YouTube video sermon

Romans 16:1-27

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 16.  We’re finally at the end of this 6-month journey.  I hope you’ve enjoyed our time in Paul’s epistle to the Romans.  It started out as a 12-week study and turned into a 25-week study.  And honestly, we could’ve spent so much more time here.  There’s so much more treasure to be mined in this book than what we had time for.  In fact, today’s sermon is one of those that could have easily been broken up into at least 5-6 separate sermons.  But alas, I’m going to try and jam everything together in one final summary.  So, if you’re ready, I’d like to ask the congregation to stand one last time as I read our passage today:

¹ I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, ² that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.

 ³ Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, ⁴ who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.  ⁵ Greet also the church in their house.  Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.  ⁶ Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you.  ⁷ Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners.  They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.  ⁸ Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.  ⁹ Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys.  ¹⁰ Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ.  Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus.  ¹¹ Greet my kinsman Herodion.  Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.  ¹² Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa.  Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.  ¹³ Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.  ¹⁴ Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.  ¹⁵ Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.  ¹⁶ Greet one another with a holy kiss.  All the churches of Christ greet you.

 ¹⁷ I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.  ¹⁸ For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.  ¹⁹ For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.  ²⁰ The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

 ²¹ Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen.

 ²² I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.

 ²³ Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you.  Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you.

 ²⁵ Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages ²⁶ but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith – ²⁷ to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ!  Amen.

Father, I pray for all of your saints here today – that you’d bless them, that you’d fill them with your Holy Spirit, that you would use this message to strengthen and encourage and guide.  I pray that you would make servants out of us.  We want to serve you.  We want to serve our children and our parents.  We want to serve our friends and our neighbors, as well as strangers and people we’ve never met.  So God, grant, I pray that you would come and help me now to minister this Word and apply it for the glory of Christ in the hearts of your people, and draw people out of darkness.  I pray that some dead hearts would beat again.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

In this last sermon there are only three words that you need to remember: Greetings, Guidance, and Glory.  Those are my three points and those are three ways that this final chapter breaks down.  Verses 1-16; 21-23 contain the greetings.  Verses 17-20 contain the final guidance.  And verses 25-27 make up the final doxology.  Just a quick reminder, the word doxology is an English word that we’ve carried over directly from the Greek.  It’s made up of two Greek words: doxa (meaning “glory”) and logia/logos (meaning “reason/words”).  So, in essence, when you see or hear the word doxology what’s being expressed is glory-words, or better yet expressions of glory.  That’s what a doxology is.

Greetings

So, let’s start with the greetings.  And I know that some of you are thinking, “What in the world is there to see and learn from a whole bunch of names that I can hardly pronounce?”  Well, quite a lot, really.  I’m going to give you six very quick observations about this laundry list of names.  So, if you’re taking notes get ready.

1. Notice the names.

There are 27 named people in these closing verses.  More people are greeted, but 27 are named.  Surely, we should learn from this that names matter.  I wish I could call you all by name.  Jesus does.  John 10:3 says, “The sheep hear His voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.”  Strive to know each other’s names.  Names represent people, and knowing people’s names indicates relationship.  Paul is working here at building relationships with brothers and sister in Christ.  Let’s be like him in this way.

2. Notice the different the relationships and partnerships.

It’s remarkable to see the different words that Paul uses to describe these people, and their relationship to him and to each other: sister, brother, servant, saints, patron, fellow workers, church, firstfruits, kinsmen, fellow prisoners, beloved, approved in Christ, elect, mother to me.  The more you and I connect with people the more enriching are the ways that they bring blessing into our lives, and us to them.

3. Notice how Christ-saturated these relationships are.

Verse 2: “Welcome her in the Lord.”  Verse 3: “My fellow workers in Christ Jesus.”  Verse 5: The “first convert to Christ.”  Verse 7: “They were in Christ before me.”  Verse 8: “My beloved in the Lord.”  Verse 9: “My fellow worker in Christ.”  Verse 10: “Apelles, who is approved in Christ.”  Verse 11: “Greet those in the Lord.”  Verse 12: “Greet those workers in the Lord.”  Verse 13: “Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.”  Verse 14: “Rufus, chosen in the Lord.”

This isn’t a simple list of greetings.  This is the way a person who is drenched in Christ talks about his friends.  When you write your family or friends, or when you talk on the phone, or send an email, is Christ in that dialogue?  Paul can’t go two or three words without mentioning Jesus.  Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).  If Christ isn’t in our speech, and in our emails, and in our telephone conversations, then maybe we have a heart issue that needs to be addressed.  Let’s be a church drenched with Jesus like Paul in Romans 16.

4. Notice where the church is located in Rome.

Verse 5, referring to Prisca and Aquila: “Greet also the church in their house.”  So, there’s a church that he gives a generic greeting to through Prisca and Aquila.  Then there are all these other names.  Look at verse 14: “Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.”  That probably means: the church that meets with these brothers.  Similarly, in verse 15: “Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.”  And there are probably other groupings.  So, we learn that the church in Rome was really churches in Rome.  May the Lord multiply Bible-believing, Christ-drenched churches in our communities.

5. Notice the most common command – to greet.

Thirteen times in sixteen verses Paul tells them: Greet so and so.  And greet so and so.  Who’s he talking to?  The introduction in Romans 1:7 says, “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.”  If I am talking to Larry Stokes, I don’t say, “Greet Larry Stokes.”  So, it seems that Paul expects this letter to be read and taught and passed around by the leaders of the church in Rome.

6. Notice the love that permeates this chapter.

Four times Paul uses the word loved or beloved.  “My beloved Epaenetus” (v. 5), “Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord” (v. 8), “my beloved Stachys” (v. 9), “Greet the beloved Persis” (v. 12).  And then we read things like: “Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you” (v. 6) and Prisca and Aquila “risked their necks for my life” (v. 4).  This is the language of love.  May the Lord take last week’s message on striving together in prayer and draw us into these kinds of relationships.

Guidance 

Paul then moves from greeting to guidance.  You’re like, “Come on, Paul, can’t you leave it alone?  Can’t you just conclude your 16-chapter letter and be done?”  The fact of the matter is this – and you know this to be true if you leave with a teacher or preacher – they’re always looking for an opportunity to teach.  Now be careful; if you’re a parent (and most of you are), you do this too.  You’re always looking to offer some direction or guidance to your children, and that’s a good thing.  Paul can’t help himself, and neither can I.  There are three very quick observations that I want us to see.

1. It’s possible to go overboard on this.

In verse 17 Paul says, “watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.”  I hesitate even to say it, since I don’t think this is the temptation of most churches or most Christians today.  But it’s possible, and there are churches and people that do go overboard.  What I mean is that they become so obsessed with spotting doctrinal error that they lose their ability to rejoice in doctrinal truth.  They’re like dogs that are trained so completely to sniff out drugs at the airport, that even when they’re off duty they greet everybody that way.  It doesn’t make for a very welcoming atmosphere.

So, let’s ask the Lord to help us get the balance right here.  We must do this.  We have to be on guard against false doctrine and false teaching.  But this is not the main thing we do.  Vigilance over error is necessary, but joy in the truth is dominant.

2. There is such a thing as a body of doctrine.

Don’t miss the obvious.  There is a body of doctrine that someone can go against.  There is a doctrinal standard.  There is something you can depart from.  Paul refers to it in several ways.  In Romans 6:17, he calls it the “standard of teaching to which you were committed.”  In 2 Timothy 1:13-14, he calls it “the pattern of sound words . . . and good deposit entrusted to you.”  In Acts 20:27, he calls it the “whole counsel of God.”

The caution here, of course, is that we must not put every minor opinion in this category so that there’s no room for any disagreement.  Remember Romans 14 – eating certain foods and celebrating certain holy days?  What I believe Paul is referring to here is a faithful summary of biblical essentials.  It would include things like the nature and condition of man, the nature and work of Christ, the nature and work of the Holy Spirit, and the nature and work of God the Father (to name a few).  Of course, one of the greatest challenges is deciding what belongs in this body of doctrine.  And when you pastor a Community Church you sometimes find yourself saying, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling…” (1 Corinthians 2:2-3).

3. False teachers are deceptive.

Verse 18 says, “By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.”  “Smooth talk” doesn’t necessarily mean slippery.  It just means pleasant and plausible.  And the word for “flattery” is simply blessing.  So, the reason we must be so vigilant over biblical doctrine is because false teachers don’t gain a following by being rough and harsh.  They gain a following by being nice.

It’s rarely popular to resist false teachers in the church, because they’re almost always perceived as bringing a blessing and speaking with winsome words.  They’re gentlemen.  They’re ladies.  And Paul says the innocent are carried away.  Hence, he says, “Watch out for them.  And avoid them.”

Glory

That brings us to the last observation in this magnificent epistle – the glory of God.  Paul’s final word in Romans (just before “through Jesus Christ!  Amen.”) is his acclamation of the greatest fact of all: God’s glory!  In order to drive this final observation home, I want to quickly review the many times and ways that Paul highlights the glory of God in this letter.

And although the word “glory” is not there, I think we need to start with Romans 1:5 because the substance of glory is there.  Paul says, “We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the nations.”  That little phrase “for the sake of His name among all the nations” is Paul’s way of saying that the name of Christ must be glorified above all other names, and all other persons, and all other ideas, and all other possessions, and all other possible dreams.  Paul’s mission is to glorify God through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And in order to offer the Good News of Jesus, the nations need to recognize their need for a Savior.  So, Paul begins in Romans 1:21 by addressing the condition of our hearts and says, “For although [the nations] knew God, they did not honor (the word is “glorify,” doxasan) Him as God or give thanks to Him.”  How did they not glorify him?  Verse 23 gives the answer; they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images.”  And of course, the image most common then (and today) is not one that we carve in wood or stone, but the one we see in the mirror.

Then Paul turns to the Jews and shows them they’re in a similar condition.  In Romans 2:24 he says, “For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’”  In other words, you don’t glorify God’s name either.

Paul sums up the condition of all humans in Romans 3:23 with this definition of sin: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  We are created to treasure the glory of God above all things, and none of us does that.  This means we have committed an outrageous crime against God – far more serious than murder or rape or theft or lying.  Therefore, we stand under the wrath of God and need a Savior.

The salvation that Jesus brings, delivering us from sin and death and judgment is received by faith.  Paul illustrates this faith with the case of Abraham in Romans 4:20 and shows how it relates to the glory of God: “No distrust made [Abraham] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.”  In other words, one reason that faith is the way that God saves us is that faith gives glory to God.  The fact that we even have faith and are able to exercise it brings glory to God.

Then in chapters 5 and 8, Paul shows that our salvation through Christ secures for us the hope of the glory of God.  This is the ultimate gift of the gospel. Consider Romans 5:1–2: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

And in Romans 8:18, Paul says this hope makes all the sufferings we have to experience in this life worth it: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”  The glory of God will be so overwhelmingly satisfying that the horrors of a long illness and a painful death will be as nothing in comparison.

Then in Romans 8:21, 30, he speaks of our sharing in that glory so that we, too, become glorious, God-reflecting persons.  Verse 21: “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”  First, we are made glorious at the resurrection, then the whole creation is made a suitable habitation for the glorious children of God.

Then verse 30 says that our being glorified is so certain that Paul can speak of it as virtually completed: “And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.”  So, the glory of God is our supreme hope, both in the sense of seeing and being, beholding and becoming.

Then in chapter nine, Paul begins to tackle the question of God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Israel, and the related question arises in verse 14 about God’s righteousness in view of His sovereignty over so much lostness and so much evil.  In verses 22–23, Paul gives his ultimate and final answer to the question, and he does it with a view to the glory of God.  He says, “What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory.”

The highest and deepest and most ultimate answer to why the world is the way it is is that in His infinite wisdom, the sovereign God chose to allow this world to reveal the fullness of His glory – including the glory of His wrath and power and mercy.

Then, as Paul finishes his description of the inscrutable ways of God in dealing with Israel and the nations in Romans 9–11, he concludes with this doxology: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be glory forever.  Amen” (Romans 11:36).  God is the ultimate origin, the ultimate sustaining power, and the ultimate goal of all things.  Therefore, to Him belongs the glory.  And may all praises rise to Him!

Then, in Romans 15, as Paul is finishing his handling of how weak and strong Christians should relate to each other in the church, he tells them the purpose of the church and how Christ set the pattern for how to build the church.  The purpose of the church is in verses 5–6,
“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Displaying the glory of God is the aim of the church.  That’s why Christ bought you and me.  That’s why He builds the church.  Not just isolated, individual worship, but united voices, whether speaking of or singing to the glory of God.

Then in verse 7, Paul gives Christ as our pattern.  He says, “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”  Jesus does everything He does – including welcoming you and me into His family – “for the glory of God.”  You are saved by Christ for the glory of God.  You are welcomed into His family for the glory of God.  This is humbling, because we’re never the final reason for anything – God is.  God gets the glory, and we get the joy.

And then in verses 8–9, Paul underscores Christ’s pattern of building the church by showing that this is the very reason He came for the nations, “For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.”

Which brings us finally back to where we started in the closing doxology of Romans 16:27, “To the only wise God, glory!  Forevermore, through Jesus Christ!  Amen.”  Is that the cry of your heart?  Do you love the glory of God?  Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.”  And Isaiah 6:3 says, “The whole earth is full of His glory!”  God is calling out to you: behold My glory!  God is calling out for our attention and admiration every day.  So, as we close, would you join me in reciting the Gloria Patri: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen, amen.”