Well, today we close out our study of the book of Romans. Paul has detailed the gospel clearly, and he finishes with a wonderful doxology. Now, doxology is a word that comes from two Greek words, doxa, which means glory or praise, and then logos, which means words. And so we have glory words. or praise words. That's what doxology means. And so, this is a doxology that we have to close the book. We've already had one back in, I think it was Romans 11, towards the end where Paul just bursts into praise of God for his unsearchable wisdom and his ways and that type of thing. But as he concludes the book of Romans, we see Romans 16, verse 25 through 27, another wonderful doxology. Paul writes there, 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 which 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, the glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen. To Him who is able to strengthen you. Do you ever grow weary? Do you ever grow weary in your service to the Lord? Do you ever grow weary in life? Today I want to bring you a message I've entitled, for when you are weary. But first, it's important to look at God's revealed plan here. In verses 25 and 26, three times we have words that talk about something being revealed or made known. In verse 25, we see the word revelation. Verse 26, we see that's the word disclosed. And then we also see the phrase made known. So let's talk about this revelation of his plan. He says 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. Here's God's revelation of his plan, the revealing of the mystery. When we see that word mystery in the scriptures, it means something that was previously hidden, but now has been revealed. It's no longer a mystery. God has now revealed his eternal plan. to bring people of all nations to obedience through faith in Christ. With the benefit of hindsight and the New Testament writers, we can now look back and see how God's plan worked out. The particular portion of God's plan that Paul refers to here is the people of all nations, that they be included in God's people, and that begins with God's rejection of the nations at Babel. OK, so there's a few significant events in the Old Testament, of course, one being Adam and Eve's fall. And God takes care of that through Jesus Christ as well as Christ is a propitiation for our sins. But there also is this incident at Babel, and it is an incident where God disinherits the nations. He just says, go, go your own way, do your own thing, because They're being disobedient to his command when when God created Adam and Eve, he told them to go and conquer the world and take the world spread out in the world, multiply and grow. Right. Well, we come into this situation in Genesis 11. I encourage you to turn their Genesis 11. We're going to look at verses one through nine. Now, of course, we're after the flood and after the flood, the sons of Noah were to spread out among the earth. They had the same same commission. Go out, be fruitful and multiply and make my name great. Well, what we have is the people of Babel says, hey, no, let's not let's not spread out. Let's stay in one place and let's make a name for ourselves. And we're going to be the place where God is known to be, not the whole earth. OK, so Genesis 11 verse one says, Now the whole earth had one language in the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plane in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, Come. Let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and by two men for mortar. Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. And let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. So they are disobeying God in this. Verse 5, And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they proposed to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, And they left off building the city. Therefore, its name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there, the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. Now, I want you to turn over to Deuteronomy 32, because we have an interpretation of what happened there from Moses. OK, so this is prior to the children of Israel going into the into the land, the promised land. But he is looking back. We have the song of Moses that he is writing for them to sing for as a testimony to the Lord and a testimony that they're going to reject the Lord. So they'll know beforehand that they're going to be a disobedient people. But in Deuteronomy 32, verses seven through nine, we read further as to what happened there with God disinheriting the nations. Deuteronomy 32, verse seven, it says, Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob, his allotted heritage. So God disinherits the nations in Genesis 11 and then In Genesis 12, and I'd recommend you turn back there because this is where Abraham becomes key. God has disinherited the nations and now he turns to Abraham and he is going to make a nation out of Abraham. That's going to be his nation, his people. Disinherited the nations in Genesis 11, Genesis 12. He begins his work of making a great nation for himself. Genesis 12 verse one. Now, the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. Now, what was the people at Babel doing? They were pulling up and they said, let's make ourselves a name. Well, God says, Abraham, I'm going to make you a nation and I'm going to give you a great name in verse three. We have this kind of strange little promise. It's going to become something so amazing in Jesus Christ. In verse three, he says, I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. That little prediction of Christ coming through the seed of Abraham. Now, turn over to Genesis 17. And the Lord gives a little more detail about what he's doing and his promises to Abraham. Genesis 17, starting in verse 1. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Abram is 99 years old, no kids, and God says, I'm going to multiply you. And what you're going to see later, Paul is going to refer to this and he's going to say, we have a God who calls things to be out of things that were not. Abraham, Abram at this point, is dead in his body. He can't have kids. Sarah can't have kids. That's not a problem to God. And Abram knows this in verse 3. He says, Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you. Now, how would this happen? Turn over to Romans chapter four. Abraham has this promised seed, Jesus Christ, who would be the satisfaction of God's wrath against our sins so that those who have faith in him will become Abraham's children regardless of their nationality. OK, so Paul tells us how this happens in Romans chapter four. Now, keep in mind Paul's goal. was to go to the Gentiles. He is taking the gospel to the Gentiles. He is writing this letter to the Romans and he says, look, I want to stop by and see you, but my end goal is Spain because I've been to all these places and we've established churches here and I need to get to Spain and plant churches there. So he is fulfilling this commission. It's his drive is to get the gospel out to the nations to make children of Abraham. Just read there, Romans 4. Verse 13, he writes, For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of what? The world. It's interesting. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Because when God made this promise to Abraham, even though he was dead, he believed God and God counted it to him for righteousness. OK, so it wasn't through law keeping. Had the law been given when Abraham was alive? No. So he could not have kept the law in order to be blessed. So Paul is pointing out that law keepers don't inherit the promises. That's not the purpose of the law. He says, verse 14, For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath. For where there is no law, there is no transgression. That's why it depends on faith. In order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring. Not only to the adherents of the law, that's the Jews, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of what? Of us all. Interesting language. Verse 17, As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. In the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist, speaking about Abraham having a child, Isaac. Verse 18, in hope, Abraham believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations as he had been told, so shall your offspring be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words it was accounted to him were not written for his sake alone but for ours also. It that is righteousness will be counted to us or put to our account who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification just as God called It says he gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. He did that with Abraham and as far as him having a child. But he did that with Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ, we're told there in verse 25, was delivered up to the governmental authorities for our trespasses. But he was raised for our justification that we could be declared righteous in God's eyes because he called him. Out of the grave, he did the impossible. He resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead. Christ died for our sins as our substitute. And so then when we believe the gospel, the God who calls into existence things that are not, when we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, he takes our faith and counts it as our righteousness, just like he did with Abraham. And in doing so, we are Heirs with Abraham, we become his children. So we see that through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we become children of Abraham and heirs of the promise of righteousness. Now, let's go back to our doxology in Romans 16. In verse 25, when Paul writes about the revelation of the mystery in Romans 16, 25, the word revelation is the same as what is used in Romans 1, 16 and 17. So, look at Romans 1, verses 16 and 17. Revelation is apocalypse. We talk about it as something that is revealed. Well, he talked about something being revealed in Romans 1. Paul's doing a masterful job here as he finishes up the book to throw little spiderwebs, threads back to the book and pull all this in to this conclusion. He says, Romans 1.16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. God has revealed his plan to save people from all nations through Jesus Christ, through the gospel. He has revealed that it is through faith that we can be saved, through faith in Christ. When Paul uses the word mystery, it hearkens us back to Romans 11.25. Look at Romans 11.25. He says, lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. The Gentiles are the all nations. And we don't see very many Jews being saved, even in the New Testament. There's there's a lot as far as we think, well, there's You know, three thousand saved and that type of thing. But that's that's small compared to the total number that were in Jerusalem. And there's this partial hardening as the gospel goes out to the Gentiles. It's a partial thing because there are Jewish people who still trust Jesus Christ as their savior. And we still see that in our day. But for the most part, that has happened as the gospel is going out to the nations. And this is a mystery. It was something that was previously hidden, but now has been revealed. The gospel is going. All the nations can partake in the great marriage of the Lamb. All nations can be Abraham's sons. Recall also that Paul said in the book of Romans, not all who are of Israel are Israel. Not everybody that's just born of Abraham in a physical sense is of spiritual Israel. It's also us, the Gentiles, who are included in through faith in Jesus Christ. This now revealed mystery is going out to the nations. And back to our doxology, all of this is according to according to the command of the eternal God. This command came from Jesus Christ. Look at Matthew 28, Matthew 28, verse 18, the Great Commission. And just while you're turning there, let me. Let me point out to you that the gospel of Matthew starts out with the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. He starts with Abraham because we've got this new nation coming into existence. And so then it ends with Jesus saying in Matthew 28, 18, And Jesus came and said to his disciples, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." You see, God has revealed His plan to save the nations and bring them into obedience through Jesus Christ. Now, the question for you this morning, have you believed the gospel? Are you a follower of Christ? Are you living in obedience to him? Are you making disciples among the nations? If you're here this morning and you never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you can become a child of Abraham, an inheritance. part of the inheritance of righteousness, if you will place your faith in Jesus Christ for your sins. See, He died for our transgressions. He died for our sins. He is the offering that satisfied God's wrath against our sins. Place your faith in Him today. Accept Him as your Savior. Follow Him. He is your King, the King of a nation that knows no borders, the King who deserves your allegiance and your obedience. The application here, God has revealed his plan. Are you obediently participating in it now? You may be here this morning and you say, man, I've been a Christian for a long time, pastor, and sometimes this Christian life gets weary and it gets hard. Well, I entitled this help for when you are weary, and that's where we get into Romans 16, 25, the very first part of the verse. Paul writes this now to him. who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. Here we see how God strengthens his children. When Paul writes here, according to my gospel, don't make the mistake of thinking that Paul's gospel is different from the gospel. Not too long after arriving here as the pastor, some fellow called me on the phone and he He was trying to explain how Paul's gospel was different from Jesus gospel. We had to believe Paul's gospel now. And I'm like, no, that's no, that's misunderstanding. But that comes from this. He's what he's doing. Paul is that his intent in saying my gospel is not to say that my gospel is different from the other gospels. When Paul says my gospel, he's referring to the fact that he received that gospel directly from God, not from any man. You don't have to turn there, but Galatians 1, 11 and 12, Paul writes this to the Galatian believers. He said, For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, if Paul received that as a revelation of Jesus Christ, was Jesus Christ still walking the earth? He wasn't at the time that he gave it to Paul. Right. So God in his infinite wisdom. Here's a here's a proof, folks, that Christianity is not some made up thing, because if if Jesus would have had his disciples and they were following him and they just all gathered together and said, hey, we're going to we're going to preach this, OK, and we're going to say this about Jesus, we can we can all come to an agreement on that. Right. And they all followed Jesus. They were with Jesus on on this earth. And so this is what we're going to say. And you could make the accusation then that possibly this was a made up religion. Now, the fact that all of them died for their faith is a good indicator that they weren't faking it. OK, but in addition to that, we have this enemy of the church, Paul. who persecuted the church after Jesus Christ was dead and resurrected. This guy is persecuting the church. He's not been taught by Jesus. But then God knocks him off his donkey one day and blinds him and says, hey, look, you're going to serve me. And Paul pops up and he spends time with the resurrected Jesus. And he goes out and he preaches the same gospel as these other guys that he hasn't met yet. Ah, isn't that interesting? Folks, you can believe this book. It is divinely inspired. OK, so you got me off track. Paul's gospel is the gospel. OK, not any different from Jesus gospel or anybody else's gospel. It's the gospel. But God here in this passage, we can see that God uses the gospel and the preaching of Christ to strengthen our faith. You see, the gospel, God strengthens his children, number one, through the gospel. The gospel reminds the Christian of our past need for salvation and the love and power of God to provide it. When Paul writes to him who is able, the word able is the same root word as power. So that harkens us back to Romans 1.16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation. You see, God is able. He is powerful enough to strengthen you to serve Him. But we have the gospel that saves us out of the world and points us to Christ. But have you ever had one of those times Like maybe your kids, you taught them how to swing a bat and they couldn't swing a bat and hit a ball without you, you know, without you holding it. And then then suddenly they learn and they start getting good and then they forget how terrible they were. And then and then like, oh, I just did this all by myself. Well, you know what? Christians, Christians do this, too. God cleans us up and then we go out in the world and suddenly we think, well, you know what? I'm just kind of better than everybody else. And God in the Old Testament, made the Israelites remember that they were once slaves once a year. What festival did he make them celebrate? Passover, right? You were slaves in Egypt and not through any works of your own, but through my redemptive power, you were provided a lamb to sacrifice instead of your first born child. And I delivered you out of Egypt. So every year the Israelites were reminded I was once a slave. Now I'm free through no work of my own, but through the mighty power of God. Well, the night that he was to be betrayed, Jesus had a Passover meal with his disciples. And in the church, it says not every year, but as often as you do it, right? So our reminder of the gospel as a church is the Lord's Supper. And it's that time when we examine ourselves, and it's also a time for us to remember we were slaves, not in Egypt, but we were slaves to sin. And through no power of our own, God provided Jesus Christ as a sacrifice. He gave His body. He gave His blood. for us, and when we rely on that and we take that into ourselves by faith, it's a powerful symbol of what spiritually happened. It's a reminder that we were helpless without God. And if you're having trouble remembering how bad you are, turn to Romans 5. Romans 5, verse 6. I preached this in chapel this past week. There's a lot of great passages in the Book of Romans. A lot of great passages in the Book of Romans. But this is probably my favorite. I'm going to hedge my bets a little bit, but I'm pretty sure this is my favorite one. Because of the way it describes us and then God's massive love for us, despite who we were. Just to give it to you, I've told you before, it describes us here in four ways. We're weak, ungodly sinners who are enemies of God. That's us. But despite all that, God's love was so great that while we were that, Christ died for us. Romans 5 verse 6, For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." What a God! When life gets tough, when you're weary, preach the gospel to yourself. Preach the gospel to yourself. Because oftentimes when we get tired, because we're trying to do it all. Jesus said, take my yoke upon you. Yoke binds two animals together, right? We're not farmers around here much anymore, but used to put two and we got tractors to replace animals, but used to take two oxen and yoke them together. And so the animals, you wanted to be about the same size and about the same strength so that they would walk in the same direction. And when they walk in the same direction, you doubled Doubled the horsepower, right? Listen, Jesus says, take my yoke upon you because my yoke is easy, right? Why is Jesus's yoke easy? If I walk in the same direction as Jesus, I am tied to, I am yoked to the most powerful being in the universe. But if I try to go a different way, I'm resisting and I'm going to get tired. I'm going to get weary. And I need to hear that gospel again. It says, hey, you were weak. Don't forget you were weak. Like we said back back home in West Virginia, don't get above your raisins. Stop thinking you're something great. Remember, you were weak. You were ungodly. You were a sinner. You were an enemy of God. But God loved you and saved you. Don't grow weary. Go in the same direction as he's going. God strengthens his children through the gospel, but he also strengthens his children through the preaching of Christ. We might paraphrase this translation that we have here as preaching whose content is Christ. The preaching of Christ reminds us of God's goal for us to be like Christ. Look at Romans 8, 28. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. For those whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. God is trying to make you into Jesus Christ's image. And if you're a believer, he will succeed. And he's going to use all things to accomplish this. Everything that happens in your life, God has a good reason for it. It's trying to mold you into the image of Christ. So the gospel reminds us of what we were before we were saved. And then we are redeemed and we're propped up and God cleans us up. And then he says, now be like Jesus. Be like Jesus. And so when we hear preaching about Jesus, that reminds us, oh, I'm supposed to be like Jesus. And I should be encouraged. See, God strengthens His children through preaching about Christ that reminds us of God's goal for us to be Christ-like. And instead of saying, oh, woe is me, everything that happens to me is just bad luck, bad luck, you know, as the old hee-haw song used to say, if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. We start thinking that way and we can't think that way as Christians. It's Christians, it's all things are working together for good that I can be conformed into the image of God's Son. So whatever this I'm in, I need to change. I need to be more like Jesus. So God strengthens his children through the gospel and he strengthens them through the preaching of Christ. Now, I'm an expository preacher and I don't like to pull things into the text that aren't there. But give me just a little leeway here, OK, because I think there is a thread. that we can take, because Paul writes in Romans 16, 25, to him who is able to strengthen you. The word strengthen harkens us back to the beginning of Romans and Paul's desire to visit the Romans and strengthen them. Romans 1, verse 11. You see, the church, which is a gathering of baptized believers covenanted together, the church encourages us in our journey to glorification. when we will be in the presence of Jesus Christ. Romans 1, verses 11 and 12, For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. Paul told the Corinthian believers, Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Paul desires to visit Rome so that he can strengthen the believers there and be encouraged of a mutual encouragement. And then in the end, he says now to him who is able to strengthen you. Well, that tells me God is able to strengthen us. And the means that he often uses is our fellow believers. God strengthens his children through the encouragement of seeing other saints live out their faith. Week to week coming to church, knowing that this person has went through the ringer or hearing testimonies from older saints and them saying, boy, you know what? When I was a young person with three kids and da da da da da and God showed himself faithful and we are encouraged by one another. You see, the more you know about the gospel and about Jesus Christ and the more you observe others following Christ, the stronger your faith become. in the application for us. God uses the gospel, the preaching of Christ and the encouragement of seeing other saints live out their faith to strengthen our faith. So join a church where you are reminded of the gospel, where you hear Christ centered preaching and you can be encouraged by other saints living for Christ. Now, finally, and you know, take a breath because this is the third point, but it's a very short In verse 27, Paul continues the thought that he started in 25. He says now to him, in verse 25, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen. This is where we see our reaction to God's wisdom. The word glory there means to honor as enhancement or recognition of status or performance. Synonyms are fame. recognition, renown, honor, prestige, glory. To God be glory. The application for us. My response to God's plan to save and strengthen me through the gospel is to honor him with a life lived for Christ. Live your life for Christ. He's the king of that nation that you've become a part of. He's your brother who died for you. He's the firstborn among many brethren. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states this. What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Obedience to God is not something that takes all the joy out of life. What is the blessing of the gospel? Obedience is the blessing of the gospel. We can live our lives for God's glory and enjoy Him forever. Don't grow weary in serving the Lord. God will strengthen you when you remember the gospel, focus on the goal of Christ's likeness and join a church where you can be encouraged by others participating in God's plan. I want us to finish this study of Romans. If everyone would stand to their feet. And I want us to sing the doxology. Paul's given us a doxology. I told you those are glory words. They're praise words about God. And hopefully this is familiar to all of you. If not, sing along with us. We're not going to have any accompaniment. I'll sing for those who are listening to this message. on digital platforms or whatever, I apologize, okay, that you won't be able to hear this congregation sing, but let's sing the doxology. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise him above, ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.