In the sermon 'Striving Together' by Douglas Campbell, the speaker explores Romans 15:29-33, highlighting the Apostle Paul's message about coming in the fullness of Christ's blessing. Campbell delves into three meanings of 'blessing': being set apart for God, speaking well of others, and experiencing exceptional happiness. He emphasizes that true happiness is found in knowing God and warns against the idolatry that comes from seeking happiness in worldly desires. Prayer is portrayed as a significant, ongoing struggle that requires discipline and commitment in a believer's life. Campbell argues that idleness leads to misery and that both individuals and churches find joy through active service to God and others. He stresses the importance of putting duty before personal desires, both in personal relationships and in the pursuit of God's work. The sermon concludes by urging believers to seek God's blessings through service and to continually strive in their relationship with Christ.

Good morning. If you would turn with me to Romans chapter 15. Oh, it's coming on now. Sometimes when it shuts off like that in the middle, It just won't come on for 10 or 15 minutes. Romans 15, I think we're at 29.

So this morning we'll be reading 29 through 33 of Romans 15. Mr. Brody has been practicing up on his speed on Wednesday nights. I didn't even say it the second time and he already had it to the page. Good job, Mr Brody.

Romans 1529 through 33. The word of God says, I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. May the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning, Father, as those who have been unfairly redeemed, Father, of those who come to you, Father, that you in no way apart from your righteousness have any concern for our prayers. And yet Father, by your extreme grace and your extreme patience, Father we know this morning for all those who are in Christ, Father, you hear our prayers. You hear us this morning as we cry to you, Father, that you would draw us, that you would draw us close, that you would sanctify us, that you would make us more like you father this morning we we need you above all we need you to give us understanding we need you to change our wills and and our that within us the flesh within us that would always fight and battle to struggle off or to cast off your word and to live selfishly. Father, I pray your Holy Spirit would help us this morning to discipline ourselves to hear your word and, Father, to be changed by it.

Father, it's that we ask and plead this morning in Jesus name, amen. Amen. Well this morning, let's start by looking at that first verse. This first verse we could probably preach several sermons on, but this morning we'll read through it and then we will apply it to the rest of the scripture that's there. So let's look at Romans 15-29.

I probably didn't put a slide just for that verse, but it says, I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ Remember, this is the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome Looking forward to the day that Ultimately that he will begin he will make his journey to Spain to preach the Gospel where it has not been preached before, but on his journey there, he also desires greatly to visit the church in Rome. And so he's writing to that church and he says I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ This morning what I would first like to look at is what does that word blessing mean? We use that word a lot somebody needs to say Bless you We tell people, we say God bless you. The scripture uses it oftentimes. It's a very general English word in Scripture that means different things in different places.

But this morning, what does it mean specifically in Scripture? So I wanted to look at three different ideas or three different meanings of it. The first means to be set apart to God. To be, maybe a better English word would be consecrated or set apart. When we would refer maybe to communion as the Blessed Sacrament It would be that which is set apart that this is it we're not just having communion because we're all hungry and we all would just be very satisfied if we just have a little bite of bread and a little bitty mini cup of juice and obviously that's not what we would come to that for.

We come to it to remember Christ, that it's not just a meal of eating, that it's a time of remembrance, a time that's set apart to remember what Christ has done for us. In fact, we are all programmed again when someone sneezes to say, God bless you. But most of us, even myself, for probably until I was studying through this, I really didn't understand what that meant or what was I really saying to someone and what it meant it fell it falls into this category. What we're actually saying is when someone sneezes we would say, God bless you, We want that person to be set apart to God and to His service. To go deep into this, there's with this word, there's connections to the word blood, and that word blood has the connection of those things that were consecrated unto God.

And with that understanding, I know I don't want to dig way into that, But it simply just means to be set apart from God Which is ironic because even when I'm at walmart and and the guy You know buying whatever carrying the keg of of beer on his shoulder and he he sneezes and I I want to say God bless you. Now I would like for him to be set apart for God and maybe that's not a great illustration, but do I really mean that? When I say bless you, do I really mean that? I think most of the time I don't. I think I just say it because it seems like the Christian thing to say.

Maybe, I'm sure probably at least one or two of you are with me in that. But this morning I'd like us to understand that it really means to set apart to God, to consecrate. And that's what we want to see. But ultimately, if I say that to a stranger and I don't share the gospel, do I really want them set apart for God? It's sort of contradictory in terms.

The second is to speak well of a person. In Luke chapter 6 verse 28, Jesus Christ himself tells us to bless those who curse you and to pray for those who abuse you. This word bless would mean to speak well of, that this person may be speaking ill of me, They may be accusing me, they may be saying mean things towards me, but Christ tells me to bless them, to speak well of them in return. Don't enter into their sin, but speak well of them. I think you and I have this extreme temptation in the world that we live in at the moment to speak ill of those who are in leadership over us in government.

And I would tell you this morning, don't fall into that. I found my heart falling into this problem. But speak well, bless them, pray for them, including those who are your neighbors and those who are around you in church. There's an extreme contradiction. If we understand this rightly, that to bless someone is to speak well of them, there's an extreme contradiction for those in the South.

And maybe I'm probably pretty safe, Most of you don't have a lot of southern terminology, but in the South they have a way of phrasing things that is completely contradictory. And you guys probably want an example, right? So in the South, I hear this a lot. I'm not in the South a lot, but when I'm in the South, or I talk to people from the South, I've heard this. They will say things like this, and maybe even about somebody in your church.

They might say, Sister Susan, she sure cakes on the makeup, bless her heart. Bless her heart does not exempt saying something bad before it. It's completely contradictory. It's silly, but it's those silly things that you and I sometimes do. Let's not speak ill of those around us.

Let's not speak ill of those who are our brothers and sisters. Let's bless them. Amen? And third, it's an exceptional state of happiness. In fact, the word bliss, the word bless comes from this understanding of bless comes from the word bliss.

That we would think of somebody who is in true bliss, as somebody who is just overwhelmingly happy. And it's that definition of it that we find in Matthew chapter 5, verses 1 through 12. This is some of my favorite scripture, and young people, if you can memorize this, this is something great to memorize. Matthew 5, 1 through 12. It says, Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him.

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Now if we translate or if we look at this and understand it rightly, every time that it said blessed, we could say also means truly happy.

Truly happy are the poor in spirit, truly happy are those who mourn, truly happy are the and truly happy are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, and truly happy are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on the account of Christ. It's truly happy. And see, what I find as I deal with people and talk with people, that at the heart of every person, at the heart of our flesh, is this deep desire to be happy. That is what motivates us, many people. That is what drives people.

The problem is, without a redeemed heart, without being born again, the truly happy us, us trying to make ourselves truly happy, always revolves around idolatry. It always revolves around false gods. It always revolves around what makes sense to us. I have people memorize a verse all the time, and of course every time I want to think of it I can't. I think it's Proverbs 14-12.

Is that right? Maybe? That it says, Proverbs 14 12 that says that there's a way that seems right to a man, but it ends in destruction. Why? The way that seems right always revolves around what our flesh and its idols that it forms says this will ultimately make me happy.

Think of it this way. There are many in our world that say I will be truly happy when I win the lottery. And there are people who play that out in their minds. I've known people that just all the time are thinking, when I win the lottery, I'm going to do this and this and this. I'm going to get this.

And how great will that day be? But that happiness revolves around the idol of money. That person will never be truly happy. They will always agonize. And if you don't believe me, look at the richest people in our world.

Are they typically giving away their money? Or are they trying to find another way where they can add another zero to their account? That's what drives them. They're never happy there are men who have have so much money that they will never be able to spend at all And yet they're driven to get another dollar Why this idol that they formed in their mind has come has exposed itself for what it truly is. It is an idol that has no power that cannot save, that cannot give them happiness, and ultimately only once more.

Only once more worship, more separation from the God of Scripture. Are you truly happy? In this scripture, we find the Apostle Paul. And we find that He is overwhelmed with joy. The Apostle Paul is living a life that is way harder probably than any of our lives, and He is truly in joy.

There are two blessings at which we see in Scripture. The first is our blessing in Christ. In Ephesians 1-3 it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. This morning, if you are in Christ, if you are regenerate, if He has changed your heart and you are born again, you are blessed beyond measure. In fact you are blessed more than our flesh can even comprehend.

It says that we are blessed, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. If you are in Christ this morning, you are already experiencing the blessings that you will experience for eternity. It's as if you were already in heaven, yet still traveling through this world. The Bible says that we are strangers in this world. We are sojourners, and our ultimate place will be with God.

And if you are born again today, that is a sure destination. So sure in fact that you are already experiencing the blessings that come with being a child of God. In fact, everything that we can, every good attribute that we can think of, we already experience in Christ. John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, He writes this, he says, if we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that is of him. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing.

If we seek strength that lies in his dominion, if purity in his conception, if gentleness it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects, that he might learn to feel our pain. If we seek redemption it lies in his passion, If acquittal in his condemnation, if remission of the curse in his cross, if satisfaction in his sacrifice, if purification in his blood, if reconciliation in his descent into hell, if mortification of the flesh in his tomb, if newness of life in his regeneration, if immortality in the same, if inheritance of the heavenly kingdom in his entrance into heaven, if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings in his kingdom, if untroubled expectation of judgment, and the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from the fountain and from no other. This morning in a nutshell it is this, when we think about our blessings in Christ, we find what what brother Jake shared in Sunday school and what I've been reminded of in this past week is the great jewel of Christianity is this it is to know God it is to know the one true God of whom all blessings flow.

If we don't know Him, we are pitied among men. If we only know about Him, we aren't experiencing His blessings. We are missing the true joy that can come from scripture. If we are consumed with chasing idols, we will never come to know this abundant joy that is only found in Christ. The great jewel of Christianity is to know God.

Everyone in this room, if you would draw near to Him, He doesn't just offer you a book to know about Him, but He offers you His divine revelation to you that you can know about Him to come to a place in your life where you come to know Him in repentance and faith. And in that we find true happiness. If you are trusting in anything in this life, you will quickly come to realize that this life isn't all that great. I think one of the blessings, and I've shared this many times, I think one of the blessings of of growing older and and hurting more and seeing more and understanding the world better, the great blessing of it all is it shows us that when we were a teenager we thought the world was everything. And then now I find myself in my mid-forties thinking, this isn't all that great.

There's nothing here worth living for. There's nothing here worth, apart from Christ, there's nothing here worth dying for. In fact, when we look at young people today, when they are taught over and over that there is no God, that we came here from monkeys and fish and through evolution. Young people are smart enough to think this through. And if you think this through, if you come back all the way to we were some cosmic accident that came from stardust, and one day the sun is going to devour the earth, and all of this is going to be over, young people come to the realization that this has no meaning.

Has no meaning. I might be an Olympic gold medalist and I won't be able to convince you of anything, but I'm a gold medalist in chess And I might have my name placard on all these walls and try might have even a trophy of myself standing before some chess museum. One day it will all be consumed. Oftentimes man reverts to thinking, well life is so short I need to I need to accomplish something great so I won't be forgotten. But even in that one day you will be forgotten because all of this will be consumed.

At the end of it, just like the teenager and just like the older person who doesn't want to be forgotten, we come to realize that it is futile. I believe that's why we see suicide rates going crazy today. In a first-world country where life is very easy for us, Suicide is the problem. Do you know in the third world countries where life isn't easy, it's very hard? Suicide really isn't a big problem.

I believe the more blessed we are apart from Christ, the more good things that happen apart from Christ, the more we begin to realize that it's all meaningless. And apart from Christ, that is where it ends. This morning, the great jewel of Christianity is that we can come to know the one true God of the universe. That is a blessing bigger than anything you and I can comprehend. And it's a blessing that you can come to know today if you turn from your sin and trust in the work of Jesus Christ.

Secondly, our blessings come from our service to God. In Romans 15 30 it says, I appeal to you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf." This word, strive together, in the Greek, it can be translated to strain together or to fight together. It is not a passive word. It is a fighting word to strain with another or others conceived as engaging in a fight or contest alongside another. The apologist doesn't say, brothers, I would just appeal to you to pray for me, but to fight in prayer.

And it's something that you and I can come to understand better, because The great measuring stick of our sanctification in Christ, I believe, is our prayer. The reason I believe that is because prayer time is something that I can't demonstrate. No one can inspect my prayer life apart from maybe my children and my wife catching me in that. Right? There's David, Mr.

David here on the front row. We spend probably more time than than most of the people in the church and I do. David doesn't know my prayer life apart from if we pray together. He doesn't know what I do at two in the morning, he doesn't know what I do at home, he doesn't know what I do when the children go to bed, and the same is true of you. And if you are honest with yourself or if you're like me, because no one knows, because no one can see, it makes it very easy to not fight for.

Makes it very easy for me to give in, to do something else. If something better is going on, then it's very easy to choose that option. But those who come to know Christ and who are sanctified and are growing more and more like Christ, we'll find that you cannot live without that prayer time. It becomes more and more valuable. But understand, if you're not in that place, to those people who are living that way, It didn't come to them because it just happened.

It is a real battle. It is a real fight. Because there's all kinds of things that are going to say, well, this is a better use of your time at this moment. It's the same for spending time with our families or whatever it may be. There are enough things to do in this world that the world will keep you busy 24 hours a day seven days a week especially if you don't tell people no and prayer is usually that thing that has given up the most I tell you that not because I'm accusing I tell you that because I know my heart.

The battle must rage in that area. You must fight for prayer. You must fight for it. I can tell this morning not to go way into this, but even there's times where, you know, I'm just, I'm going to get away from everything, and there's times where I even, no one's here, and I'm praying here at the front of the church, and within three or four minutes, my mind starts to wander somewhere else That's part of the battle Part of the battle is to say no, I'm not going to be distracted I'm not going to think about what's happening later tomorrow or this or that We must battle in prayer this morning. I want you to see this If you are to be a man or woman of prayer, you must battle.

It can't be passive. You have to fight for that time, to fight to control your mind, to fight to know God. Secondly, what points out to me in this, in light of, we're talking about God's blessings in Paul's life, is that idle people are typically people who are miserable. When we come back into the Maybe the non-spiritual realm, when people come to me and they are depressed, I would think, I think this is even a statistic you would find in most books, that people who are depressed are 99% of the time are idle people. They're people who are not working.

They're not doing things to keep themselves busy. And in fact, what comes along with depression is the idea that I'm going to be even more idle, that I want to get away, that I want to do the opposite of what's actually going to help. If you are miserable today, I would ask you, are you idle? Are you working? Are you even if you're at home?

This is male or female problem. If you're, I don't even want to talk about the female because if I was to be honest with you, my wife is way harder working than I am. Oftentimes people would say, well, family and different people will ask my wife to do something for them and they're like, well, why can't you just come right now? You just stay home. You don't do anything.

You don't have a job. That's, I'll tell you, that's deeply offensive because if you knew how much my wife worked, she has a job, she teaches our children, she Does more work in a garden than probably most grown men would do? She can't. Anyway. Let me refocus.

Even if we're stuck at home, let's make it an easier approach. We're quarantined at home. Don't quarantine at home and just watch movies all day. Find something to do. Be constructive.

Do something. Plant a garden. Do something. But God has designed us in such a way that we are not well when we're idle. Moving on, Psalm 90, 17, it says, Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us.

Yes, establish the work of our hands." Moving beyond our home lives, miserable churches are those who do not serve God. There's been a transition in the last hundred years or two hundred years where more and more we have seemed to come back from the Reformation. We began to, in the American consumer society, we see church as not a place where they serve but a consumer mentality that they come to church to consume. That the church is here to do for them and that they have no position or place to serve in God's church. This morning I would tell you that churches that are only gathering on Sunday mornings and they're not serving God together typically are miserable churches.

They're miserable people. They're not people that are reaching out to the lost. They're not churches who have extreme joy. I can tell you in my past, some of the greatest times in my Christian walk have been times where I've went, and I'm not even a new person kind of guy, but I've flown to maybe California and spent almost a week with all these strangers whom I didn't really know even had to stay in the same room with a stranger and we every day ever we'd get up in the morning we'd start and we would spend all week sharing the gospel with people who hadn't heard. Those have been some of the most joyous times of my Christian walk.

There are men from those experiences that I still keep in contact with. And the same is true in the local church. As the local church strives to serve God, we tend to have much joy. As we go out and do God's work, as we see people coming to the Lord, as we see people being blessed, we have much to rejoice over. And that's what we find in this text.

Paul isn't joyous because everything is going well. In fact, he's going to Rome as a prisoner, essentially. Paul has been shipwrecked. Paul has been, you notice what his prayer is? Pray that these people would accept this and that God would protect me from the unbelievers, essentially.

That God would protect me from getting killed by these people who hate what I'm about and what I'm doing. And yet, of all of that, and remember Paul is traveling thousands of miles without a car, without a yacht. Paul's life is rough, way rougher than any of ours. And yet, Paul has abundant joy. Paul is thrilled to be alive.

And this is the great deception of idolatry. Because idolatry cries out to us all the time, If only you could do this or that or this or that, then you would finally be happy. And yet we find in Scripture, and we find by the fruit of those who have come to know Christ, the happiness that doesn't come from our circumstances, it comes from one true God. Amen? Blessings come, and what we find in this is that Paul is in the center of God's will, and blessings come from being in the center of God's will.

Romans 15, 31, and 32 it says, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. I think one last thought that we have to understand in this is that Paul, again, and we've said this several times, Paul is putting his duty before his desires. And when Paul put what he should do ahead of what he wanted to do, what did it result in? Resulted in him being truly happy. Amen?

We can apply that to so many parts of our lives. In our marriage, if we do what we should do for our wife, opposed to what we want to do half the time, we're gonna ultimately be blessed. If I put my wife above myself, I'm going to be blessed but there's something inside of Every guy and I'm sure every person in here that says I've had a long day. I'm just gonna watch the football game and let my wife serve me Because that because that is what would really make me happy today Can I tell you something you're deceived Because it won't make you happy You might feel a little better for a few minutes, but ultimately, that is not a way to live, to have a blessed marriage? Amen?

That doesn't mean that sometimes my wife will say, hey, I know you've had a long day. In our house, it's, it's, you've had a long six months. Why don't you take your tent and pack up your bag and go camp for a night? I'll take care of everything here. Sometimes I take her up on the offer, but even then there's a part of me that says, I'm a father and a husband.

What am I doing out here? Amen? Amen. All right, let me conclude. Romans 15 33.

May the God of peace be with you all. Amen. What we find in this is if you're in Christ, you have immense blessings. And secondly, blessings come from our service to God. This morning, are you serving God?

Has church become a consumer activity for you, or are you part of living in God's will? If you want the joy that the Apostle Paul had, we have to focus on serving our family, serving our wife, serving our church, and ultimately serving Christ. Amen? Amen. Let's pray.

Father, thank you as we come to this text and scripture, Father. Thank you that your word is truth. So often in my life I have toiled. Even as King Solomon came to the understanding later in his life that all of this toiling under the sun was but meaningless. All of that which our flesh tried to convince us that will truly be happy if we could have this or do that or whatever.

Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit would help us to understand that these are lies from the enemy. God, help us to put duty above desire. Put duty above desire Father there is no person who who sets out your word and and In a legalistic way says I will do everything that says and have no relationship with God and expect to find happiness. But God's scripture lays out if we come to know you and we desire you above all that we are blessed apart from our circumstances. So Father, I pray that you would forgive us for not being the husbands you've called us to be, but the fathers or the wives.

I pray that you would forgive us for not being the Christians that you've called us to be. You seem to always be traveling in circles in the desert, being lured by one idol or the next. God, I pray that we would come to you, one in repentance, that we would be people of your word. And to God that you would forgive us, that you would change our hearts, that you would help us to no longer be deceived by the schemes of the enemy. Father, for those who don't know Christ, they're living the same problem.

They would think of scripture, they would think of you, Father, and they would say, but I'm happy. And yet they don't know happiness that they would hold on to their idols god I pray this morning that they would turn from their idols, that they would trust in you. Apart from how they feel, apart from what the world says that's going to result in, Father, I pray that they would turn to you today. And Father, for us who are in Christ, I pray that we would continue to turn. That being a Christian isn't just a one time repentance, but it's an initial and a lifelong repentance that we would draw closer every single day, Father, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.