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By the way, there's an opportunity for you to talk to somebody about children's ministry

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out in the lobby, and you can begin loving little children with the love of the Lord

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this fall.

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Most people have dreams of something, don't they?

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And I'm sure you do.

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A dream of a future attainment, a possession that you might want, a hope that is before

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you, because it's human to dream.

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It is human to have hopes, and it's vital for us.

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We can tell a lot about people by the dreams that they have, because dreams are a way of

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measuring values in the life.

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You see, the key to our dreaming is what constitutes our dreams and our hopes.

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Are those dreams only temporal?

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Are those dreams focused on ourselves?

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Or do our dreams and hopes go beyond this lifetime and focus on others as well?

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The Apostle Paul was a man of ambitious dreams.

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Despite an apparently frail physical body, his brilliant intellect, his bona fide faith

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in Jesus Christ, his fervent commitment drove him forward.

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Paul was always looking toward the horizon, confident that the Lord was in tomorrow's

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possibilities.

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Well, someone says, of course he did, because he was an apostle.

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Apostles are supposed to be that way.

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But don't you think, truly in your heart, that that sense of expectation, that looking

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toward the horizon that we see in Paul, that that faith that reaches out and grasps a vision

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should characterize all of God's children, not just apostles?

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I do.

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The heartbeat of Paul's life might be summarized in this phrase, the advance of the gospel.

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If you were to take his pulse, it would beat this way, for the advance of the gospel.

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You see, Paul's dream embraced the world.

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And seeing lost people in that world come to faith in Jesus Christ, his dream embraced

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the Jew and Gentile.

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It embraced the slaves.

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It embraced the free.

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His dream was that those who are lost in every culture, in every circumstance of life, might

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come to faith in the Lord.

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In writing the book of Romans, whom, by the way, Paul had never yet seen face to face

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when he wrote it, Paul exposes something of his heart for evangelism and missions.

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I invite you to open your Bible to Romans 15 and verse 20.

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At the end of this marvelous book, Paul gives some personal remarks and exposes his heart.

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And he says in verse 20 of the 15th chapter of Romans, and thus he says, I aspired.

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You see, he had aspirations.

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He is a man in his early 60s.

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He is not ready to retire.

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He says, I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, that I might

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not build upon another man's foundation.

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You see, Paul's real dream was to preach the gospel in brand new areas where there

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had never yet been a witness for Christ.

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The cause of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ engaged the powers of this man.

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Paul was a man called by Christ to serve him.

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How did Paul view his calling?

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If you and I can grasp a little bit of that, it will affect how you and I view our calling

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as well to preach the gospel.

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In the book of Romans, there are four language pictures to describe how Paul saw himself

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in his calling.

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I want us to look at those four language pictures this morning because as you and I see how

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Paul saw himself, it will help us to see how we ought to see ourselves in relation to our

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calling to preach the gospel.

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First of all, Paul saw missions as a commission to keep.

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Go back to the very first verse of Romans and notice how Paul begins the epistle.

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It's not unusual in a certain respect because he introduces himself.

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He says, Paul, a bond servant of Jesus Christ called as an apostle set apart for the gospel.

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Notice how he labels himself here, a bond servant, a slave of Jesus Christ.

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That word would have gone over well in Rome because you see in Rome there were more slaves

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than there were free people.

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And undoubtedly the Roman church had many slaves who were part of it.

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And so he begins by introducing himself as a slave of Jesus Christ and then he gives

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this title an apostle.

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The word apostle comes from a Greek verb apostelo.

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If you listen to that, you can hear the word apostle in it.

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We get our English word from this Greek verb, apostelo.

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It means to send forth on a certain mission.

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It means to commission someone to a particular kind of business.

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In verse 5, Paul goes on to talk about his commission.

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He talks about Jesus Christ in verse 4, our Lord, through whom we have received grace

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and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his name's

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sake.

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And so we understand how Paul saw his commission.

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It was that he was to preach the gospel that especially Gentiles might come to faith in

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Jesus Christ.

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It was to bring them to obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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The apostle Paul in Acts chapter 26 talks about his commission.

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You may recall that he was on the road to Damascus where he intended to persecute Christians

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when the Lord appeared to him.

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And in the brilliance of that light, which caused a temporary blindness for Paul until

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he was healed, he heard a voice.

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And it was the voice of Jesus.

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And Jesus told him on that occasion that he was sending him to the Gentiles.

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The word send is this idea of commissioning.

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You see, an apostle is someone who is sent on a mission.

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Paul saw missions as a commission which he had, a commission that he had to keep.

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Now, you and I are not apostles.

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Apostles left the scene in the foundation era of the church in the first century.

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We cannot meet the qualifications for apostles technically today.

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But there is a very legitimate sense in which all of us have been apostles.

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That is, we have been sent.

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As Jesus said to us through the apostle John, as the Father has sent me, even so I apostle

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you.

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I send you with a mission.

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Missions in a particular sense, as we use that term today as cross-cultural.

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When we think of missionaries, we think of people who go to a different culture there

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to preach the gospel.

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But we need to back up a moment and realize that biblically, really missions is the work

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of all of us.

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Not a few people that we commission as missionaries, for we are all missionaries.

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And all that we do to communicate the gospel is what missions is about.

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Missions isn't about geography.

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Missions is about being the people of God where we are and serving him to advance the

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gospel.

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That's why we in our mission statement say that we are a community of believers whose

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purpose is to worship, to prepare ourselves through biblical instruction, service, and

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fellowship, in order to evangelize the world.

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We believe that we are a mission center and created a graphic some time ago to depict

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this.

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It expresses the fact that we come into the mission center represented by that circle.

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And here we are taught, we are equipped, here we worship the Lord, here we do some evangelism,

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but the evangelism really is on the outside of that circle.

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We come into the mission center that we might go out through relationship evangelism, through

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cultural keys and reaching people at their felt need level, by establishing branch churches

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that we might be missionaries.

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The apostle Paul saw missions as a commission to keep.

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You see missions is a matter of what we're about more than where we're going.

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We have chosen to portray ourselves as a mission center, as a church, hoping that all of us

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will catch this vision that we are missionaries just as much as Paul, and that we have a commission

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in this place to advance the gospel.

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And it's a commission that we too are to keep.

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Secondly, I noticed that the apostle Paul used in this same chapter, Romans chapter

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1, another picture of missions to describe how he saw it.

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This is in chapter 1 verse 14, where he says, I am under obligation, for as the King James

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puts it, I am debtor, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

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Thus for my part I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome, for I

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am not ashamed of the gospel.

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That is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and

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also to the Greek.

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The second picture that Paul uses to describe how he saw himself in relation to missions

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is he saw himself as one with a debt to pay.

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He says, I am under obligation.

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The word literally means what one owes to somebody else, a debt, an obligation.

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Paul felt obligated in debt to all people, to the Greeks.

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The word here in the context means those who were Hellenized.

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If you have studied history, you know that the Greeks were a very powerful force in the

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world before Christ, that the Greek Empire conquered the whole known world at that time

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under Alexander the Great.

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Greek language and Greek philosophy and Greek culture was forced upon people throughout

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the known world because of the conquest of Alexander.

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The world became Hellenized, as it is called.

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And so the apostle says that he is under debt to those who are Hellenistic in their view

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of life in the world, those who have been greatly influenced by the Greek culture.

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But not only those who are refined and cultured.

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He says he is in debt likewise to those who are barbarians.

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Literally the word means non-Greek speaking.

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That is those who are uncivilized, those who haven't been touched by the major influence

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of Hellenism in the world at that time.

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So he's saying I am under debt both to those who are touched by contemporary culture and

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those who have never been touched by it, who are still pagans, who are barbarians.

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How do we bring that up to our day?

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I'm not sure it's a positive thing to say, but I think that this is a legitimate analogy

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that we are in debt to those who have been touched by Western culture because that is

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the dominant one in the world in our day.

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As well as to those who have never heard of the Rolling Stones, God bless them.

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We are in debt to all people, the civilized and the uncivilized, the cultured and refined

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and those who have never been touched by Western culture.

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We are in debt to them.

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And then he says he's in debt as well to the wise.

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It means those who are trained and educated in classic philosophy, especially Greek philosophy.

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He's saying here I'm indebted to those who are the PhDs, those who are the advanced people

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in education, those who are the thinkers.

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But he says as well I am in debt to the foolish, that is those who have never been to school.

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Those who have never been to education, those who are ignorant in that sense, that they

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haven't had formal training.

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He says I am in debt to all people to pay.

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Now why did Paul feel that he owed a debt?

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Where did this sense of obligation come from?

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It was this, I believe.

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Paul knew that as a self-righteous, highly educated Jewish rabbi who was a sinner, as

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he discovered, he had found what it meant to have real forgiveness with God and to have

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the assurance of eternal life.

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He was a man who had a lot going for him, a lot of bragging rights in Paul.

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But all of those things became like dung to him, he says in Philippians, because of what

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he found in Jesus.

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I believe that what Paul is saying here is that he now as a human being has an obligation

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to go to other human beings, whatever their class, whoever they are in their ethnic background,

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whatever their privileges, whatever their lack of them.

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He was under obligation to take the gospel of forgiveness and eternal life to them all.

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Do you see yourself in that kind of debt?

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We feel conscientious about debt, most of us, don't we?

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Unfortunately there are some people who don't think about it too much, but most of us do

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feel conscientious about debt.

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I got a bill this last week from a store where we had purchased some things a couple of months

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ago in Cincinnati when we were there.

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And it said that I still owed $123.

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And furthermore it said I didn't pay anything last month.

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I was embarrassed because I want to pay my bills on time.

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So we began to do some research and we found out that in fact we had sent a check last

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month, it must have gotten lost in the mails.

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It was sent to them but it wasn't posted.

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I was embarrassed though that I was a month behind in that debt.

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Most of us feel conscientious about what we owe.

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We don't want people to think badly of us.

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We want to be honorable people.

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You see the same way that we feel about our financial debts is how Paul felt about the

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gospel.

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He said I am under obligation, I am in debt to the world.

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I owe them something because I have found in Jesus Christ what I lacked before.

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I have the forgiveness of sins.

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I have eternal life.

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I am righteous with God.

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And I owe the world the knowledge of how to find that same thing.

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Does missions grab you that way as a debt?

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A debt to pay?

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Let's go back to chapter 15 where we find yet a third word picture of the apostle in

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describing how he saw himself in his calling.

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Romans chapter 15 again, and let me pick it up in verse 15 where he says, but I have written

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very boldly to you on some points, so as to remind you again because of the grace that

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was given me from God.

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He's talking there about his calling which he saw as a gift of grace.

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And he describes what that calling is, verse 16.

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To be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God

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that my offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

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We see here that Paul saw missions as a sacrifice to offer God.

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Notice the priestly language that is in this verse.

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He says the grace that was given to me, I look at it this way, that I made now a minister

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of Christ.

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The word minister here means a public servant, but especially one who has a religious obligation.

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So he sees himself here as one who is a priestly servant of Jesus Christ whose responsibility

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he says is to minister as a priest the gospel.

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Ministering as a priest here is one word in the Greek language.

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It's where we get our word for liturgy or liturgical.

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And it means to perform the duties of a priest.

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And so again Paul is using that same idea.

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He says I see myself as a priest of Jesus Christ who as a priest offers an offering

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to God.

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Notice the word offering.

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And notice what his offering is, the Gentiles.

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Now stop and think about that for a moment because the offerings that Jewish priests

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offer to God had to be very particularly clean and sanctified.

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Gentiles were not considered in any sense to be clean by the Jews.

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When they would say the word they would spit.

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Gentiles non-Jews were considered dogs, unclean, filthy, pagans.

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And yet the apostle as a priest of Jesus Christ says I am offering to God the Gentiles.

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And then notice the last of the priestly words.

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He says sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

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Word sanctified means cleansed and set apart for divine use.

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You see all the priestly language.

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So the apostle sees missions here as a sacrifice to offer to God.

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Priests serve God.

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And that is the direction here of this image of missions.

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In our work as missionaries whether it be across the street at the neighbor's house

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or it be through someone in another culture, our work as missions is serving God as priests.

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Our witness to God is offering to God a sacrifice.

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Because that's what priests do.

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And those who respond to our witness we offer to God an act of praise.

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Our neighbor comes to Christ.

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We rejoice with him.

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But in our hearts we say oh God I present Joe to you as an offering sanctified by the

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Holy Spirit.

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Do you see missions that way?

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Do you see yourself as a priest serving God with liturgical duties of offering to God the

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gospel and our witness and those who respond to it?

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It's how Paul saw it.

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Then in chapter 11 we come to the fourth and the final of the word pictures of how Paul

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saw himself as a missionary.

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You need to stay with me on this one.

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But I think you'll grasp it.

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Paul saw missions as a purpose to complete.

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Verse 25 of Romans 11.

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I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, the one he's just described.

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Lest you be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel

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until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

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In chapters 9, 10, and 11 of Romans the apostle says that God has sovereignly determined the

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course of history.

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Did you know that history is about politics and wars and world powers and rulers and commerce

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and advance and industry and technology and all of those things only in a peripheral way?

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But yet if you get a history book and read it, you will find that history is recorded

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in human terms around all of those things.

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The things that happened in the 20th century.

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We've been remembering through this summer the great victories of World War II and how

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democracy was preserved for the world.

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And the history of 1945 has been defined in terms of wars and attacks and ultimately peace

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treaties.

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Surrenders of political nations to the victors.

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But did you know all of that is just peripheral to what history is really all about?

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They play a role but all of those things are only marginal to what God's purpose is.

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You see God's purpose of history is to glorify himself by redeeming a people for his name

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the fallen race of Adam.

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That my friend is the central core of history.

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Human history begins in the book of Genesis with God creating mankind and then man's

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fall into sin.

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Losing fellowship with God.

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Inheriting death as a punishment.

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And then Genesis 315 where God promises a redeemer.

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And then you trace it down to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and his family.

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And the story of the Old Testament is about that family and how God preserved through

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that family of Israel a line of the promised Messiah who would come to save.

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And then the gospels of the New Testament tell us about that one Jesus Christ.

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Jesus the Messiah.

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God come in the flesh.

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And the book of Acts tells us about that gospel message then beginning to spread to the world.

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That I submit to you is the core of human history.

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When you and I talk about advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ we are talking about advancing

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the center of human history from a divine perspective.

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I realize that CNN is covering what's happening in Bosnia or in Bogota.

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I understand that our news media focuses on the President of the United States or Yeltsin

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or somebody else.

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But I want to tell you when the annals of human history are recorded by God.

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All of those things are nothing.

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All those people are nothing.

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What counts is what God is doing in the world.

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And when you and I are advancing the gospel be it in our children's ministry here or

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be it in a witness that we have in the inner city or through our missionaries overseas.

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When we are advancing the gospel we are dealing with human history, the very core of it, from

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God's perspective.

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Now there was a question that arose in the first century among the Christian church people.

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And that was how did Israel, how did the Jew fit into what was taking place in the world?

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Up to this point we understand that Israel, the Jew, had been the center, the focus of

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what God was doing.

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And now where did Israel fit?

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That was a question.

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They had rejected their Messiah.

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The gospel had gone to the Gentiles.

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And so Paul answers that question in these chapters of Romans.

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He says that in the first place you need to understand that God purposed to set aside

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Israel.

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Yes, it was their unbelief that brought their condemnation, but understand this, that that's

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not outside of what God determined would happen.

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It was not an accident.

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And he says God did that so that he could create the church, this brand new entity of

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this age that is formed out of a remnant of Jew and Gentile.

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A remnant of Jews, a host of Gentiles.

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He illustrates it by an olive tree in this chapter.

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He says that the natural branches of the olive tree were broken off, talking about Israel

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being set aside.

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So that you Gentiles, you branches from the wild olive trees could be planted into this

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good olive tree in the promises of Abraham.

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Believing Gentiles, he says, those should not become arrogant due to God's grace to

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them.

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God has not rejected the Jew, he says, because God is one day going to restore the Jew.

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In this verse he tells us that God's setting aside of Israel, its dullness, it is described,

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is only partial.

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And it's temporary.

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It's partial in that some Jews do believe.

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And it's temporary in that it's only for a time.

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He says there is a point when the fullness of the Gentiles will be reached.

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And when that happens, God is going to deal with Israel again.

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He's going to redeem Israel.

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You and I are living in a period of time heading toward the fullness of the Gentiles.

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My point this morning is this, that missions is working toward the fulfillment of this

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dispensation.

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Missions is working toward the fullness of the Gentiles.

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We're working toward the fullness of the predominantly Gentile church.

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And when that last person who has been elected by God to be a part of the church believes,

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when the fullness of the Gentiles comes, the church is going to be taken out and God is

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going to begin focusing on Israel once more.

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So that every person who is one to Jesus Christ is another step in the direction of God's

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purpose, which is Christ's eventual return to the earth and his reign upon the earth.

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And so the Apostle Paul, you see, saw missions as a purpose to complete.

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He says we're in the center of what God is doing.

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We're in the center core of human history.

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And as we advance the gospel, as we preach the gospel here and beyond, we are completing

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the purpose of God for this age.

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That's pretty exciting to me.

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It ought to be stimulating to us to realize that what we're about is far more important

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than the decisions made in Congress when it resumes in the fall.

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The advance of the gospel is far more important than whatever is going to happen at the United

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Nations as it convenes later this fall.

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Because the advance of the gospel is the purpose of God.

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And our work in that direction helps complete what God is doing.

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You see, when we see missions through the eyes and the heart of Paul, I think it takes

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on a grander significance than ever.

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And so I have to ask all of us the question, what place does the advance of the gospel

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have in our lives?

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Where does this fit in in your dreams?

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When you plan how you're going to use your life, where does this advance of the gospel

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fit in?

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When you counsel your children or your grandchildren about what they ought to do and to be in life,

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where does this theme fit into it?

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You know the thing that scares me?

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The thing that really scares me is that this isn't the dream that consumes most Christians.

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The dream that consumes most Christians is not the dream of the advance of the gospel.

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It's the American dream.

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That's the dream that drives us.

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And to the extent that that is true, how out of sync we are with Paul.

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So when we talk about the foundation of our lives and firming up the foundation, we have

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to talk about missions.

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Has it engaged the powers of Paul?

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Does it engage your powers of imagination and desire and energy and money and time and

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life?

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Where does the advance of the gospel fit in?

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Because I'll tell you something, that is the single thing that is closest to the heart

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of God.

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Let's pray together.

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Lord, I think that a lot of my brothers and sisters would join me in confession this morning

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that our dreams in life don't really match what Paul's dreams were.

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And our eyes are upon things and achievements and possessions.

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And our eyes need to be upon people.

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Oh God, I pray in Jesus' name that you will dash our dreams that are just temporal.

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That you will show us the emptiness of dreams that are focused on ourselves and help us

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today to dream ambitiously and big about advancing the gospel among the lost of the world, among

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people who need Jesus.

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May the firming up of the foundation of our lives and missions make a difference in how

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we look at life and use our money and counsel our children and grandchildren.

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May our heart beat, Father, with that which causes your heart to beat.

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May our pulse rate be yours for the lost.

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In Jesus' name, amen.