This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions. This is day four of our look at Romans
chapter 15 together. We're looking at verses 16 to 21 today.

You might remember yesterday we began a look together at the heart of Paul and
minister. We can learn 11 things we can see about his heart through the words as
you walk through these verses. Yesterday we talked about the word "convinced,"
that Paul was convinced that God could do work in other people's lives.

That was one of the hallmarks of his ministry. We looked at the word "bold," his
boldness in ministry because he cared for people. And we looked at the word
"grace," that everything was built on his gratefulness for God's grace.

In verses 16 to 21 there are some other words. Listen as I read through these
verses for words that indicate the heart Paul says, "I was called by grace," in
verse 16, "to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, with the priestly
duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an
offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Therefore I glory in
Christ Jesus and my service to God.

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished
through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done. "
By the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Holy Spirit. So
from Jerusalem all the way down to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel
of Christ.

It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel of Christ where Christ was
not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Rather,
as it is written, "Those who were not told about him will see, and those who
have not heard will understand. " There's a fourth word that he uses as we walk
through this passage, added to those other three, and that is the word minister.

In verse 16, "to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. " Paul again and
again in the scriptures pictures himself as a servant of Jesus Christ. Whether
he calls himself a bond servant or a minister or a servant, it's all the same
thing.

He's a minister of Christ Jesus. And the important thing to me there is he's a
minister of Christ. He's serving Jesus.

By his service for Jesus, he's choosing to serve others, and that's important.
If ministry is just about serving other people, then pretty soon you're going to
run out of motivation for ministry because, I don't know if you've noticed,
sometimes other people let you down. Sometimes other people don't meet your
expectations.

Sometimes they don't appreciate you as much as you wish they would appreciate
you. But Jesus, he'll never let you down. Jesus, his love is there every single
day, and Jesus one day is going to say for every good act, every good word,
every good deed, "Well done, good and faithful servant.

" So we're a servant of Jesus Christ first and foremost. That's the heart of
Paul. That's why he was able to be so incredibly used of God because he saw
himself as a servant.

And then in verse 16, there's another word that indicates the heart of Paul, and
it is the word offering. Now earlier in Romans chapter 12, we talked about the
fact that we are to be living offerings. We're to offer ourselves up as an
offering acceptable to God, and you might think that that's what he's talking
about here, that Paul offered himself as a servant of God, but that's not what
this verse is saying.

He says so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God. Paul
saw not only himself as an offering acceptable to God, but he also saw whatever
he did in ministry as an offering that he was giving up to God. "God, I'm
offering this to you.

" As Paul talks about offering his ministry to God, there is a sense of priestly
duty that is conveyed here, priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of Christ.
But the offering is not the sacrifices that were made in the temple in that day.
The offering is the people that were brought to Jesus Christ because of the
message that was shared.

And so as a servant of Christ, I'm reminded that any victories that I have in
ministry, that any successes I have in ministry, they're not in the end to be
seen as my successes, as my victories. Look at how I'm doing better than other
people. How do you keep from not comparing yourself to others in ministry?

But when you begin to see it all as an offering, and you want to give an
offering acceptable to God, then all of a sudden, whatever offering I can give,
whatever offering you can give, we're all pleased together to give an offering
to him. It's a different way of looking at success in ministry. Paul had a lot
of success in ministry, but he saw it as an offering, an offering that was being
given acceptable to God.

Now, in the middle of verse 16, there's another word that's filled with words,
this verse about the heart of Paul, and it is the word proclaiming, the priestly
duty of proclaiming the gospel of God. Paul was a proclaimer. When he talks
about from Jerusalem all the way down to Illicrium, all the way around to there,
he's talking about 1,400 miles.

And he had to walk that, 53 marathons that he's talking about walking. And Paul
did this again and again and again in his ministry. He walked from place to
place proclaiming the gospel of God.

He's willing to do the hard work because he had this heart to let other people
know. Proclaiming is all about letting people know. It's all about telling.

You got to tell the truth in order to proclaim. And to Paul, what he was
proclaiming was good news, and so he shouted it wide. He shouted it loud.

He went as far as he could because he wanted people to know who you're
proclaiming to. Maybe it's just one person that somehow, some way you need to
proclaim the good news to today. And sometimes when you hear this word
proclaiming, you think the heart behind it means it does have to be loud and
wide.

You can proclaim to one person at a time. Who needs to hear the good news today?
Paul says in verse 17, "Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus.

" That word glory is another indication of his heart. He gloried in Jesus. To
him, it was all about Jesus.

The focus was Jesus. In fact, I'd say also in verse 17 and 18, the word comes
up, "I glory in Christ Jesus. " In verse 18, "I will not venture to speak of
anything except what Christ has accomplished.

" Another word that's a heart monitor of Paul's ministry is the word Christ. "I
will not venture to speak of anything except what Jesus Christ has accomplished.
" Paul didn't want to talk about what he'd accomplished.

He didn't want to talk about what the church had accomplished. He wanted to talk
about what Jesus had done because he knew that that's what would change people's
lives. The focus is on Jesus Christ.

You want the right heart for ministry? You can get that. I can get that any day
by just focusing again on Jesus Christ.

That's the secret. Paul, as he talks about the heart of ministry and his actions
in ministry, talks about what he'd done with this desire to tell other people
about Jesus Christ. He says that I fully proclaim the gospel of God and that he,
through fully proclaiming that, led others to understand God's work in their
lives, leading the Gentiles to obey.

It's very interesting in verse 18. He says, "To obey by what I have said and
what I have done. " That's how you lead right there, by what I have said and
what I have done.

You want to know what leadership is? That's a pretty good definition of
leadership. You go in the direction that you want other people to go.

You speak in the direction that you want other people to go and speak, and that
provides leadership. Minister, offering, proclaiming, glory, Christ, leading.
Number 10 in this list of 11 things that are the heart of Paul's ministry is the
word power.

Paul talks about power in verse 19. By the power, he says, of signs and
miracles, through the power of the Spirit, I fully proclaim the gospel of God.
Now, let's talk first of all about signs and miracles, by the power of signs and
miracles.

One of the questions I hear people often ask is, "Why aren't there so many signs
and miracles today as there were in the Bible? Why isn't that happening quite as
often, at least apparently to me? " Well, one of the reasons is, obviously, God
can work a miracle anytime he wants.

He can work a sign anytime he wants. This isn't limiting God in what I'm saying.
It's just trying to understand what you read in the New Testament and Old
Testament.

One of the things you see is that God usually use signs and miracles to put his
stamp of approval on a chosen servant, whether it was Moses in the Old Testament
when he used the plagues to say, "He is my servant," or it's Paul in the New
Testament as one of the apostles where he's saying, "He is my servant. "
Remember, in the New Testament, God put his approval on the apostles in very
evident ways. Many people say signs and wonders done through them, and then the
apostles were used, many of them, to write the Bible.

That's an important moment. Today, I believe, personally, we don't need so many
signs and miracles to put a stamp of approval as someone as a spokesman for God
because we've got the Bible, and any of us open it up and read it. We can read
about the signs and miracles that God has worked all down through history.

I'm not saying that God couldn't work any miracle he wanted because he can. I'm
just saying that a close reading of the Bible shows how often he uses miracles
to show us the authority of his word. Now, as we read his Bible, we should see
in the miracles there the continuing authority of the Bible in my life.

Getting back to Paul, Paul's talking about power here. He says it was shown by
signs and miracles, but the important thing here is that it's through the power
of the Spirit. Paul relied on the power of the Holy Spirit in his life for God's
work in his life.

If you want to know the heart of Paul, you have to know the heart of reliance
upon God for daily life. That doesn't mean he didn't plan his ministry. We're
going to talk about that tomorrow.

Relying on the power of the Holy Spirit doesn't mean you can't plan, but it does
mean you do decide to depend. You depend on God and not on yourself, and he did
that time after time after time. That's where the power came from, by depending
on God.

When you depend on God, you don't always feel powerful. In fact, you usually
don't feel powerful, but God's power is working through you however you might
feel. Paul said he often felt weak, but God's power worked through him.

Then as we walk through this passage, there's an 11th word that I would say
indicates the heart of Paul. It's the word "ambition. " He says in verse 20,
"It's always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known.

" The Greek word there for ambition is philatomiomai, and it has the idea behind
it of striving to bring something to pass from a love of honor. It has the idea
of being earnest to do something. This is not talking about an evil ambition or
a selfish ambition.

The word very obviously is talking about a strong, well, a holy ambition. There
is such a thing as a holy ambition. Paul here says, "My ambition is to preach
the gospel where Christ was not known.

" He doesn't say, by the way, that that should be everyone's ambition in
ministry. In fact, in other places, he says, for instance, to Timothy that he
should have the ambition to preach Christ where there was already a church. So
this happened to be Paul's particular ambition.

He had a holy calling, a holy ambition to serve God in this way, and that
ambition resulted in a passion like the world has rarely seen. So I'd ask you,
what is your ambition for ministry? Not your ambition for your business, not
even your ambition for your family, but what is your ambition for ministry?

It may have something to do with your business. It may have something to do with
your family, but ambition here is not a way to get to what I want. Ambition, as
he talks about this, is a way to serve a holy God, to accomplish what God wants
in this world.

Where are you beginning to connect with that kind of ambition in your life?
Because that's the only kind of ambition. I'll just tell you this, that is the
only kind of ambition that's going to satisfy you the rest of your life.

All other ambitions, they burn out. They don't last. This is the ambition, this
holy ambition, that will last not only all the way through this life, but into
eternity.

Now as we pray today, I'd like to go back over these words that we looked at
from Paul and ask God, as only he can, to give us a heart for ministry. Would
you pray with me? Lord, give me a heart for ministry.

Give me a heart that understands and is convinced that you can work in and
through other people's lives, and help me to trust the Holy Spirit's work and
the lives of those that I'm serving. Give me a heart, Jesus Christ, that
understands how deeply your grace has impacted my life, and how much I can trust
that grace. And how much I can trust that grace.

Give me a heart to serve. Give me a heart to take whatever I do in service and
give it back to you as an offering, instead of pridefully holding on to it as
some success of mine. God, give me a heart to proclaim, to tell others this good
news.

Sometimes my heart grows cold there because I'm afraid they won't accept it.
Give me a heart to know that I'm going to meet someone today who needs some good
news. God, in my heart I pray that you would cause me to bring glory to you in
what I do, and to focus on that future glory, and to remind myself that that
glory is only in Christ.

Give me a heart, Father, I pray, to lead others by what I say and by what I do.
Give me a heart to rely on your power and not my power, the power of the Holy
Spirit in my life. And give me a heart of holy ambition.

The ambition that grows out of the knowledge, God, that you have a purpose for
my life and this planet. That you want to use me to make a difference in ways
that I won't know probably until I get to heaven. But help me to follow the
ambition that you put into my heart to serve you.

I pray this, Father, in your name. Amen. Well, join us tomorrow as we end our
look at Romans chapter 15 with a look at verses 22 to 33.