Romans 15, and we'll include verse 13 simply because that's the one we were looking at last time. So, please, beginning with Romans 15 and verse 13. If you are there, I commence. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." And then the text we'll be looking at. 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. In Christ Jesus then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, to bring the Gentiles to obedience, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God. So that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Elyricum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ, and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation. But as it is written, those who have never been told of Him will see, and those who have never heard will understand. Well brethren, welcome to our evening service where I'm continuing in our series of messages in the book of Romans and as you can see, we are currently in the 15th chapter. Last week we ended the section that deals with unity within the Christian church, the section that the Apostle Paul commenced from chapter 14 of the book of Romans all the way to chapter 15 and verse 13. But as I also said to you on that occasion, this verse, verse 13 of chapter 15, does not just conclude the whole area of unity which was being threatened by various backgrounds that individuals coming into the early church were coming from. But it also concludes the entire book of Romans in terms of the issue that the apostle Paul was dealing with. Paul was primarily dealing with the gospel, the good news. of salvation through Jesus Christ, through Christ alone, by faith alone, by grace alone, and so on. It was all what Paul was opening up, including its implications on those who come to salvation in Christ. And when you notice that this text is about hope, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, you can't help but recall that that's what Paul was really talking about as the first fruit that takes place when a person gets converted. And so, as he entered into chapter 5 of the book of Romans, having dealt with the whole area of sin and salvation by faith alone, as you enter into chapter 5, we find him saying, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, there it is, believing we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is peace also in believing. Through Him, we've also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice There is joy that is again in our text. We rejoice in what? We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. There is hope again which is in our text. So you can't miss the fact that the Apostle Paul is simply again bringing us back to that which we as believers have that unbelievers don't have. And I really need to emphasize this, brethren, because, you know, the more I listen, especially to the radio, and listen to the kind of blessings that preachers are constantly reciting to their hearers, you can see that we've lost this. Because it's always, you know, he'll give you a job, he'll give you a wife, you know, he'll give you a good job, he'll give you promotion, he'll give you, come on! Those things the world has, and those things easily get taken away. But what Paul was rejoicing in is that which is guaranteed to every believer. This hope is not wishful thinking. It is solid hope. As we saw last week, you can trust that God will deliver on His promise. Well, Paul has finished. And as we enter into the 14th verse, which is really where chapter 15 should have begun, what you have there now is the apostle Paul beginning to talk a lot about himself, and you can't miss it. Prior to this, he rarely mentioned himself. Once or twice he did so. But here, literally at the very beginning of verse 14, I myself. And as you make your way through, it's I and I and I and I as he goes along. Well, he's concluded and he's now beginning to deal with what are called personal concluding matters. There is a relationship that Paul has with the church in Rome, although he had never been there himself in terms of this church, but he's developed a relationship with them nonetheless that enables him now to come down as it were, take off his shoes, sit across the table with them and make bare his own heart to them. We need to be careful that we do not give the impression that this doesn't matter. That we've now concluded Romans, let's get on. We don't even need to really spend time on this. Because strictly speaking, it is these concluding sections of Paul's epistles that give us what church life was really like in the New Testament. We are being given a bed's eye view of life in the New Testament church. And that also ought to challenge us as believers today because we ought to ask ourselves the question, is this what is true of us? Because this is no longer doctrine that is being taught. This is no longer application that is being taught in terms of do this and do this and do this. This is simply a matter of fact. I mean, look at the text that we're looking at today. Paul is saying, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, and again, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. We should be able to ask ourselves the question, can somebody speak about our church that way? And that's the reason why I've entitled this sermon today, When is a church truly healthy? When is a church truly healthy? Or another way we could put it is when is a church truly mature? In other words, can somebody look at Kabwatha Baptist Church and say, here is a healthy church, here is a mature church? And the way in which we can answer that question is by looking at a text like this. So this is not any other business at the end of an agenda that you can be half asleep. This is something we need to study and search our hearts about. Very well then, if we look at this text, how does it define a healthy church or a mature church? The first sign that a church is truly healthy is when its members are full of goodness. That's what Paul says concerning the church in Rome. He says there again, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness. Now, the word good or goodness is one of those that carries a world on its shoulders. In theology, for instance, the goodness of God has three sub, major subheadings under it. And one of them is the love of God, another is the mercy of God, and then another is the grace of God. All those aspects come together under the goodness of God. In a sense, we all know, we have a sense of what somebody means when he says, that man, he's a good man. That woman, she's a good woman. We all have a sense of what that person means. Or if you remember when we were in primary school, our teachers used to, upon grading us, they would say good. And you'd be a little unhappy because you wanted very good to be written against your name. You tended to have a sense of what the teacher meant. Goodness encompasses qualities like pleasurable. something that is truly welcome, something that is satisfactory, something that is beautiful, something that is meeting your desires, your aspirations, and so on and so forth. All those brought together come under the sense of good or goodness. Now, to begin with, goodness is a quality in someone or in something that you truly admire. So, remember we said that man is a good man or that woman is a good woman. It's a quality that is in the person himself. So, we can refer to a school as that's a good school when we are recommending a school to fellow parents. That's a good school. We are yet to speak about what it is producing. What we are saying is that in and of itself it is good. So when the Apostle Paul here says that you yourselves are full of goodness. He's referring to the believers themselves. He's not so much talking about the product that will come from them, we'll come to that in a moment, but it is about they themselves. Something has happened to them that has now made them good individuals. In other words, they themselves. are pleasurable, they are satisfactory, they are beautiful in terms of aesthetically, individuals that you'd want to be with them, et cetera, et cetera. There's just something about them that enables you to say they are full of goodness. But already you can begin to see that I am dividing what ought not to be, strictly speaking, divided because out of the good that people have in their hearts come out the good that ends up blessing other people. And so, in a second sense, goodness has to do with the benefits that accrue to others from a good heart, from a good heart. And so, let's go back to the phrases I've used. When you say that person is a good man, most likely you experience something that that person did. that benefited you or benefited somebody else and consequently you've gone away saying, yes, that person has a good heart. In the same way, when you say that's a good school, yes, it's got good teachers, it's got good administrators, it's got good, good, good, but ultimately it is what is happening to the pupils that are in that school. You are seeing the product that's coming from there, the character transformation, the grades that the children have. And as you are saying that, you are saying, wow, that's where we must take our children. It's a good school. We are seeing the fruit of that school as well. In this sense as well, the Apostle Paul must be speaking about the individuals being good, but it's because of what he is hearing about them. What has come to his attention is already a good testimony. There is something about their lives that's producing this benefit. that Paul is able to refer to as good. Now brethren, this is not normal in the world. It's not normal ever since Genesis 3, which we are studying this morning. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Yes, we hear, this is good, this is good, this is good. But when we enter into chapter 3, the fall that we studied this morning, the fruit of that is it is bad, it is bad, and it is bad. We see it immediately after that when the first two brothers, one murders the other. That's not good. The product from the heart. And it's not because the other one was fighting. No, no, no. It was purely out of jealousy. that there was the first murder that took place. So, the fall destroyed goodness and instead brought in badness. And that's the reason why we all are carrying keys, we've locked up our homes, we've got burglar bars and everything else. It's because we are in a bad world. which is full of self-centeredness and selfishness. And as a result, that's what is now commonplace. But trust me, even churches can be full of badness. That's not strange. Churches can be filled with self-centered and extremely selfish people. so that there's no difference between the church and the world. And that's the reason why the Apostle Paul is glad and excited about what he is seeing in the church in Rome when he says, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness. What produces this goodness? Well, first of all, it's simply the gospel, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, when people are genuinely converted, there is a heart transformation, an actual heart transplant. God removes the self-centered, selfish heart. which is dead, and instead puts in a new heart, a heart that is like his own heart. And that becomes the foundation of this kind of goodness we are speaking about here. A person gets changed. And then the second is that because the Holy Spirit then comes to take residence in that person, what happens is that it's the Holy Spirit now who produces more and more of that fruit. And I think we all know from Galatians chapter 5 that one of the fruits of the Spirit is what? Goodness. Goodness. So, the point I want to make here before we move on. is the fact that where there is genuine conversion, where the Holy Spirit is genuinely working, truly working in the hearts of individuals, there's going to be a complete difference between the world and the church. We're going to have a church or churches that are full of goodness. Let me put it a little differently. Where this is not true, we ought to put a question mark on whether that place has a real gospel, whether God is truly at work among those people when this goodness is amiss in a church. So the Apostle Paul, who himself never planted this church, is nonetheless fully satisfied by what he's hearing, that there's been a work of grace here in Rome. People have been converted. The Spirit of God is at work. How? They are full of goodness. The second sign that a church is healthy is when its members are filled with knowledge, filled with knowledge. This is the second quality that cheered the Apostle Paul about the church in Rome. Back to our text. I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, filled with all knowledge. Now, there's no doubt the knowledge that the Apostle Paul is speaking about here is not general knowledge in terms of science and geography and biology and perhaps social sciences and so on. It's to do with knowledge about God and His ways. In other words, it's about spiritual knowledge. It is what today we would be referring to as Christian doctrine, teaching that is peculiarly Christian rather than anything else. Therefore, he's talking about their understanding of the gospel of salvation and its practical implications. He's saying, as I listen to individuals that are either in Rome or have come from Rome, from the church in Rome. I am convinced that you are filled with all knowledge." Now, where does this come from? It comes from intentionally attending teaching events. such as church services, Bible studies, etc., etc. A deliberate intention that I'm going to curve out this time from my schedule because it is a time to learn. Now brethren, I hope you have already realized this, that the church is primarily an educational institution. Let me say it again. The church is primarily an educational institution. When the New Testament church was born, we are told in Acts chapter 2 that those who were the first believers gathered together, that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. It's the very first thing that is singled out there, that there was a commitment from the new disciples to be taught by the apostles. Let me put it another way around for the sake of where we are in Africa. The church is not primarily a deliverance center. It's not. And sadly, that's the common understanding in an average person's mind. Even long ago when some of us were still in our teenage years, I've never forgotten how when you are going to church, in those days very few of us drove or would walk, your neighbors would sort of shout and say, pray for us so that whatever difficulties we are having here can stop happening. Well, we can pray for you even while we are walking to church. But the point is, church is not primarily about, it's about you yourself going to sit there in order to learn. That's what church is primarily about. And therefore, we ought to be intentional about learning. Because it's only when we do so that we will then be knowledgeable as believers. And then we can supplement what we are being taught with our own reading of the Bible, our own reading of Christian books, etc., etc. And what you find is that the more you learn, The more what you learn applies to your life, and the more you want to learn. And you discover that the things of God, you can never reach the end. You can't. The more you apply what you are learning, the more Christian truth opens up. and you dig even further. You are always amazed at what Christian truth continues to yield to you the more you are a student of the Word. So that's the second criteria. of Christian, a church that is mature. It's a church where the members are deliberate students, very deliberate. They want to learn and they deliberately do everything they can to curve out that time for learning. But there's a third to which we must hurry. and it's connected obviously to the second, and as I hope to prove in a moment, also to the first. The third sign that a church is healthy is when its members are able to instruct one another. to instruct one another. This is the third quality that the Apostle Paul speaks about which heartened his own heart concerning the church in Rome. Listen to this. 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. Now this instructing of one another, in one sense, is mutual. It's mutual in the sense that, for instance, when you're in a Bible study and it's an open Bible study, you're all being given an opportunity to speak, you often discover that although you are knowledgeable about one thing, your brother is more knowledgeable about something else. and your sister is more knowledgeable about something else. And so what is happening in that context is that, yes, you are growing in your knowledge, but you are not the one who knows everything in every corner. you are able to learn from one another because you are studying different things to do with Christian truth and you are feeding one another from those truths. But also, this instruction of one another can be in one direction. And it is when those who are older believers, not even elders, but just older believers, are teaching new believers. And in any church, you will always have new converts coming through, always, at least if it's a real church. And one of the things that shows that there is a healthy church is when you ask new believers, if anybody is discipling them, and they will say, well, I don't know whether you call it discipleship or not, but brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so, we've been having some meetings and he has been teaching me about this and that concerning the Christian life. Then you know you are dealing with a healthy church. Now, the Greek word here that has been translated as able to instruct, instruct there, is actually a word that is better translated, counsel. counsel, filled with all knowledge and able to counsel one another. Another appropriate word for it is the word admonition or admonish. So, it is filled with all knowledge and able to admonish one another. In other words, this is not just about being together in Bible study and learning Christian doctrine or an understanding of a passage. This is about you wanting to not only see a change of belief in a brother or sister, but wanting to see a change of life, a change of practice in your brother or your sister. That's the phrase that is being used here. And you can understand why Paul is mentioning this because they are just coming from chapter 14 and 15 where the Apostle Paul is concerned about a change of attitude. between believers with respect to one another. And so he's saying you yourselves are competent to deal with that. In other words, you are able to see who among you has a bad attitude towards those that they don't quite agree with over qualms and scruples. And you yourselves are able to sit your fellow brother down and say, no, this is not Christian love. This is not the way the Christian church is supposed to be. Brother, sister, stop it. He's saying you are competent. to counsel one another. You are competent to admonish one another. You are competent to instruct one another. Now, you will notice, therefore, that this third element is one that flows from a healthy combination of the first two. In other words, It's when a church has individuals with transformed hearts, hearts therefore that are good, individuals who want to see that good permeate the lives of others. It is when you have such individuals who now have knowledge that you are going to receive those individuals taking it to the next step. going into other people's lives to help them learn and change their ways. So the goodness plus the knowledge results in admonishing one another. And a healthy church will often be like that. you will have a lot of body life happening on its own. And those of you are leaders, as I hope to say when I conclude, are simply looking on in amazement at what's happening there, because lives transformed by the gospel, occupied by the Spirit of God, feeling, being filled with knowledge, finally end up getting out there to say, brother, sister, this is the way you ought to live. Where there is knowledge without goodness, there is disruptive pride. There's disruptive pride. And it's never good for the church. It's never good for the church. In other words, you can know, but have a bad heart. And the result of that is damage. One obvious example that we see of this is the church in Corinth. Let's just quickly turn there. the church in Corinth, you'll notice that on two occasions the Apostle Paul actually praises this church for its knowledge, for its knowledge. One of them is in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Listen to the way he puts it there. He says, I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus that in every way you were enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge. Notice there's no mention of love there or goodness. But knowledge, speech and knowledge, he says, you are gifted. God has more than abundantly blessed you guys. Even in 2 Corinthians and chapter 8, 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 7, this is what he says there. But as you excel in everything, then he quickly gives us what those everythings are. In faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness. And then, I hope this is what your vision says. Paul is very clever. And in our love for you, you're excelling in our love for you. You would have thought he would say, in your love for us. In our love for you, you are excelling. In other words, here was a church that no doubt was gifted as far as knowledge was concerned. But in terms of putting that knowledge to good use, it was a disaster. Here was a church which was rife with party spirits. I belong to Paul, and I belong to Apollos, and I belong to Peter, and so on and so forth. It was rife with that. Here was a church where they were suing one another. to the courts of law, church members, suing one another. Here was a church where sexual immorality was rife as well. And Paul was very concerned about that to the point where he took on himself the work of disciplining. the worst kind of case of sexual immorality that was there within the context of this church. They had knowledge, but it was this goodness that was amiss, this goodness. By the time you get to chapter 8, listen to the way Paul puts it, chapter 8 and verse It's the same issues that were in Rome, by the way, to do with scruples and qualms. But look at the way Paul puts it before these brethren here. He says, now concerning food offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge. Listen to this. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The knowledge that the brethren had, which was correct in itself because of the absence of love and goodness, was simply resulting in pride, destructive pride. In case you think that's come from me, chapter 8 and verse 10. Chapter 8 and verse 10. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols?" Listen to this, verse 11. And so, by your knowledge, this weak person is destroyed. The brother for whom Christ died. Churches can be like that. were individuals who are knowledgeable. Instead of being the means of blessing, the means of encouragement, the means of building up the weaker brethren and so on, they end up being the ones who are throwing grenades right into the midst of a church. Doctrine without goodness. is destructive, terribly destructive. It's the opposite. When the grace of God has given the work of salvation, regeneration, and the Spirit of God residing in the soul, that produces goodness. And then there's a growing knowledge base, growing knowledge base. This child of God is a ready student Before long, that person is a real blessing to others. When you have that multiplied in a church, you've got a healthy church. You've got a mature church. Let me hurry on to clause. When a missionary is planting a church, The early years are full of headaches because new converts come in with a lot of baggage from the world. A lot of baggage. Yes, Christ has changed the heart. The foundation has been sorted out, but the canter that the person has come with at the back is a load of stuff that needs offloading. And the headache is that it's not just one person, or it's not just a few compared to everybody else, because it's a new church, so most of the people are new converts. And so you are constantly the one dealing with so many issues, interpersonal conflicts, issues of ignorance and so on. You're constantly there. And hardly anybody can help you because you are in the midst of some sucking new converts still in their napkins or diapers, as our American friends call them. It's a headache. And therefore, it's a great joy when the time comes when the missionary can stand back and say this. Stand back and see this. I remember in Baptist history reading of Olive Dock after she had helped to establish Baptist work in Lumberland and she went away on deputation, as they say, for well over a year. And she said when she came back, she found, she writes in her journal, that the church leaders and the evangelists that we had left behind, They had managed the work and done a lot more than we ourselves would have ever hoped to do. What a joy! I mean, you literally say, my job here is done! Because now these individuals that were once converts, thumb sucking new converts, are now full of goodness, full of knowledge, able to instruct one another. It's a great joy to be able to say this church is now healthy, it's now mature, let's move on to another place and try and plant another work there. that it's also the prayer and desire of church leaders, church elders, to have a church like this, where by the time you are having to deal with a sin-sick soul, as you are beginning to talk to that person, they are saying, yeah, you know, my friend so-and-so, you know, has been really talking to me. My sister has been talking into my life. My brother has been talking to me. The other day he was here with the scriptures. He opened up God's Word to me. He challenged me about my life. She challenged me about my life, and so on and so forth. What a joy it is to a church leadership to realize that. You know that most of the work is being done by the flock itself, most of the work. The church members are full of goodness. The church members have got all the knowledge. The church members are competent to instruct one another, to counsel one another. to admonish one another. Praise the Lord. Can you tell when a church is healthy, when a church is mature? As Kabwatha Baptist Church, we are standing before that same mirror and asking ourselves that same question. Are we a healthy church? Are we a mature church? Can our elders speak in those terms that we are convinced that you, church members, are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct, to counsel, and to admonish one another? Lord, help us. to be the very answer to the cry of church planters, to the cry of church elders. Amen.