Book of Romans chapter 16, and we'll begin reading in verse 25, the last three verses of the Book of Romans. Romans is one of those marvelous books because it tells us so much about God and it tells us so much about ourselves that from the very beginning, we see the holiness of God and the might of God, the justice of God. We even see the wrath of God very strongly there in chapter one and moving into those next chapters. We look and we see man. We see us as we are people, a people in sin. that apart from Christ, we are under the wrath of God. We see God's provision for man through His Son, Jesus Christ, whereby man might be justified and be sanctified and eventually be glorified. And all through the book of Romans, from time to time, Paul will stop and in just a short phrase, praise God for all that He has done. But as he comes to the end of this book, after writing basically 16 chapters, speaking of the glory of God and God's sovereign mercy and His grace, It's as if Paul can't help himself and he just bursts out in praise to God for who he is and what he has done for us. And that is what we find in these last three verses, a doxology to God. Now you say, well, what is a doxology? Well, Webster says it is a short formula of praise to God. Normally, when we think of the doxology, we think of what we just sang. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him above, you heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. But the doxology is more than just that. We find doxologies all through Scripture. As a matter of fact, the word doxology comes from two Greek words, doxa, which means glory, and logos, which means word. In other words, a word of glory or a word of praise. As I said, all through the scriptures, we find doxologies, especially in the psalm. For example, in Psalm 41, we read, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen. Or Psalm 72, Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone works wonders and blessed be his glorious name forever. and may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen. Psalm 106, Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, from everlasting even to everlasting, and let all the people say Amen. Praise the Lord. When Jesus entered into Jerusalem in His triumphal entry, the crowds sang a doxology saying, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. You come to the book of Revelation. We find the 24 elders shouting out a doxology where they say, worthy art thou to take the book and to break its seals for thou was slain and it's purchased for God with thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. Whenever we gather together as God's people, it is our great privilege to sing songs of praise to Him, to speak our doxologies to this glorious God. Now, quite often, if you are like me, even when we're giving praise to God, if we're not careful, our focus will turn on ourselves. For example, we realize it is our sins that have been forgiven. We are in union with Christ. We have been adopted into God's family. We are the members of his kingdom. And if we're not careful, our focus will become so much on ourselves that we'll miss out on the giver of all these glorious gifts, which is God himself. And that is why Paul was able to write these words to the only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever. Amen. Today, our hope as we look at this doxology that Paul has written here in the book of Romans, that our focus will turn from ourselves to this glorious God who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. Take your Bibles. Let's look at Romans 16, starting in verse 25. Hear now the written word of God. 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, 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, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen. This doxology tells us so much about our God in heaven. It speaks in terms of how we should praise him because of his being. It speaks to us about how we should praise him because of what he has done. And last of all, it speaks to us of how we should praise him because of the mediator that he sent for us. So let's look at each one of these characteristics, I guess you could say, of this particular doxology. First of all, let's look at what it means that he is worthy because of his being. I think there's something we need to understand as God's people, and that is God does not need us. Now, God loves us. God has poured out his grace upon us, but God does not need us. I'm always I think back to God's trombones, which is one of those old poems, spiritual poems that came back so many years ago. And basically the story is told of God creating all of the earth and sitting down there on the edge of the river and putting basically his hand and his head in his hands and saying, I'm lonely. Well, folks, that's not how God is. God is not lonely. God does not need us. As a matter of fact, if God would have never done one thing for us, if he would have never created anything or worked any work of power and might or love or grace, he would still be worthy of praise. He is worthy of praise because of who he is. Take the front of your bulletins. No, we're not almost through. But look on the front of your bulletins at this section from the Westminster Confession of Faith. Chapter two, section one speaks to who God is or to whom God is, I should say. There is but one only living and true God who is infinite in being and perfection. A most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute. working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him and withal most just and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. Now, I realize that that speaks about what things God has done, but you also look and see many things that deserve glory before he has done anything. Our God is a glorious God. The second section also of this particular chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith says this, God having all life, glory, goodness, blessedness in and of himself is alone in and unto himself all sufficient. not standing in need of any creature which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto and upon them." In other words, God is complete in and of himself. God is worthy of praise because of who he is. Now, as we look at this particular text, it speaks of this part of God's glory, and we find it there down in verse 27. It says, To the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Now, this can be taken in two ways. It can be taken to mean the only God who is wise, or it can be taken to mean He is the wise only God. Now, it could go either way. I prefer the second. He is the wise, the only God, because when you look at Scripture again and again, you see this truth portrayed to us that God alone is God. There are not many other gods out there floating around that we can pick and choose from. There are not many ways to life, as some would say, but there is only one God. What was the key tenet of the Hebrew faith there in the Old Testament, the Shema, which said, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You look in the book of Isaiah in Isaiah 45, God says to the prophet, I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides me, there is no God. I will guard you, though you have not known me, that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides me. I am the Lord and there is no other. The one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. Isaiah 46, again, he says, For I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is no one like me. He is the only God. But it's not just the fact that he is the only God, but he is the only wise God. In our day and age, everybody says knowledge is power. Well, folks, if knowledge is power, And our God truly is omnipotent because our God is all knowing. Psalm 33 explains this to us. It says the Lord looks from heaven and he sees all the sons of men from his dwelling place. He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashions the hearts of them all. He who understands all their works. Do you notice what it said? God knows. God knows all the people. God knows everything about them. God knows what all is going on. But it goes on to say he is the one who fashioned their heart. He understands all the works of their hearts. God knows not just the outward, but God knows the internal. There's no hiding of anything from God. I looked up Omniscience and Nave's topical Bible, and we could be reading scriptures until we're all blue in the face, speaking about how God knows all there is to know. I believe it was Jim Richards, a friend of mine from over in Louisiana, who once said, and it's always stuck in my head, did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurred to God? You know, things don't occur to God. He has always known them. From the very beginning, from all eternity, God has known about you and about me and about what He was going to do with us, His plan, His purpose for all of us. He is all-knowing. And because He is the only God and because He is the only wise one, He deserves this glory forevermore. He deserves eternal glory to be given to Him. You see, God is not a king like Saul was. Saul was a king for a while, and then before long they began to say Saul is slain as thousands, but David is slain. His ten thousands, that's not the kind of God we have. We have a God who is always the same, a God who is ever faithful, a God who is immutable, in other words, unchanging. He is always there for us. But it goes beyond just God the Father being this way. Turn back to Romans nine for just a second. Romans, chapter nine. In verse five, it says to them belong the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. So not only is the Father in heaven worthy of eternal glory, but Christ the Son is worthy of eternal glory. I like the way the New King James Version deals with it. It says Christ is the eternally blessed God. Christ is God. In other words, Jesus did not become worthy because he left heaven and took on flesh and kept the law perfectly and went to the cross and died in our place. He did not become worthy because he did that, but because he was worthy, he was able to do that. has had this glory throughout all eternity. And although this text does not speak of it, we can say the same thing about God's Holy Spirit. In the book of John, Jesus spoke to His disciples and He said, My Father will send to you a helper exactly like Me to aid you, talking about the Holy Spirit. So we have God the Father, God the Son, God, the Holy Spirit, all of them are worthy of this eternal glory. In and of themselves, they are worthy to be praised. But we don't just praise God because of who He is. Although if we would stop now, I suppose that would be fine. But we can go beyond that. Not only should we praise God for who He is, but we should also praise God for what He has done. He is worthy of praise because of his actions. Now, as we look at this particular text, we see three phrases that where it says, according to. In other words, God is going to do something. He'll say, according to this, and He's going to do this according to something else, and then He'll do this according to something else. The first two we find in verse 25. The third one we see in verse 26. God is going to do something that makes Him worthy of praise. And then we see three areas in which He does it. So let's begin in verse 25. What is it that He does? It says, Now to Him who is able to strengthen you. Now that word for strengthen can be translated several ways. It can be translated strengthen as we see it in the ESV or it can be translated established. to be able to set their feet firm so that they will not be washed away when the trouble comes. And probably that is a direction that Paul is leaning here, although strengthened and established are so close together it's hard to divide them up. But we have a God that is able to establish us so that we will not fall and to strengthen us so that we can go on. 2 Thessalonians 3 says, But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. This is the word that he uses to establish us so that we will not be washed away. Every time I see this word, I guess the historian in me thinks of Stonewall Jackson. And there are so many things that were said in history that you don't know are necessarily true because Stories grow the more that they are told, but supposedly at the first battle of Bull Run when the Federals had renewed their attack and it looked as if the southern lines were going to break, someone shouted out, look, there stands Jackson like a stone wall. As Stonewall Jackson stood there and rallied his troops and turned the tide of battle on that particular day. Well, our God is a God that will never be routed. And because of who he is, he is a God that will keep us firm. That is why we can have the confidence that we will persevere in the faith because of who God is. God, it says, is the one who will establish us so that we will not fall. And then he gives us three reasons why we can know this. The first of these in verse 25. Now, to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. Now, as we see that, we need to understand that the only reason this gospel is Paul's gospel is because Paul was given the privilege of sharing that gospel. And because of his union with Christ, he was able to say, this is my gospel. But the key fact here is that in reality, the gospel is God's gospel. In Galatians chapter one, we find these wonderful words. For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it. But I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. God's gospel, Christ's gospel is this gospel that will establish us so that we will not fall. Now, we also need to understand something, and that is my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ are not two different things. He is talking about the same thing here. As a matter of fact, it can be translated according to my gospel, even the preaching of Jesus Christ, because that's what the gospel is all about. It's all about Jesus Christ, who he is, what he has done, the fact that he came to earth and took on human flesh and kept God's law perfectly and went to the cross and died as our substitute so that we could have eternal life. It is all about Jesus Christ. It is the gospel that establishes us so that we will not fall. But we're not just established through the gospel, the preaching of Jesus Christ, but we're also established according to, again there in verse 25, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all of the nations. You see, this gospel that was once a mystery is no longer a mystery. Augustine said it well. He said, the new is in the old concealed and the old is in the new revealed. The Old Testament, even when they were writing those words, some of those prophets didn't understand all that they were saying about what was going to take place one day. But as we look back through the prism of the New Testament, we see what God was doing all the way along the path of his purpose. His plan to redeem a people has always been there. And he is working there in that Old Testament, pointing forward to Jesus Christ. And then when we get to the New Testament, we begin to understand what all of this means. We understand what the Passover lamb meant. It's pointing to Jesus Christ. We understand what took place on the Day of Atonement, pointed to Jesus Christ. And that's why Jesus could say in Matthew 13, For truly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. You see, now we understand that because of God's gospel. This good news of Jesus Christ is to go out to every nation so that one day there will be people from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages that will be there to worship and praise Jesus Christ for all eternity. And we see the beginning of that way back in the book of Genesis when God says to Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the seed of the serpent. That promise has finally been revealed through Jesus Christ. So we are established through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are established through this mystery that was there in the Old Testament, but now has been explained in the New Testament. But we are also established in a different way. He says, according to the command of the eternal God. This has all been done according to the command of the eternal God. Now, folks, I don't know about you, but that gives me comfort. to know that God is going to finish what He has started. God is going to complete His purpose and that we as God's children are going to be a part of that purpose that is going to be completed. I have learned to love Habakkuk 2.14. It says, For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Now, I know my post-millennial friends say that, yes, and we're going to bring all that in. And I guess there is a sense in which we will be a part of that. But we do know this, that the day will come when God's purpose will finally be completed. Everything will be set right. All will be made right. We will be made right with him. And one day we will leave even the presence of sin as we enter into the glories of our eternal Lord. When my life is shaky, And it seems as if my faith is faltering. It is always good to know that we have an eternal God who is going to establish me to bring about the obedience of faith in my life. And in reality, what he's saying there is to bring about the faith which will bring about obedience in my life. Yes, our God is worthy of praise. because he is able to strengthen us because of the things that he has done. He is worthy of praise because of who he is. He's worthy of praise because of what he's done. But he's worthy of praise for one other reason that I'd like to mention today. And that is this last little phrase at the very end of verse 27. He is worthy of praise because of the mediator. It says, to the only wise God be glory forevermore. And then we see this little prepositional phrase through Jesus Christ, that little preposition through the grammars tell us it denotes the channel of an act. In other words, this is the act through which all of this other stuff happens. It all comes to us through Jesus Christ. As a little boy growing up, my dad was kind of a homebody. He didn't like to go much here or there. Well, I guess I've become my dad now at 52. I knew that would happen. I didn't know it would happen this soon. But I remember from time to time we would go over toward Houston, and I was always thrilled when we got to go through the Baytown Tunnel. And if I'd have known how it was built and the leaks and all that, maybe I wouldn't have been so thrilled as a little boy. But I thought that was so neat, to be able to go through that tunnel, because if you're going to that part of, to Pasadena and all, if you don't go through that tunnel, you have to go all the way around and up into Houston and then come down on whatever it is, 225, Pure Atlantic Highway or whatever it's called there. But when you go through that tunnel, it was that shortcut, and it didn't take near as long to do that. Maybe that's why I was so thrilled about it. But I said all that to say this. That tunnel was the only way across there then. Now we have the big bridge and I'm grateful for that big bridge. But that tunnel was the only way. And folks, through Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life for us. It is the only way for us to be strengthened. It is the only way for us to be changed. It is the only way for us to understand forgiveness of sins or to experience forgiveness of sins. It is only through Jesus Christ. When He said, when Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me, Jesus meant, I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me. He meant exactly what He said. He is the only way. And today as we have gathered together in His name, if I do nothing else, I wish I could focus you on Jesus Christ, because it is through Him that we can praise God. It is through him that we can have eternal life. It is through the fact that he left heaven and took on human flesh and kept God's law perfectly and pleased his father in every way and was perfect and that he was the perfect and the sinless lamb of God who went to the cross on our behalf, who took all of God's wrath upon himself so that we would not have to experience That is why today we can praise God for who He is, and that is why we can praise Him for what He has done, because it is through Jesus Christ we can draw near to Him. That's why He can say to us to draw near to the throne of grace, to find mercy and grace to help us in time of need. What is this message about today? This message is here to point you to Jesus Christ. As Christians, focus on Him. Focus on what He has done. Focus on who He is. Rest in Him, not in anything that you can do. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, I say basically the same thing to you. Look to Christ. He is the answer. Call out to Him for mercy. Call out to Him for grace and know that He is the One. It is through Jesus Christ that we may truly have eternal life. Yes, God is worthy of glory because of who He is. He is worthy of glory because of what He has done. And He is worthy of glory through Jesus Christ. To the only wise God, be glory forevermore. through Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray together, please. Our Father, our words are so feeble to express the great truths of your scripture. But Lord, we know that you were able to move beyond the frailty of human language to speak to the hearts of people. Lord, today I pray for Christians that we may rest in Christ, that we may praise God for who He is and what He's done, but in the midst of it all, we know we can only do that through Jesus Christ and what He's done for us. Lord, help us as your children to look to Your grace, to rest in You, to strive to be holy, yes, but know that our holiness could only come through what You did through Your life and death. And Lord, today I pray for those here who don't know You. And I would pray, Lord, that by Your Holy Spirit You would call them to Yourself, that You would grant repentance, that You would furnish that they might hunger after You and to call out to You for mercy. And Lord, we thank You for those beautiful, beautiful words that You have given to us, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Lord, call people to Yourself today. And we ask these things through the only One, who is the mediator between God and man. And that is the God-man, Jesus Christ. In His name we pray and ask all of these things. Amen.