Alba 8-14-2022
BELIEVE AND OBEY GOD
Romans 16:21-27
Frank was the manager of an upscale men's wear store in a wealthy section of town and was interviewing Larry for the recently advertised salesman role. Frank looked at Larry's resume and noticed that Larry had never worked in retail before.
Frank mused, "For someone with no retail experience, you are certainly asking for a high salary."
"Well I suppose I am," Larry replied, "but you must understand that the work is so much harder when you don't know what you're doing."
It’s hard to do anything if you don’t know what you’re doing. When we look at what is going on around us it seems that there are a whole lot of people who don't know what they are doing.
We are in troubling times in our nation. A time of rising prices. A time when major cities are seeing a drastic increase in crime. A time when human life is not valued, either by those who push for abortion or by those who shoot to kill because of some perceived injustice.
A time when accusations and lies are told about political opponents. A time when there is no trust in people of different political parties.
What is the answer? Fortunately in our country we have elections that give us an opportunity to change the direction things are going. I am thankful for that, if we have fair and honest elections. But the real answer is deeper than that. We need a revival in our country of true faith and obedience to the creator God.
Today we come to the end of the book of Romans. You may think we took a long time to go through it, over a year. It is said that Donald Grey Barnhouse, who was the minister of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, took 13 years to preach through Romans, and he preached over 500 sermons from this book.
So there is a whole lot more here that you can dig into. But the main message contained in this book is quite simple. It is: Believe and Obey God. That is the answer our nation needs to hear and what we need to live.
Lets read these final verses in Romans chapter sixteen beginning with verse 21. First he mentions those who are with him who share their greetings to the church. He says:
21 Timothy, my fellow worker, and Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my countrymen, greet you. 22 I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, greet you in the Lord. 23 Gaius, my host and the host of the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you, and Quartus, a brother. 24 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
This amen does not end the letter. In fact Paul has stated the amen several times before as this letter is coming to its conclusion. The people mentioned here were among those who were workers in the kingdom with the apostle Paul.
Timothy we know. He was Paul’s spiritual protégé who later became a leader in the church at Ephesus. Paul wrote him two letters about how minister.
Then he mentions Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater . They are all from the same area that Paul is originally from. He calls them, “My fellow Countrymen.” In some translations he even calls them his relatives, and they are doing work for the kingdom with him.
Verse 22 is interesting because it says, I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord. I thought the apostle Paul was writing this letter.
Well Paul did not take pen in hand and write the book of Romans. He instead dictated it, and Tertius was a slave who was a stenographer, who was a scribe, so he actually is the one who wrote it down.
And it is believed that he was a slave because of his name. His name means third. You see, often the Roman slaves had no names. They were known by numbers most of the time.
The first slave was called Primus. Slave number two was called Secundus. Slave number three was called Tertius. Slave number four was called Quartus, and we meet Quartus down in verse 24.
So these two, even though they likely were slaves, were Christians held in high honor and were leaders among the believers.
Two more send their greetings to the church in Rome. Gaius who provided hospitality for Paul and others. No doubt the Apostle Paul stayed in the home of Gaius eating his meals there.
Thank God for Gaius and other people who through the years have shown hospitality to God’s servants.
Then there is Erastus. He was a man prominent in Corinth.
He is described as the city treasurer. Some translations say he was the city’s director of public works. We can be thankful, and thank God, when we have Christians who are in prominent public service.
If we were able to track these names during their lifetime, we would likely discover that each one of them (like Timothy) had a personal ministry in the church believing and obeying the Lord.
Then the apostle Paul closes his letter with a word of praise called a doxology. That is a statement of honor or glory bestowed on someone. Of course the one who is deserving of all praise, all glory and all honor is none other than God.
We stand and sing a doxology of praise before just before the sermon. Other hymns could be considered to be a doxology such as,
“To God be the glory, great things He hath done, So loved He the world that He gave us His Son, Who yielded His life an atonement for sin, And opened the life-gate that all may go in.”
So we have a doxology in Romans 16:25-27, “25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began 26 but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith— 27 to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.”
God is able. That word “able” actually is the Greek word “dunamis,” from which we get our word power. We get our English word dynamite from that Greek word “dunamis.” What it is saying is that our God is a powerful God. He’s a dynamite God.
Yes we serve a God who is able! He is able to meet our needs. He is able to take away our sins. He is able to save to the uttermost! He has made known to us the good news of salvation in Jesus.
And this gracious God calls those of us who are in Christ to believe and obey Him. Look at the end of verse 26. He reveals His love and forgiveness so that we would have “obedience to the faith”.
We are often weak in the way we follow the Lord so we need help. These verses tell us that God is a powerful God who will give us stability. Verse 25 says, “He is able to establish you.”
That word “establish” in Greek is “sterix” Have you ever heard of steroids? Our English word steroid comes from that word “establish.” It means to give you the maximum amount of strength available.
God is saying, I am the source of emotional, and spiritual steroids, and there are no side effects, and it’s perfectly legal. I want to give you strength and stability.
The idea of being established is that God can make us strong in the faith. Sadly some people don’t want to be strong. They don’t want to change. They resist change. They like themselves the way they are.
They like their lives the way they are. Being more spiritual and doing more for the cause of Christ is not on their agenda, even though it should be if they are in Christ.
That is why we need strength and stability. It is because you and I live in a world where everything is falling apart, everything is breaking up.
And in a world where things are going wild, you and I need stability to help us stay strong in faith and be obedient to the Lord.
Strength to believe and obey comes directly from the gospel, the good news of a Savior, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross so that we could be forgiven of all our wrong doings, every mistake, every sin.
The gospel has Jesus Christ as its source and purpose. For the only gospel of God that is able to establish us is the gospel that proclaims Jesus Christ.
Beware, for there are also a lot of people out there who may preach about Jesus and talk about forgiveness, but what they offer is no Gospel. Not when they say that God’s forgiveness gives you the right to live any way you want.
The Gospel gives us no such rights. It gives us forgiveness. It gives us the will and strength to live as God’s children. It calls us to believe and obey God. Sometimes that seems difficult.
So when you read that the Bible says to love one another, you find somebody that’s unlovely and you say, “I’m going to love that person if it kills me.” Then you just kind of give up. Christ in you loves that person, and so you let Jesus love that person through you.
And then you read that Jesus said to forgive your brother 70 times seven, and realize that even though somebody did you dirty, and you’re supposed to forgive them, you say, “I’m going to try to forgive that person.” And you just can’t.
Do you believe Jesus Christ can forgive anyone? Certainly. You just let that forgiveness flow through you. That is the secret, that is the power of the Christian life, and God is revealing it to us.
As Christians, we are able to find real meaning and goodness in our lives only to the degree that we trust in God’s promises! In other words, as we believe and obey Him.
Believing and obeying God means trusting in God’s promises, anchoring our hope in God’s goodness, and glorifying God with hearts filled with joy!
And these attitudes and actions come not from some insatiable desire to “earn God’s favor,” but from our gratitude for God’s grace, redemption, and love that we have already been given, and which we are now experiencing!
Verse 25 says that this gospel was a “mystery kept secret since the world began.” But through the coming and ministry of Jesus Christ it was revealed to the world. For a long time God kept this a secret.
A mystery here in this text is that which is not understood without future revelation from God. It is like a car commercial in which the new model is covered with a sheet or canvas.
You can see the shape of it, but not the details.
The engineer knows what's underneath the canvas. The designer already knows the shape of the car. Eventually the canvas is removed. After all, they are trying to sell the car.
The word mystery here does not mean something that is, and forever will be, mysterious and beyond understanding. This refers to a truth once hidden, but is now made known by revelation and open to human understanding.
This mystery was there in the Old Testament, but no one was able to put it all together until the life, death, burial, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Christ.
It is a mystery no more! We should thank God daily that we live in a time when it is now known that God loves the people on this earth, and that Jesus came to pay the price for our redemption.
And not for just a few select people. Jews and Gentiles includes everyone. It includes us. We are called to believe that good news, and to respond by showing our love and thankfulness for what Jesus has done for us in the way we live by being obedient to Him.
Only a wise and loving God would be able to design such a plan where He would take the punishment we deserve so that He could be true to His word that sin deserves death, and then take that death penalty upon Himself for our sakes.
The God we serve is “the only wise God”. There is only one true God. There’s only one living God. There’s only one wise God. Any other gods there may be are powerless to save.
They are made with sticks and stones and man's imagination. They have neither eyes to see nor ears to hear of our troubles, or meet our needs.
But Jesus does! Hebrews 2:18 says, “ For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”
And Hebrews 7:25 says,“Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
That is the God we serve. A God who is able. A God who is wise. A God who loves all people and calls them to Himself. Our hope in these troubling times is to trust and obey Him.
Ephesians 3:20-21 mirrors this doxology of praise in Romans chapter sixteen. As those who believe in, and make it our goal to obey God, it is the praise that should be on our lips daily.
It says:
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
CONCLUSION:
Outside of Glasgow, Scotland, there’s a seafood restaurant. It has an interesting story behind it. Years ago there were some Scottish fishermen in there bragging about their catch.
As fishermen always have done, one of them was talking about how big was the fish he caught, and as he thrust his arms out, he inadvertently struck a pot of hot tea that broke on the wall and left a blot, a stain on that white wall.
Well, they tried to clean it off and he apologized, but it still left a stain there. While they were talking about it with the owner, a stranger in that restaurant walked over there and looked at that stain.
And then he withdrew from his pocket a drawing pencil and began to sketch around the stain until he had drawn a beautiful picture of a majestic stag with its antlers down. Then he pulled a couple of other colored pencils out of his pocket and began to sketch in a background to that.
And as the crowd in that restaurant stood dumbfounded, they watched a beautiful wildlife landscape appeared on that wall. They discovered that the visitor, the stranger, was none other than Sir Edwin Lancier, the most renowned wildlife artist in all of Great Britain.
Today in that restaurant, the most prized possession is that mural on the wall of that wildlife scene. What started out as an ugly stain was transformed into a beautiful scene.
Isn’t that what Jesus does to us? Isn’t that what Jesus does for us? He takes that ugly blot and that blemish and that stain of sin in our lives, and he doesn’t just wash it away and leave nothing.
Instead he takes it and he transforms our lives into something beautiful. That’s what the book of Romans has been all about.
