Please open your Bibles to Romans 15 and find verse 14. Romans 15 verse 14. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Verse 14. Now, I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.

Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points as reminding you because of the grace given to me by God, that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, I have reason to glory in Jesus Christ in the things which pertain to God. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed to make the Gentiles obedient, in mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation, but as it is written, to whom he was not announced they shall see and those who have not heard shall understand. The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.

Let's pray. Lord we thank you for these words to direct our lives to to shape our consciences to make us the kind of people that you have designed for us to be in your church and all over the world. I pray Oh Lord that these words will be fulfilled in our lives here. Amen. Please be seated.

So Romans 15 beginning in verse 14 it really marks the end of both parts of the doctrinal teaching in Romans. The first part, chapters 1 through 11, which declared the tremendous danger unconverted mankind is in, mankind without Jesus Christ and the remedy of Jesus Christ who justifies by faith. And then the second section really here is from chapter 12 all the way to where we are here in verse 14 in chapter 15. This has been a very practical teaching about the culture of a church, what does a local church look like, what is Paul instructing the Roman church to pattern themselves after. And so we've come through these two sections and now we've moved to the final section in Romans.

It's a very different kind of teaching here. Paul is he's no longer instructing, no longer issuing commands for the church, but he's reflecting and he's making personal comments about the church in Rome and about himself. And so in verse 14, Paul is he's reminiscing about the potential that there is in this local church that is in Rome. And he's particularly focusing in on the great benefit that members of the body have toward one another through counseling, through admonishing one another. And then in the second part of what we'll be dealing with here this morning in verses 15 to 21, Paul actually he's reflecting on his own ministry.

He's sort of recounting his own personal calling before God as an apostle And we'll learn in the next section that Paul is actually, he's asking for help from the Romans. He hasn't visited Rome, he's been delayed, he's on his way, and more about that in the next session in Romans. But what we find in this section, there's an underlying theme that I don't want us to miss. And that is, it's the power of the gospel of God's grace. It transforms the heart, and then it equips that heart and commissions that person to carry out the gospel and also to be of great benefit to one another he's speaking of the tremendous opportunity that there is in the Church of Jesus Christ and he starts out really with with the the local church life and and members of the church counseling one another, admonishing one another.

And it's so critical that we understand the nature of local church life. We gather here every Sunday, and we dare not misunderstand what God is doing in a local church. And the church is really like a tree planted by a river of living water. It's a little bit like a greenhouse where tender shoots, they're cultivated and then they're replanted out in the world, and they're cared for in this local church, and they're really prepared to bear fruit, and the people are growing. The church, the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 makes it clear that the church is like an armory where weapons of war are repaired and they're installed and they're distributed to the people for people to be equipped for spiritual warfare that they face every day.

So there's this purposeful preparation that God has for the church to put on the full armor of God. You know you might shift it and say well you know the church the church is a little bit like a, like an automobile repair shop. It's like a garage where vehicles are repaired. They come in and they need help. They might have to get rebuilt, restored, renewed, you know, for their original purpose.

And this has to do with the whole matter of equipping of the saints. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 4, he says that the preaching of the word and the ministry and the church is for the equipping of the saints and he's using a word that has to with repair with restoring something with bringing something back to its original purpose and he's talking about the repair of nets it's a word that was used in the ancient world to speak of the mending of nets that got wrecked as a result of some of the harsh environment and fishing. And that's what the Apostle Paul is talking about. This whole passage is about that type of thing. And I couldn't get out of my mind Ephesians 4, 7 through 16.

I'll just read it. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore when he says when he ascended on high he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Now this he ascended what does it mean but that he first descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fulfill all things.

And then he says this, and he gave and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and why that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. That's this building up, this repair, this you know feeding one another, the rivers of living water flowing through the heart and the soul of the believer and then overflowing to one another.

That's what he's talking about. And what he's saying is, you know, the people aren't meant to be stuck in the garage or in the greenhouse or in the armory, they're meant to be sent out in full strength. But that happens in the context of local church life and in all of these illustrations there are different kinds of people. What I just read in Ephesians chapter 4 speaks of those who are leaders in the church and teachers and then those who the body building itself up together and love. All of all of this is as a result of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ And so let me bottom out with this.

In the New Testament all our ministers, not just the pastors, all have been anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit and also have been armed with the Word of God so that they can be helpful to one another. And so you know all of this means you know God has appointed us all to be more than spectators but actually to be ministers in the Church of Jesus Christ, armed with the truth of God. And then when we focus on Paul, we learn that the apostle Paul, he really had a very unique ministry, particularly in the local church, but mainly to the church at large. He has a much broader calling. And he has the shoes worn out to prove it.

He probably walked 10, 000 miles during his ministry because he was all over the ancient Near East. So, Paul is explaining how the body of Christ ticks and Paul is also explaining how he ticks because he's a little bit different. He's an apostle that is going after the Gentiles. So the first thing that we notice here is that Paul has confidence in that local church in Rome. Now you'd think, what's he saying this for?

He's already given all these corrections, he's already given them a bunch of commands. You'd think everything is breaking up in Rome. And of course there were tensions, there were cultural conflicts, you had the Jews and the Gentiles banging heads against one another, they had to be patient with one another because their upgrings were so different just like this church. And so Paul says in verse 14 that he actually has confidence in this church. It might surprise you.

But he says, now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able to admonish one another. So he's saying that this church was competent, actually competent to counsel. He says that they are, they're three things. They are full of goodness, they are full of knowledge, and they are able to admonish one another. That's the great opportunity that we have in the Church of Jesus Christ and that we have even here this morning Now now this verse Actually, I'll just give you a little historical theology if you want it this This verse really was a flashpoint in a big ruckus that took place about 55 years ago in the church.

This text regarding admonishing one another in the church, It actually galvanized a pastor, a writer by the name of J. Adams. And he rose up really to defend the church against ungodly psychological theories and practices that had crept into the church. And he appealed to Scripture alone really to correct the abandonment of actual biblical counseling and what we call today the biblical counseling movement arose out of what he wrote in his book, Competent to Counsel. You know, he wrote it in 1970.

I read it just a few years later when I was in seminary. But it really, it was a bomb that hit the church, because pastors just became really addicted to secular psychological techniques and views of mankind. Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, B.F. Skinner, not, but they weren't trusting in the word of God. And so what Jay Adams says, look at God knows what man needs.

We need to use the word of God to counsel man. God understands the nature of man. These other people are pagans, they hate God. So what should we use to counsel? We should use the Bible, we should use the Bible alone.

So it was a tremendous movement and he coined a term but it comes right out of verse 14. It's Newthetic counseling, that's that word admonish, newthateo. And so he, J Adams is known as sort of the father of the biblical counseling movement and he established an organization, the National Association of Newthetic counselors and then now I think it's ACBC But what the Apostle Paul is saying here is that the church is competent to counsel in other words the gathered church as they walk together in love they are able they are able to keep one another going in the right direction and now it's interesting Paul makes this claim that he has confidence he's never been to Rome you know most people think well he he obviously knew a lot of people in Rome because he lists many of them at the end of the letter. So he must have encountered some of these people in his 10, 000 mile trek around the ancient Near East. Or he knew people who knew them and he had heard reports about the actual situation in Rome.

Even though he'd never visited there, he had a sense of their life together. And he says that they have three things, three really critical things. First of all that they are full of goodness and of course where does that come from? Well Galatians 5 says it's the fruit of the Spirit. For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And so they were filled with goodness. And the second qualification that they had to admonish one another is knowledge. And this has to do with knowledge of God the knowledge of the Word of God wisdom from heaven what happens with believers is that they gather all their wisdom from the world, from their favorite podcasters, you know, from however they were raised, and they begin to acquire the knowledge of God, and they actually learn what's true about themselves. That's the most important thing and about God and about other people. James addresses this wisdom.

He says, who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his good conduct that his works are done in meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.

But the wisdom that is from above and get this is first pure then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." And all of all of this as the as James is saying in James 3, it flows from wisdom from heaven, wisdom from God, wisdom from the Word of God. And so it's critical. If you want to be competent to counsel the most important thing you should do is fill your mind up with the knowledge of God if you want to shepherd your children if you want to Wash your wife in the water of the word. If you want to be a friend like a brother, then fill your mind up with the knowledge of God.

Wash your mind with the truth of scripture and do it every day. Do it the first part of every day and meditate on it and consider how God might use it in your life. And then the third qualification is they are competent to counsel And Paul has confidence in their ability to counsel. And he uses this word, newthetic or newthetaios in the Greek New Testament. And this word that the Apostle uses is actually composed of two different words and it has to do with imparting understanding to set things right, to have a constructive impact on someone else, to lay something on the heart of someone else to to literally impart understanding I'm just reading you words out of the Greek dictionary for this this word But it has to do with the mind and the time at the moment.

And it's critical that the people of God have the Word of God embedded within their hearts so that it comes out because what you put in your heart is what is going to come out when you're with your people. You know we actually have a duty to fill our minds with the Word of God. It's an act of love toward one another. The things that we fill our minds with have an impact on the entire church. Do you understand that?

Like if you're looking at pornography like you were last night, it's going to have an impact on this church today. If you fill your mind up with silly things you're going to have silly things in your mind for your brethren. And so the Apostle is just saying that these things are rooted in goodness and they're rooted in the word of God. Now, it's hard for me to speak about this word admonish or counsel and think about counsel without thinking about this therapeutic world that we're living in that I think has become so so dangerous. You know much much of the counseling profession is corrupt and it's ruining people's lives And I read a book last year by Abigail Schreier called Bad Therapy.

You know, they say 40% of the rising generation has received treatment for mental health today and compared to 26% of Gen Xers. So people rushing to get therapy, it's mostly bad therapy, is characterizing this generation. Here's what Abigail Shrier says what modern counselors are doing. Encourage them to embrace their despair. Teach kids to play close attention to their feelings.

Make Happiness a goal. Affirm and accommodate kids' worries. Dispense diagnoses liberally. Drug them. Encourage kids to share their trauma.

Encourage young adults to break contact with their toxic family. Create treatment dependency. Constantly take your kids emotional temperature and get them focused on that rather than actually the things that God has called them to do. There's a book that was just written a few months ago called Lies My Therapist Told Me by Greg Gifford. But the use of antidepressants and the number of adults that are taking psychiatric medicines is remarkable.

They say 20% of adults are taking psychiatric medicines. Here's what Abigail Scheurer says, once on meds, your child is likely to believe he can't handle life at full strength. And thanks to an adolescence to spend on them he may even be right. Well you know we're convincing a whole generation that they don't need God, they don't need the Word of God, they don't need the counsels of God, they need They need a drug, they need some hype, they need some new trippy trend to fix them. That's the state that we're in today.

And I praise God that so many of you have really either abandoned that world or never entered into it. I really like what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said about this. He said, this is back in the 1930s, he's writing, The psychiatrist must first search my heart, and yet he never plumbs the ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him. Here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and seek God's forgiveness.

The psychiatrist views me as if there was no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the cross of Jesus Christ. I just want to submit to you that your regular plain vanilla brother or sister in the Lord who knows the word of God is better than any professional you can ever go to. I'll just read you something that I read in competent counsel. I went to my psychiatrist to be psychoanalyzed to find out why I killed the cat and blacked my husband's eyes.

He laid me on a downy couch to see what he could find and here is what he dredged up from my subconscious mind. When I was one my mommy hid my dolly in a trunk and so it follows naturally that I am always drunk. When I was two I saw my father kiss a maid one day and that is why I suffer now from kleptomania. At three I had the feeling of ambivalence toward my brothers and so it naturally follows that I poison all my lovers. But I am happy now.

I've learned the lesson this is taught that everything I do that's wrong is someone else's fault. So this is the psychological community as it is today. But the Apostle Paul here he's saying that the people in Rome, the regular old people in Rome, the Jews, the Gentiles, the people that came out of paganism or came out of out of Jewish life, because they have God, they can counsel one another. That's the great news, that's the great opportunity that we have in the Church of Jesus Christ. And The Apostle Paul, he demonstrated this in Acts chapter 20.

He says this, he says, remember that for three years I did not cease to admonish you, to warn you day and night with tears. In Colossians chapter one, 28, the Apostle Paul sums up his whole ministry and really the ministry that we share with one another. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor striving according to the working which works in me mightily admonishing." So that's the work that we have together in the church. Now, let me just say this before we depart this part of the text.

Some people, because they've not filled their minds with the word of God, really are not competent to counsel. And that's a tragedy. The apostle, or whoever it was that wrote Hebrews, probably the apostle Paul, he speaks about this in Hebrews. I'm gonna read it to you because it's very interesting. What he's saying is that the people that he's writing to, they should become teachers by now.

And he tells them why they're not. And it's because of their affections. He says, for by this time you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food.

For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness for he is a babe." What he's saying is that you're not really ready to counsel because you're still babies and you're and why are you still babies? He says, solid food belongs to those who are full of age and those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. What he's saying is that there are people that he's writing to, they've not exercised their senses in the Word of God. They've not brought their consciences under the captivity of the Word of God. They've not saturated their minds with the word of God, so they think biblically about everything, about the entertainments, about everything in this world.

They don't think biblically, and as a result of it, as a result of their senses not being exercised to discern both good and evil. They should be teachers by now. They're old. By the way, just because someone is old doesn't mean that they're mature. Sometimes you'll find young people more mature than old people.

And there's one single reason, is because they've saturated themselves with the word of God. So, any faithful Christian is better than most trained professionals. So then the apostle Paul, he shifts from this capability, this opportunity, this wonderful treasure that we have in the church that we are able to counsel one another. He shifts from there and then he starts talking about himself. He's talking about his own role.

I said earlier that he's reminiscing And he speaks of his priestly ministry. Now, think of it like this. Imagine you're overhearing a conversation and you have, you're listening to this brother or sister that has this gigantic vision about a dangerous mission that they are engaging in and he's talking about his thoughts about the future and you're listening and on the one hand you're amazed at the vision and the forcefulness of this person's sense of what he ought to do and at the same time you're sort of being instructed about your own life. You're not him, but you're being instructed by what you're hearing from him. So Paul is instructing, I think Paul is instructing the Romans as if they were bystanders in a way.

They're hearing this vision and they're hearing this fascinating sense that Paul has. And I think it's, I think what's helpful in this, the Romans are being instructed because of another person's zeal. Another person's zeal can be really helpful to you. And that's why it's really important to be around holy people who have a zeal for God. So look at Paul, he sees himself actually as a priest, there's this word minister and ministering and then offering.

This has to do with the whole matter of priesthood. So verse 15 and 16. Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points as reminding you because of the grace given to me by God. So he's saying look God has given me grace. Why?

Verse 16, that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. Notice who he's focused on, the Gentiles. Notice what he's ministering. Ministering the gospel of God that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. So you see a number of things here.

First of all, his focus is the Gentiles. Paul sees himself as a priest, and he's offering up the Gentiles to God. Why? So that they might be sanctified or they might be purified, they might grow, they might experience this progressive sanctification that the power of the gospel allows. And so he has a priestly ministry.

One of the pastors that my pastor used to quote all the time was G. Campbell Morgan. Here's what G. Campbell Morgan says about this. They're only, he's talking about what we learned from this, their only priesthood is the preaching of the gospel and their offerings are redeemed and sanctified men saved by their instrumentality.

It's that kind of priesthood. So Paul, he envisions himself as actually offering Gentile converts like a sacred offering to God. His converts are really converts are like an offering to God and of course the Holy Spirit is the sanctifier in this and and this is all tied to the grace of God that was given to the Apostle Paul. He's really boasting in the grace of God. It sounds like he's boasting in himself but he's not.

He's boasting in the grace of God. We find this very same thing in the first verses of Romans and I'll just remind you in Romans 1, 1 Paul a bond servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle separated to the gospel of God and then he says, through him we have received grace and apostleship for the obedience to the faith among the nations for his name among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ." So Paul is saying that this life that God has given him is as a result of the grace of God. You know, Paul said, by the grace of God I am what I am. And the lesson I think to learn here is that the Apostles' life really arose out of the grace of God. We are not Apostles, but all of us really are called to be ministers of the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Why? For the sanctification of the Gentiles. And we become ministers you know of hope you know to the Gentiles to the unbelievers in the world. And then the apostle, in continuing to talk about himself, verses 18 through 21, he talks about his ambition. He had ambition.

Do you have ambition? There's a godly ambition that you find in scripture, and the apostle had godly ambition. I would just like to ask you what are your ambitions in the kingdom here's what Paul says in verse 18 for I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed another that's back to the grace of God. And then he says, why? To make the Gentiles obedient in mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, so that Jerusalem and roundabout to Illyricum, that's a long way away, it's about 2, 000 miles as the crow flies.

From Jerusalem to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Jesus Christ from Jerusalem to a lyrical on foot or on a ship and and to bring the gospel to the Gentiles so that they might obey The work of the Church of Jesus Christ is to bring people into obedience to Jesus Christ. As in Matthew 28, we're instructed to preach the gospel among all the nations, so that we teach them to obey all the things that Christ commanded. That's what the church does. The church is obligated to teach one another to obey. That's what we should do.

And then Paul, in verse 20, he explains his particular calling, I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named lest I should build on another man's foundation, but as it is written to whom he was not announced he's quoting Isaiah to whom he is not announced they shall see and those who have not heard shall understand Paul is pulling from the prophet Isaiah and he's really talking about his trailblazing life. He was a pioneer evangelist. You've heard of pioneer missions, you know, people who go to places where the gospel has not been preached. And this happens as a result of the power of God, in many signs and wonders by the power of the Holy Spirit. And he had one message, it was the gospel of Jesus Christ and the obedience to Jesus Christ.

And he says here that he is not going to rest, he says, until I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. In other words, he is going to explain the entire gospel. He's going to give a sense of the whole counsel of God. Not just Jesus died for your sins, but the entire message of God to transform and to redeem and to glorify that really begins with regeneration. So he is there to fulfill that ministry.

And then he has an ambition, verse 20, and I have made it my aim. I have made it my aim. I think that's a really important phrase in these verses here. The people of God are not beating the air without aim, but we have objectives in the Church of Jesus Christ. The Apostles, the Apostle Paul's aim, his ambition was to take the gospel all over the world.

The aim and the ambition of local church life is different. It's that we might equip one another, that we might fulfill the calling of God to one another. There are different callings, there are different ministries. That's why Paul said in 1st Corinthians 3 verse 6 he said, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. Those are two different kinds of roles.

You have the watering that happens in local church life and you have the planting that happens on the mission field. He says, I planted and Apollos watered but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now, he who plants and he who waters are one." In other words, they work together. And each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

For we are fellow workers. We are God's fellow workers. You are God's field. You are God's building according to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise master builder. I have laid the foundation and another builds on it.

But let each one take heed how he builds on it. Oh he's speaking really of local church life and how you're building on the foundation of the gospel. Paul, the Apostle Paul was a trailblazer. Apollos was a caretaker. Paul was a trailblazer.

At the same time, John the Apostle was a caretaker in the church in Ephesus. So you have these different functions in the body of Christ. And what God has given the church to do is to preach the gospel among all the nations and then to secure people for his own possession in local churches. And that's why he said in Isaiah 52, which the apostle is quoting, how beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, Your God Reigns. We just sang that song just a few minutes ago.

So what's the lesson? I just want to poke all of us on this. What's the condition of your ambition for the building up of the saints? What's the condition of your ambition to counsel one another, to be filled up with goodness, to be filled up with knowledge. What is your ambition for that?

I think that's the apostle Paul is asking, and he's demonstrating it by his own laser beam focus, his own single-minded ambition to preach the gospel. You know so many lack ambition, but you know what is your task? Are you running this race? Are you beating the air without any aim? But like when you come here to gather, do you have an aim in mind with these people?

Like Have you come with a sense of what you might do, what you might share, what you learned from the word of God, what you think they might need? You looked at them in the face and they looked discouraged. Are you gonna ask them about it? What are you going to do with these people? Here we are gathered together, really as a family, and God has given us a particular calling in the local church.

And it's the place where God equips, He repairs, He mends the nets, He commissions, the waters of life are running and they're growing like the tree planted by rivers of living water. And you know, the truth is, all of us are really kind of in a repair garage, and we're getting worked on whenever we gather together. And this is what God has done. Okay, let me just continue to apply this for a few moments. You think about our just just laser beam on our gathering here today.

You know what is there to counsel one another about? Well we've been doing things that God has commanded us to do. We've been singing songs. We have songs that are worthy of talking about. We can talk about that.

We're gonna have a fellowship meal here in a few minutes and people are gonna gather around and they're gonna talk and it's you know what kind of value will you bring? It's okay to have small talk okay but at the same time when you enter into eyeball to eyeball with somebody, do you have an ambition? An ambition to be a blessing to them, to bring a proper newtateo, you know, the admonishing which has to do with encouragement and correction and all those things. You know, I was so thankful for the prayers that men prayed this morning. You know, we heard prayers that are worth talking about.

We heard scripture read, it's worth talking about. We've read this passage of scripture. We've decided to create a creed together. All these things are worth, these are things that build up one another. Like, you know, you're elders, I'll just give you a little insight your elders here's what we pray for when we break up for the fellowship meal we pray that you have an ambition that you have an ambition to be a blessing to one another that you're full of goodness you're full of truth and you're able to admonish one another.

And you're gonna sit down and you're gonna look in that person's eyes, and there are gonna be eyes of love to bring benefit to them. And that you're not just going to have meaningless chit chat, but that you're going to be people who are personally involved with one another, full of goodness and knowledge, competent to counsel, admonishing one another with love, not always avoiding the hard conversation, and then recognizing that God has equipped us all differently in the body of Christ. So the Apostle Paul, of course, is saying that the church is competent to counsel and also God gives various impulses, various ambitions in the body of Christ. And it's good to be a blessing to all of those. I think it's really interesting that Josh read Titus 2 here earlier in the service which speaks of admonishing you know a number of times in that chapter.

Because the next series that I plan to do here after we finish Romans in just a few weeks is to do Timothy and Titus. Timothy is the last book that Paul wrote probably just a few months before he was beheaded. But Titus was written just before that most likely or right at the same time. The Apostle Paul wants to secure the functionality of the church and the family in these two books. And so that's where we're going to go next.

I'll start with Titus and then we'll go to 1st and 2nd Timothy after that. But all of this to say, consider the wonderful opportunity you and I have today with one another because God has made us competent to counsel. Would you pray with me? Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for how jarring it is, how it shifts us out of our comfortability and takes us into things that are far, far better for us than even we could conceive.

Lord I pray you'd bless this church today as they fellowship with one another. Oh God that you would multiply your glory in the world in this room today. Amen.