Read Romans 15:5-20

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, ⁶ so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁷ Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. ⁸ For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed ⁹ and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written:

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;
    I will sing the praises of your name.”^[c]

¹⁰ Again, it says,

“Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.”^[d]

¹¹ And again,

“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles;
    let all the peoples extol him.”^[e]

¹² And again, Isaiah says,

“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
    one who will arise to rule over the nations;
    in him the Gentiles will hope.”^[f]

¹³ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

¹⁴ I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. ¹⁵ Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me ¹⁶ to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me 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.

¹⁷ Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. ¹⁸ 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— ¹⁹ by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. ²⁰ It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.

Big Idea: The gospel is truth that transcends time and culture.

One of the most compelling proofs of the gospel to me is the shared ministry of the Holy Spirit among believers.

I have gone to remote places around the world and visited with believers who spoke a different language and grew up in a different culture- yet despite our differences, when we began to speak about Jesus, that all disappeared. We shared the same transformation of the cross, were studying the same words of scripture, and were experiencing the daily sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. And even though our languages might be different, our experiences were not.

The same is true throughout time. Songs written hundreds of years ago about Jesus are just as relevant and powerful today. We might use the word “thou” less often now, but the reality of the writer’s experience with Christ is shared and familiar even though it occurred hundreds of years apart.

The truth of the gospel never changes. It needs no updated version, no 2.0 upgrade. The power of the gospel transcends time, socioeconomic factors, and cultures. Our stories are unique- but also the same. Before Him, there was no hope. After Jesus, we live in hope. And all of us will never be the same!

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