Sound Doctrine

Jeff Johnson: Here you are, you bought this, you bought that, you got into a house, you got a car payment, and all of a sudden, you lose your job. And there's no jobs out there to get right now and you lose your job. How am I going to pay for all these bills? That's being poured from vessel to vessel.

When you're being poured out and you're freaking out as you're being poured out, or you get sick and you can't work, something happens, you go, "What is going on? God, we just did this, we just believed you for this, and now this happened." Is that God's will? Is God allowing something to happen in your life for a reason, for a purpose? It's at these times where we understand the goodness of God. We understand what it means to have faith and trust in God.

Guest (Male): God's will for our lives is always good and perfect in every way, but that doesn't mean life will always be sunshine and roses. Too many people today think a relationship with God means a trouble-free life. Far from it. You might find yourself in a life-threatening situation like the Apostle Paul.

Today on Sound Doctrine, we'll paint a picture of our desire and God's will through a study in Romans chapter 15. If you need to leave us early, just visit sounddoctrineradio.org. As we get started, Pastor Jeff Johnson reveals three reasons Paul went to Jerusalem.

Jeff Johnson: There are three reasons that I see that Paul went to Jerusalem. For those of you taking notes, number one, that the Gentiles felt obligated to meet the physical need. Why is that? Jesus said this: when I was in prison or when I was hungry, you fed me. Remember that in Matthew 25? He was just trying to make a statement there that when he says, "and I was hungry," in other words, how you treat the Jews, the nation Israel, is how you're going to be judged.

When this country—mark my words—when this country turns its back on Israel as a nation, we're really going to go down the toboggan slide. It's going to get fast, and we're really close, really close in turning our back. It's a sad thing. It's part of anti-Semitism. It's part of the hatred of the Jews. "They're the problem. They've always been the problem of the Middle East. If they would just quit it and stop this and stop that." And the blame goes on.

But here, Jesus is feeding the 5,000 in the New Testament. Why? Because he cares about taking care of the physical needs. Over in Colossians chapter 2 in verse 10, he says, "And you Gentiles, you are complete in Jesus." In other words, everything you have is complete. Your maturity in the Lord, everything is because of Jesus. We have a one-step program for those of you that didn't know that, to get out of sin and misery. It's called Jesus. How do you spell relief? J-E-S-U-S. That is it.

And it's total relief. Total deliverance. And to him be the glory, great things he has done. It's not a program either. It's just a revival in one's heart. You just see you're going nowhere, doing nothing. You're sick and tired of being sick and tired, and you get to the end of yourself. You're ready. And God's got your attention. He even brought you here this morning to hear the gospel, that he loves you an awful lot and has an awesome plan for your life if you will just say yes and just receive Christ today.

You will be one of those transformed, conformed individuals out of the darkness, into the light, from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God. What a transformation. And that could happen right today if you just give heed to the love song that is coming forth today. It's a love song, and it's from God to your heart.

So, number one reason why they went, because they felt obligated. And the gospel went from Jerusalem to the Gentiles. The Gentiles would still be in pagan darkness if it wasn't for what came out of Jerusalem. And it was the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Jesus saves, that brought the Gentiles out of the darkness.

Number two, it was a great way to demonstrate the unity of the church. You see, the Judaizers who didn't want to see Jews and Gentiles get together, they wanted to keep it pure. That Jews are Jews and if the Gentiles are going to come in, then they have to do this, they have to get under the law. They were just twisted, and they were always trying to cause disunity. Well, this is a good thing to do, from the Gentiles to the Jews, to bring this offering in to show unity, that they are willing to help, that they're one in this to minister to them.

So, this love gift would bless really all the church. Everybody was watching this and seeing this. They were all being a part of it to see this money get to the Jews in Jerusalem. God's family is worldwide, isn't it? When one suffers, we all suffer. If our brothers and sisters are suffering in another country, we go there and we seek to help them and to minister to them. It's such a blessed thing.

I think Paul, understanding because he said, "when I was abased or whether I was abound, I still live for the Lord. I love the Lord." Whether I had nothing or I had all things, and when I didn't have a job, didn't have money, didn't have anything, I still loved the Lord. I still followed the Lord. I knew that it was part of his plan for my life at the moment, and he kept his eyes on the Lord. He says, "now these guys are suffering, so let's try to help them out." And he said, "I've been there, done that. I not just sympathize, I empathize with these guys. I feel their pain because I've felt it."

Now, the third thing is his own life was going to be blessed. I just read that scripture in 2 Corinthians 9:8, that as you get into this grace of giving, so it comes back to you. His life was so blessed because he was living for the Lord, because he was seeking to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, and now he's got this opportunity to bring Gentile money into Jerusalem and say, "here's from the Gentiles of the world to bless you guys." What a witness. What a blessing.

Now, for him to go into Jerusalem, a dangerous thing. In Acts chapter 21, they came to Paul in verse 4, and they said, "Paul, we are encouraging you in the name of the Lord. Thus saith God in the Spirit." They were saying this to Paul. In the name of the Lord, you're not supposed to go to Jerusalem. No, don't go. There's danger waiting for you. Agabus, who was one of the prophets there in Acts 21, he took the belt of Paul. Took it right off of him. Said, "give me your belt."

Took the belt, tied it around his hands, and went like this. And he started to say, "the one that owns this belt, this is what they're going to do to you. They're going to take you into Jerusalem and they're going to bind you and give you to the Gentiles. Don't go." And they began to beg him not to go. And his response is just unbelievable. Let me read it to you in Acts chapter 21.

As he's seeing them weeping and crying—I mean they were just carrying on—he says in verse 13, "Then Paul answered, 'What mean ye to weep and to break my heart? For you're breaking my heart, for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.'" And when he would not be persuaded, when they saw that he was so stubborn and he was going to go anyhow, no matter if they say "in the name of Jesus, in the name of the Lord, God said don't go," he's still going. They said, "Well, the will of the Lord be done."

Hey, that's what Paul wants. He wants God's will to be done in his life. But the Lord had so put it on his heart to do this that it was something he had to do before he went to Rome. "I just got to make this side journey. I got to do it. It's going to be good. It's going to bless the whole church. It's going to bless everyone that hears this story, that the Gentiles sent an offering to the Jews that were suffering."

Because they were blessed so much of what came out of Jerusalem, and they're responding now. Here's the children of Jerusalem because they heard the gospel and now they're children of God. They're all one now, Jew and Gentile. Now the children are coming back to the mama who birthed them and said, "Mom, you're in trouble. We're here to help." And that's the whole thing, the dynamic that's going on here. I love this.

But notice this. Paul just says, "I'm going. I'm willing to lay my life down." I know what it's like because years ago, I really traveled a lot and I went to a lot of places where the church—we were very involved and we still are in some of these countries. One of them was Ghana, Africa. Ghana, Africa, we had a brother here that was flying all the time, going over there. He really had his family here, but he had his family there, and he wanted to see God do a work in Ghana.

Ghana was English, and the English were there, the missionaries were there, and they got scriptures on their cars and their "praise the Lord and pass the mashed potatoes," all that good stuff. And so they're not really born again. They're not really living for the Lord. They've been ripped off so much. Jerry Rawlings, who was over there, actually took over the government and they took everything, all the money out of Ghana and sent it over to Switzerland. He sucked that country dry. They didn't even have a bar of soap to bathe themselves. That's how bad this country is off.

It was right during the coup and we flew in. And here we are there, so we're there to put on this crusade. We put this crusade on and God blessed, and God did a real work, and it was awesome. I had no fear. I knew that the country was bad off, but I didn't think that anything was going to happen. You never do.

And so here we are taking pictures in one of the towns there and just watching the marketplace, and these kids pull up in these Mercedes and they got machine guns and they surround us and they take our cameras away from us and they say, "you're spies." And they started taking all our stuff away and there was a lot of stuff going on. I had just bought a new camera and this guy was grabbing my camera. I said, "Hey, no man, it's my new camera, man." "Give me the camera." And he sticks the gun in my face.

And I said, "Listen, what I'll do is I'll give you the film, okay?" So I'm trying to get the film out of the camera, one of those old cameras, and the film just falls out and is all wasted. And the guy goes, "Get in the car," and I go, "Oh man, I blew that one." He took my camera. And they took us an hour into the jungle. And I'm with four or five other pastors. They took us an hour into the jungle. No one knew we were taken into the jungle. We had no passports. They were at the hotel.

And they said, "We're going to kill you guys. You're spies. You're dead." And I looked at the guy. I could see in his eyes he's killed many before. He's just a kid though. These are kids. They're in the army, but they're no army clothes. It's just a wild bunch, okay? And so we go into this army fortress, and to make a long story short, God caused confusion to come into the ranks. They didn't know what to do with us and finally they kicked us out and they pushed us out of the place and we got out of there. And God intervened and saved us. And we knew we were right there on death's door. And it was quite an experience.

A couple other times, I was in Beirut. In Beirut, it was during the war. There was a 10-year war there against the Christian Phalangists and the Palestinians. And our church, we were very concerned because there was a lot of children and families being bombed and the kids were losing their limbs. So we went over there to help them and to give them some money. I went into the—over the Green Line, which was the no-man's land, and I snuck into the Palestinian area and I almost had an opportunity to meet with Arafat because he was in a some kind of a hiding place. Almost got an opportunity to see him, but didn't.

But we went into the hospital, got to meet the doctors, see the kids, see the families, minister to them, and was a great thing, giving them money and helping them in all that they've gone through. And then all of a sudden, as I was standing there with the doctor, a mortar hit the ground and blew us against the wall. At that time, they had 5,000 rockets a day hitting the ground in Beirut. Beirut was like Los Angeles. Picture Los Angeles with 5,000 a day rockets just being flying all over the place. They leveled the place. The freeways were full of trash. It was such an incredible waste. It was the French Riviera of the Middle East, and it was just awesome at one time.

It was the breadbasket. It was the best place to go from all over the Middle East. People would come there. Now there's bobwire on the beaches, everything's ruined. And so this mortar goes off, throws me against the wall with this doctor. My ears are ringing. I couldn't hear for two days. I said, "Wow, I need to get out of here. This is dangerous. I could be killed. I have a family back at home. I'm getting out of here."

And I realized the danger. But you know, experience that when you're on a mission. And God sent us over there and I wasn't afraid. And then I got an opportunity, I think a few years later, when the Marines were in the airport there and they were underground and that was a bad situation. And remember where 280-something Marines were blown up there in Beirut? Well, a week before that, the Marines—it was horrendous. The whole hotel was blown up by one truck full of TNT and our guys—it was a mass loss.

A week later, they were going to let me go in and minister to the guys and be in their church service. And I was excited, man. I said, "This is awesome." So I was following—we didn't know where the general was, and I was—we're trying to find out. I had two Lebanese in the front seat and there was two of us in the back seat and we're trying to find a way in to get into the—under into the airport underground. And these young Marines said, "Follow us."

Kind of dumb for them to have two Lebanese following them into the barracks. It was crazy really when you think about it. They didn't care. They said, "We know where the major is." So they took us in there. They went into the area. It was right in front of the hotel that pancaked. We were right behind them. There was two guards on either side and they put down their shotguns like this and they screeched and halted.

I hit the floorboards. I didn't see anything but carpeting on the floorboard. And I was just kind of going, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." And then he came up to the window and he looked in and he said, "What are you, American?" I said, "Yeah!" He said, "We almost blew you away, man! My finger was just ready. Yesterday, a car tried to come in here. We killed everybody. We killed them all. I almost killed you."

Come to find out that there was a prayer meeting that night here. And this sister came up to me and told me after I came over and shared the story. She said, "We prayed for you as you were over there, the same time as that we were going into that base." Exact time they were praying, intervening, and God stopped that whole thing. God's mercy, God's grace, when you go out in the mission field, his hedge is around you. Don't have to be afraid. You're doing God's work, he's with you.

Granted, if he's done with you, you're going home, right? But if not, miracles! And I'm here to testify that God is good. We've been going to Israel for a number of years to help not only the brethren there in Israel and Calvary Chapel Tel Aviv and Calvary Chapel Galilee. They have ministries going on there to help those that are coming to the Lord, to help those that are just hurting.

There's a great influx of Russians into the country. One-fifth of the population of Israel are Russian today. And when they came from Russia, they brought all of their good things and bad things. And a lot of them just aren't working. There's no work for them. And there's a lot of homeless in Tel Aviv. They're everywhere, all over the streets of Tel Aviv. It's worse than here. And nobody's taking care of them. Israel's not—they don't have shelters and stuff.

So we've actually put up a shelter there in Tel Aviv. We minister—got a soup kitchen, got a little clinic there. Everything's just—oh man, what a witness. It's right next door to a synagogue where the people—the rabbis in the synagogue were so upset when we set up camp there. They were blowing it, man. They hated us. They had protests outside. They almost got in fistfights with some of the guys. I mean, it was really bad until they saw what was going on.

And it's there on a corner in one of the poor sections of Tel Aviv. You couldn't even tell it was a Calvary. There's no signs. It's just on a corner with these old dilapidated buildings and there's the clinic there, and then there's always lines out there of people going by the synagogue and they're waiting for a meal. They're waiting for a meal. And the synagogue has been watching them. Now the rabbi comes over and says, "You guys are doing a good work. You guys are awesome."

Hey, and then now they're kind of supporting the whole thing and there's a great relationship. You see, it just takes us to reach out and do a good work. Now we're bringing over humanitarian aid. We're bringing over—the kids, they always have one suitcase of their own stuff and a big duffel bag of humanitarian aid. And we have all kinds of drugs and different things that we're taking to the clinic, and it's been such a blessing.

Then out to the Galilee area, they have a drug abuse situation because, and alcohol abuse, because the Russians love vodka. And they—there's so many alcoholics now in Israel, it's unbelievable. I was in Russia. I know because I saw the kids blacked out in the snow in the depth of winter, drunk out of their minds with vodka. I mean, it's big problems, and it's now in Israel. So we've been doing this for years. We're going to continue to do it in places that just open up.

And these are the fruits that he's talking about. Notice there in verse 28, he says, "And once I've sealed up them this fruit." You see, it's not about the loot. It's not about the collection. It's not about the money. It's about the fruit that's brought forth in the good deeds. And the fruit is people coming to know the Lord.

And I'm going to do this because there's going to be great fruit from this. And Jesus said, "I called you to be fruitful, and I called you to produce fruit, and lasting fruit." And that's making disciples and seeing people come to know the Lord. So from this Jerusalem spiritual flow came this physical flow back to Jerusalem.

And finally verse 29, I want to end with this verse. Verse 29, Paul says, "And I am sure that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ." We know this, that Paul was told by the Lord that he would send him to Rome. I already shared the Acts 23:11 scripture. There's also another one, Acts 27:24, when he was ship-wrecked. I mean, Paul went through it, and the Lord came to him again at night and said, "You are going to Caesar." And I like that because when he told Paul, "you're going to Caesar," I could see Paul just light up and just go, "I get the witness to Caesar? This is going to be awesome." And I believe that he probably did.

So he didn't tell Paul how he was going to go to Rome, when he was going to go to Rome. He just told him, "you're going to Rome." Listen, his ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts, or past our finding out. It is so true what Chuck says: blessed are the flexible, they shall not be broken. And we need to be flexible. Paul was flexible, man. He goes, "What's going to happen? Oh, okay. I'm going to prison? Oh, okay." And he was so flexible.

And he was mobile too. I mean, he was moving. At least he was, you know—and it wasn't his way, but it was God's way to get him there. That's why he went to Jerusalem. That's why he could not turn that down, because that was his ticket to get a cruise to Rome. And it was all paid for. Can you imagine? A full-paid cruise to Rome. Now, it was on a cargo ship and he was a prisoner. Maybe it's not our way. It wasn't the Love Boat. The meals weren't that great. It wasn't all-you-can-eat at any time. But still, it was God's way of getting Paul to Rome during that period of time.

So God's will was being done. Sometimes he pours us vessel to vessel. There is a scripture in the Old Testament talks about being poured out like Moab from vessel to vessel. It was a way—and he actually gives us this little description about how they perfect wine, and they let the lees fall and then they pour it out. And sometimes we get poured out from vessel to vessel, and that's a very scary thing to happen to you.

You say, "Well, what do you mean?" And it happens because all of a sudden, here you are, you bought this, you bought that, you got into a house, you got a car payment, and all of a sudden you lose your job. And there's no jobs out there to get right now and you lose your job. "How am I going to pay for all these bills?" That's happening. It's a reality. That's being poured from vessel to vessel when you're being poured out and you're freaking out as you're being poured out.

Or you get sick and you can't work. Something happens. You go, "What is going on? God, we just did this, we just believed you for this, and then now this happened." Is that God's will? Is God allowing something to happen in your life for a reason, for a purpose? It's at these times where we understand the goodness of God. We understand what it means to have faith and trust in God.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today for Sound Doctrine with Pastor Jeff Johnson. We're traveling through Romans one verse at a time. We pray you've been blessed by what you heard today. Romans is one of the greatest books in the Bible, and if you'd like to hear the study again, go to sounddoctrineradio.org or listen through the Sound Doctrine podcast app.

You can also hear Sound Doctrine on oneplace.com or wherever you enjoy your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. By the way, you can donate to this radio outreach right there at sounddoctrineradio.org. Thank you in advance for whatever God leads you to do. We hope you'll join us for our next study in Romans here on Sound Doctrine with Pastor Jeff, presented each day by Calvary Chapel Downey. Have a blessed day in the Lord.