In his sermon titled 'Remember', Douglas Campbell discusses the importance of recalling the teachings of the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ. He begins by highlighting the attributes of a mature church, such as being full of goodness, knowledge, and the ability to instruct one another. Campbell emphasizes that the New Testament redefines the role of priests, with Jesus Christ as the sole mediator between God and humanity. The sermon underscores that believers are now a 'royal priesthood', and no longer require a human intermediary to access God. Campbell stresses the necessity of continually reminding oneself and others of the gospel to avoid repeating past mistakes, drawing parallels with historical and biblical examples. He concludes by urging individuals to recognize that Jesus is not only what we need but all we have, advocating for a life fully devoted to glorifying God.

Good morning. If you would turn with me to Romans chapter 15. This morning I will look at verses 15 and 16, but let's start at verse 14. So Romans 15, we'll start at verse 14. The word of God says, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

But on some points, I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning again as always thankful for your Word. Thankful Father that This morning we, as those of old, of those of the Old Testament, of those of the end of Malachi, those generations whom didn't have the complete Word of God and yet lived in silence for some time. Father, those through Scripture whom were able to walk with Christ.

Father, those whom Moses, as he was able to meet at the burning bush, those who have seen a visible manifestation of You. Father, we think of those people, Father, and today, while that seems so amazing, Father, we must understand that we are far surpassed, or far surpassingly blessed beyond what they were, even those who walk with Christ, even the disciples, Father. Today we sit and we stand blessed as we come to the complete Word of God. We no longer look to new revelation in this lifetime, but Father, we by reminder are reminded of what You have said. So Father, this morning as we read from what You have said, we need your Holy Spirit to give us life that we might understand, that we might take it in, that we might be changed by you.

Father, It's that which we need, that we desperately need, Father. Father, as we come to Your Word, we pray that You would draw us near, that You would give light to the dark crevices of our hearts that so far in this life have eluded us that we might not have seen before. God today let us see these dark crevices that Father we might repent, that we might come to you Father to be forgiven, to be washed. Father let us be changed by your word today and let us draw near we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Let me Let me read again and go through the Scripture. Starting at verse 14, again, it says, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. If you remember just a few weeks ago, these these are attributes of a mature church, that we're full of goodness, that we're busy doing good things, serving one another, and blessing those, and even blessing those whom we might consider to be our enemy, that we're full of goodness, that we're filled with all knowledge. The mature church knows the word of God.

It's filled with the word of God, and it's continuing to be filled with the word of God. And so much so that the mature church is able to instruct or is able to counsel one another as we go through hard times, as we go through times in life where we need a brother or sister to put their arms around us and to encourage us and to admonish us and to point us in the right direction when we begin to waver on the path. I pray and I trust that God is using us in these areas and drawing us to be more used in our goodness, to continue to fill us with the knowledge of the Word of God and to build us up and to, As one of the duties of a pastor or an elder is to equip you in the works of the ministry. The mature church is busy about ministry. But this morning we continue on because this again is a summary.

We've come to the summary of Romans. Paul is sort of wrapping this up. He is somewhat explaining now in verse 15 about some of the things that he shared with the Church of Rome. He says, but on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. One thing that we have to notice about these two verses is that Paul referred to himself as a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles.

His ministry was directed towards the Gentiles, towards those, we read specifically, those in Rome. But he refers to himself as a minister. Oftentimes we see in the New Testament that this word minister can also refer to civil leaders or civil people who are in leadership, but Paul is pointing this towards a leader within the Church of Christ. Now just a few books back, or just to back up just a little bit, we find the Gospels. We find as we celebrate and we remember in the coming weeks the birth of Christ and the life of Christ in the book of Acts after the Gospels, we find the Acts of the early church, which is why we would call it, we name it the Book of Acts, and we find Romans is addressing those within the early church.

But there's a definite change that happens after the book, or after the establishment of the church. The church is established after the resurrection of Christ. Now it's no longer we're going to the temple to make sacrifices. You and I have the one true sacrifice. And so the nature of how we worship God is different.

We no longer worship Him by— Excuse me. Sorry, I talked all day yesterday. My talker is about talked out, but we no longer worship God in the same way we did. We no longer are trying to keep the law. Now our hearts are changed that we desire to keep the law, but we're now commanded to worship God not just in our works, but we're commanded to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

And so with the resurrection of Christ, there's a change. There's now the church. The church is the gathering of the saints. We gather together to worship God in spirit and in truth, to worship God the Father, to worship God the Son, Jesus Christ, and to worship God the Holy Spirit. It's different.

There's no longer a mediator between God and man that's called a priest. There is nowhere in the New Testament mentioned any office in the church as being labeled priest. The title has changed. Why? Because Jesus is our high priest.

The office has also changed. Let me not skip through the Scripture here. But the leaders in the New Testament church, the leaders in the established church, thank you, in the New Testament, we have different titles. We have minister. We have shepherd teacher.

We have elder. We have bishop. Many of those which are interchangeable, they're many of the same Greek word of which we just translate a little different. Some of those are different, but we never have the word priest. Paul never says that he is your priest.

That is very significant. Why has that changed? Look at 1 Peter 2.9. Here is one of the changes that happened. 1 Peter 2.9, Peter says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

The change is this. If you Have put your trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. If you are born again, it's you of who Peter is referring to when he says, you are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood. In fact, there is no longer the separation or the distinctiveness that we find in the Old Testament, where we have this tribe who does this, and this tribe who does that, and this tribe who is God's special people, who are going to be those who work in the temple and those whom God interfaces with and in turn interfaces with the rest of the people.

All right, this is an Old Testament concept. In essence, there's no mediator between God and man. There's no man mediator. Brody, you can look at your pastor and you can say, you're not special. It's okay.

Why? In this sense, I shouldn't make a joke about that, but in this sense, I'm not special. You don't have to go through me to get to God. Why? Because if you are in Christ, you have the same positioning with God that I have.

You are a royal priesthood. Why? Because we all serve the high priest. We all serve Jesus Christ. It's He who is the mediator between God and man.

The positions have changed. This morning if you have turned from your sin and put your trust in Jesus Christ, you are just as the Levites would have been in the Old Testament. Your position with God is similar, not exactly the same, but it's similar. You can go to Him. You can go to Him with your prayers.

If you're in Christ, He hears your prayers just as much as He hears the pastor's prayers. You are a royal priesthood. In 1st Timothy 2, 5 through 6, it says, for there is one God and there's one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Jesus Christ is the high priest. He is the one whom we must know.

He's the one whom we must go through. The Bible says that Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but through me, but through Him, but through Christ. He is the only way to salvation. It's not a special group of people that talk in front of the church on Sunday.

It's only through Christ. That's a blessing. Amen? That's exciting. The New Testament never refers to any leader in the church any longer as a priest or ever.

Never the church in the New Testament, those who gather, who worship Jesus Christ, those whom are redeemed, there has never been a priest but Christ. Amen? Amen. That is great news. That means today whatever your problem is, if you're in Christ, He hears.

That means it truly is true what it says in Romans 828, for God works all things together for those who love him. If you are in the church, no matter what you're going through, God is working all those things together because you are a royal priesthood. He is working it together for your ultimate good. Hebrews 414 says, Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. Continuing on this morning, and to go to, I believe that we can't read through that and skip that part, but coming back, let's look at Romans 15 through 16 again.

It says, But on some point I've written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Before we go on, understand it does say in priestly service, that priestly service is the same priestly service as you serve Christ. You should be serving in a priestly service. You should be sharing the gospel. You should be proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.

But look what this says specifically this morning about why Paul chose to share strongly some of the things that he shared. If you remember in Romans when we chapter 1 we went through some really rough time looking at the world And then chapter 1 convinced us of how terrible the world is. Chapter 2 then points the finger back at us and says, And such are some of you. You are like them. Paul was sharing, he was in your face.

It's good to have a pastor that's in your face. It's good for your pastor to stomp on your toes once in a while. Amen? Sometimes I miss that, But thankfully in hard day and age I can listen to Paul Washer and my feet will hurt for a couple more weeks. Thankfully there are men who you can hear preaching who are willing to step on your toes.

That I might clean my toes off and walk better on that path. But look what Paul said. He said some of what he said was simply a reminder. That you and I need to be reminded. It's, it's, we'll come to it in just a minute.

We need to be reminded of the gospel. If, if you get tired of hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ because you've already heard it 10, 000 times, I would tell you this morning, you need to hear it 10, 000 more. The gospel message of Jesus Christ is so incredible, we should never tire of hearing it. And in fact, when we aren't hearing it enough, it's those times which we often are wavering on the path. Even our world understands the value of repeating or remembering as Paul is bringing forth.

He is repeating it to remind them so that they might once again remember. Our world says, even though we don't take this advice so often, it says those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. And so often in our culture, that's exactly what we do. As we look back through history, we watch the rise and fall of great nations, and so often, And in every single time, many of those factors that contributed to their fall was because simply they forgot the past. And this morning, we find ourselves in a nation who is deliberately forgetting the past.

There's a reason why history is not taught in schools like it was 50 years ago. There's a reason why history is whitewashed. There's a reason, I'm not trying to offend anyone today, there's a reason why we want the destruction of statues. It's so that we can forget the past. And those who want us to forget the past are those evil ones who are ready for us to repeat it.

That's not what this message is about this morning, but take it back to the spiritual realm, take it back to Christ. Those who don't ponder, those who don't think upon Scripture, those who don't learn from the Israelites, those who don't learn from those laid out in the New Testament, are those very people who will repeat judgment. Think of the Israelites in Egypt. Think of the Israelites in the desert. It seems that hard times would come and they would all come back to God, and God would provide for them in just a very short amount of time.

They were already back to their nonsense. Did you not forget walking through the Red Sea? Did you forget the water that was on the sides of us and we walked through? Did you not forget turning around and watching the waters just drown the Egyptians? Do you not remember these things?

And so in the Old Testament, because of the value of remembering, God established feasts, established the Passover, established these things of which we often don't think about in this day and age, but I would tell you if done in a right way, if understanding that the Passover is about Christ and celebrating it in that aspect, it's good for us to remember. It's good for you and I to remember that Christ, that God, delivered the Israelites. That wherever we find ourself in, if we are serving God with everything that we have, if we are the royal priesthood, if we are the chosen people in the royal priesthood, no matter what I'm going through, God can deliver me. God can get me through whatever it is. It's so good for us to be reminded.

In 2 Timothy 2, 8 through 13, it says, Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him.

If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself." This is Paul reminding Timothy, giving him a reminder. And what's interesting about this reminding Timothy, Paul isn't reminding Timothy about how terrible it is for Paul. He's not watching cable and lifting weights and playing basketball every day in the prison. He's trying to figure out how to stay warm, how to not get sick and die, how to find food.

Hopefully people would bring it. It's not the prison system that we find today. But what does Paul tell Timothy to remember? Remember Christ Jesus. Remember Him rising from the dead.

Remember the offering of David as preached in my gospel. Remember Timothy. Timothy? What a blessing. In What a blessing, amen.

In Paul's life, there was a time when Timothy was the only one that stood by him. I can't remember what letter it's in, but Paul's like, everyone has deserted me. But Timothy was still there. Timothy was holding fast. Timothy was Paul's spiritual child in whom he was raising up to take over when Paul would have to part and be with Christ.

And Timothy, whom is a young man, but probably is twice the man as I am in Christ, probably even way more than that. And even his status, even his learning under the teaching of the Apostle Paul, Paul tells Timothy, remember, remember Jesus Christ, remember him raising from the dead, remind yourself, remind yourself, Keep remembering, because that remembrance is what's going to drive you forward. Look in Titus 3, 1 and 2. We have another command to remind them. It says, remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy towards all people.

Another reminder, 2nd Peter 1, 3 through 15, says, His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. I'll pay attention to verse 5. It says, For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. For these qualities are yours and are increasing. They keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. For in this way, there is a Savior, Jesus Christ." Now look what Peter says next. He says, Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right as long as I am in this body to stir you up by way of reminder since I I know That the putting off of my body will be soon as our Lord Jesus Christ has made it clear to me and I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things." What were those things that he was reminding?

It was to make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. Remind yourself of these things. Even if you're growing in them, remind yourself this is where God is taking me. Do I have these attributes? And finally this morning, one of the great reminders that you and I partake in very often, we find in 1 Corinthians 11, 24, and 25.

In fact, almost every month I will read the scripture to you. It says, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, also, he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

Brothers and sisters, we need to daily remember what Christ has done for us. Daily. Daily preach the gospel to ourselves. Daily remember the work upon the cross, the body that was bruised, the body that was pierced, the body that was beaten, the wrath that was poured out upon him for my sin and your sin. It is so important to wake up every morning and to ponder these things.

This morning, how are you how do you, how are you reminded? Why I started the way I started. The Old Testament priest was telling, was a mediator, was telling what God was saying to the people. The reason the title changes in the New Testament, my job isn't to tell you a new message from God. My job is simply to remind you as to what He has said.

I'm telling you nothing new. I'm simply to tell you what He has said, what He has revealed. My job as a pastor is to be a reminder, to remind, to over and over. When I first started preaching, a little bit, because I didn't understand this rightly, I agonized that I was repeating things too much. And, well, I said that last week.

I shouldn't be saying that again. But actually, that is my job is to repeat. It's to repeat over and over, to share the gospel over and over for two reasons. One, because there may be those in here you may have sat in church your entire life and you've never come to really know Jesus Christ. And that and today might be your day of salvation.

Today might be the day that God will change your heart, that you'll truly come to Christ in repentance and faith, and you will truly be saved. You will truly be redeemed, that you will be made new. And secondly, maybe that's already happened, but just like me, you need reminded. We need reminded over and over what Christ has done, the magnitude of it, the amazingness of it. So part of the job of the pastor is simply to repeat, to say what it says.

Part of the great responsibility or the great opportunity or the command to gather together is because we need reminded. Ladies, you know your husband needs reminded about things, right? But you do too, because we're both human. We're all human. We need reminded.

So we're called to gather together that we might be reminded of what God has said. Now maybe if we're learning, I honestly had somebody tell me one time that they don't go to church anymore because they already know it all. And they were older. I don't know that they were thinking rightly, but I think there might be people out there that believe that. If you believe that, you're wrong.

If you believe your pastor knows it all, you're really wrong. But I know a portion, and I'll remind you of it. Amen? That's my job. So we must gather together because we need reminded.

But also, we seek God in the morning. We seek Him individually. We seek Him as families because we need reminded. There are men here, there are people here who every morning they get up and they seek God before they do anything else in their day. And those men would tell you, I'm sure they would be honest, they would tell you that every so often there might be a day where it just wasn't able to happen or or maybe it wasn't able to happen as long as they would like and their their entire day is different.

Why? I behave differently when I wake up and I'm reminded of what Christ did for me. Amen? I behave differently. If I wake up and I once again ponder what Christ has done for me, it drives me, it propels me to want to serve Him.

I'm more apt to share the gospel with my co-workers. I'm more apt to live a life that glorifies Him. Why? Because He's on my mind. We need reminded.

Now we have an ally in this reminding in John 14 26. It says, But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." This morning, again, we're blessed because we have all that Christ has said. If we aren't daily reading what Christ has said, if we aren't daily reading Scripture, the Holy Spirit has nothing to remind us of. And so again, I would encourage you. I will help you.

I will keep you accountable. I will do whatever it takes to help you be in the Word of God. So often, so often I hear people say they don't share the gospel or they don't share about Christ because they're afraid that Somebody's gonna ask a question or or they're not gonna know what to say And I believe this verse is directly applicable to that if I am If I am obedient and diligent to fill my mind with the Word of God, then the Holy Spirit is the helper. He can bring things to your mind. I'm not the greatest memorizer ever.

I'm actually... I could prove it to you. All you have to do is give me a spelling test. You guys read the newsletter. If it wasn't for Barb, you would really notice my spelling ability.

But so often I've been sharing my, I have shared my faith and just out of the blue a verse comes to mind, whatever. But Sometimes we just got to step out there and do it. Amen? Now if you step out there and do it and you're not faithful to read God's Word, I would still, I don't know. Anyway, let's not go there.

Read God's Word. Amen? Give the Holy Spirit. Operate in the way that He said He's going to operate. If you do that, you have nothing to worry about.

In our great country and up until this point, you really have nothing to fear. No one's going to kill you. No one's going to stab you, for the most part. There's nothing to fear in sharing the gospel. All right, so closing up, let's look at Jude chapter 5 verse 5 of another reminder.

This is maybe from a different perspective. It says, now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved people out of the land of Egypt afterwards destroyed those who did not believe. So often in our culture that wants to teach that that God is only about love and he's essentially like a grandpa in heaven with a sweater on and it doesn't matter how you live because God is love. And this morning I would tell you God is love. He is love.

But because He is love, He is also just. He is also vengeful. He is the avenger. He is wrathful. He will judge those who sin.

He will punish those who stand before Him in their sin. Look what this says about Jesus Christ. It says Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt afterwards destroyed those who did not believe. This morning if you are here and you think that somehow church is just this thing you do once in a while, and you check the box, and everything's good to go, you don't have to live for God, you don't have to be changed by Him, you just have to acknowledge him and say you believe in him or whatever it is, I would remind you that Christ is not only the Savior, he's also the judge. He is also the avenger.

He says, afterwards Christ. This is Christ. Afterwards Christ destroyed those who did not believe. He destroyed them. This morning, I would remind you, today is the day of salvation.

If you're just playing the game, if you're just checking the box, the more I look at our world, the more I know that today may be it. If you don't know this, there are rumors of wars all around us. We don't live in a time where tomorrow is guaranteed. Growing up as Americans, it seems as if tomorrow is guaranteed because that's how it's always been. But in the world that we live in, tomorrow is not guaranteed.

Today is the day of salvation. Turn to Christ. Stop living for today. Live for Christ. Turn to Him.

Put your trust in Him. Seek Him until you find Him. Come to know Him. Be changed by Him. Turn to Him and live.

Today is the day of salvation. Let me remind you again of Romans 15, 15 through 16. But on some points I've written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Paul Washer makes a very small change to something I hear a lot, but a very deep and meaning. So often we hear people say, we just need Jesus.

We just need Jesus. When we look at the world, we just need Jesus. All I need is Jesus. This morning, if you're not in Christ, if you don't know Him, if you examine yourself and you know that you're living just like the world, the things that are important to the world, or the very same things that are important to you, you need Jesus. And if you do know Him, you need Him.

But even more than that, Jesus isn't just what we need. Jesus is all we have. He's all we have. This charade that the world puts before us, that we can have houses and boats, it's but a hundred year deception. Christ is all we have.

If you don't know Him, He is all you have. Turn to Him, and if you do know Him, ponder, remind yourself Christ is all you have. If you'll treat him but a doormat, you're treating the thing, the only thing you really have as something as secondary. Turn to him today. Turn to Him today.

Heavenly Father, we come to you today. In this past week I've been reminded so much of myself that I can get so distracted and so caught up in so many things. If I examine my life, I'm not living as if Christ is all I have. Father, remind us of what took place at the cross. Remind us, Father, that we rightfully deserve your wrath.

We deserve your punishment. We deserve eternity in hell, eternity in complete agony, as we deserve it. And Christ, whom owed us nothing, took that punishment upon himself, that we might come to him in repentance and faith. And as we come to him in repentance and faith, that we might even go beyond that, that His righteousness might be credited to our account, that we might be the royal priesthood. Those people whom were chosen to represent God to the world.

Father, help us to be reminded that today is more than my job. Today is more than my entertainment. Today I live because of Christ. Today I take breath because of Christ. Father, help us to glorify you.

Help us to glorify you And not just here and there, but Father, let it be our desire that every breath we take glorifies you. Not just once in a while, but everything, everything that we say, everything that we do, how we spend our time, how we spend our money, how we, how we, the things that we laugh at. Father, convict us to where, Father, change us to where we fully glorify You. Let the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards be true of us, Father, not just as a pastor, Father, but as born-again believers, that we would aspire not to even waste another second. God, we would live lives, that we would aspire to live lives that fully glorify You, Father, we pray.

Father, if there are those here who don't know You, Father, I pray that You would draw them. I pray that they wouldn't be able to sleep tonight, Father, because of the burden that's on their back. That they would have to find you, that nothing else would satisfy them, that nothing else would distract them, that God, they would come after you until they find you. Father, we trust you. We ask this in Jesus' name.