Introduction:
One of the important aspects of ministry, often overlooked, is that people not only need to receive the ministry of the Word; they also need to understand the mandate and therefore the motives that inform that ministry.
If a man is a faithful shepherd, he is not just disseminating the Word of God; he is fulfilling a calling.
He is striving to be faithful to an appointment given to him by God, and therefore an assignment for which he is responsible.
THIS IS WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE TALK ABOUT A HIGH VIEW OF PREACHING AND OF SHEPHERDING THE CHURCH.
There is a gravity, a seriousness, that belongs to the ministry of the Word of God. Those who have been appointed by the Holy Spirit, and gifted for that ministry, are God-commissioned heralds.
ESV Acts 20:28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
That knowledge of calling and responsibility results in a necessary boldness.
Faithful ministry requires loving courage.
Faithful ministry requires a kind of boldness that risks being disliked, and sometimes misunderstood, to love people in ways that God requires.
At the same time, it is a boldness that needs to be explained to the people who meet with it.
A healthy church not only needs the faithful ministry of the Word of God; it needs a right perspective of that ministry.
The church at Rome was not the result of Paul’s missionary efforts.
The church at Rome, at the time they received this letter, was not the result of Paul’s shepherding efforts.
What Paul knew of the Roman church; he knew by reason of reports given to him by those who knew it well and knew it personally.
What the church at Rome knew of God and His word, they did not owe to Paul’s personal ministry, but to the ministry of others.

ESV Romans 1:7 To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you-- 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
And yet, this man who did not know this church personally, HAD NEVER BEEN THERE, wrote a long and serious (and now we know, inspired) message that not only INSTRUCTS them — it CORRECTS them.
With a knowledge of a few areas of concern, a few of their weaknesses, Paul has written some VERY BOLD things (vs.15).
What he does in our verses (vs.14-16) represents an explanation of that boldness.
He explains why he has written to them WHAT he has, and in THE WAY that he has.
This morning we consider that explanation.
Two explanations regarding the godly boldness that belongs to faithful ministry.
I. GODLY BOLDNESS IS NOT A DENIAL OF GOD’S GOOD WORK (vs.14)
These three verses answer and unvoiced question.
“Paul, having read some of the things you have written to us, we might wonder how you view us?”
Paul addresses such a question, as he wraps up the main body of doctrinal instruction, because he thinks it important that they KNOW how he views them.
He wants them to know that despite the corrections that he has offered, his view of them is positive.
Note: You and I will not grow well if we consider all correction to be an attack on the whole of our life.
To say it another way, you will not grow well if you do not understand that people doing well still need correction. People doing well still need instruction. People doing well still need to be reminded.