scripture, well, that's the topic for this Sunday. And wherever you are in the Lord, well, that's the Holy Spirit. And so there there's there's no
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targeting, at least try not to, but a listening to what God is saying because at the end of the day, the pastor is not responsible to the session. The pastor is not responsible
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to the congregation. They are those who will give an account before the Lord for the shephering of your souls and to the Lord alone. In
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that respect, they will be held responsible. Let's close in prayer. Father, we do ask that you would guide
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us as a a body, as a congregation, that we might both hear and listen to the Holy Spirit through your word. that the words that are that are said
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and read, that are preached, that are sung, knowing that they will have a different impact in different hearts on any given day. May we each be sensitive and listen
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to the Holy Spirit and receive the conviction or the encouragement, the congratulation or the challenge, the reproof or the instruction,
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but be guided always by your Holy Spirit that we may grow in grace, that we may grow in understanding, that we may grow in in right living, how we ought to walk
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and please you. We ask this, Father, for the building up of your church for your glory through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Amen. Please rise for the benediction from the end of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. He writes, He writes, "Peace be to the brethren,
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and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love
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incorruptible. Amen.