We are in Romans chapter 16. Romans chapter 16. This is God's Word. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Sincrea. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you. For she has been a great help to many people, including me. Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I, but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church that meets at their house. Greet my dear friend, Epinetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia. Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you, and Andronicus and Junius, my relatives, who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. Greet Ampeliatus, whom I love in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my dear friend, Stachys. Greet Apellas, tested and approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus. Greet Herodian, my relative. Greet those in the household of Narcissus, who are in the Lord. Greet Triphina and Triphosa. those women who work hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me too. Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Petrobus, Hermas, and the brothers with them. Greet Philogos, Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympus, and all the saints with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send greetings. I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them, for such people are not serving our Lord Christ but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you. But I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Timothy, my fellow worker, sends his greetings to you, as do Lucius, Jason, and Sassapater, my relatives. I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings. Erastus, who is the city's director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings. Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God so that all nations might believe and obey him. To the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ. Amen. May God add his blessing to this reading from his holy word. Well, folks, I don't think we can really devote a whole lesson to this chapter because mostly it's just a long list of names and they're hard to pronounce and they're, you know, we don't know these people. So, I mean, we can just kind of move on, right? Well, of course not. This is God's word. Oh, pastor, you don't seriously mean that we're supposed to really meditate on things like this? It's a list of names. Well, it's not just a list of names. First of all, the fact that there's this long list of names should be instructive in and of itself. If you don't learn anything else from this passage, and I hope you will learn a lot more from this passage, but if you don't learn anything else, you should at least be able to figure out from this long list of names that people are important. People matter to God. You may think that, you know, they all deserve hell. Well, you're right. We all deserve hell, but God has chosen to save. And we don't know which of those folks are going to get saved and which of them aren't going to get saved. We just know that God has given us the responsibility to do everything we can to try and reach them with the gospel. Whether or not they're going to get saved is between them and God. Whether or not we share the gospel with them is between us and God. And God's told us that we are supposed to seek the salvation of the lost. And so when people get saved and all the people in this list are saved people, they're really important because they're our family. They're our family. And look at the list. It involves a lot of men and women. Bunch of women. I always thought Paul was kind of a chauvinist. I thought he was... No. Paul did a great deal to elevate the position of women under the leadership of the Holy Spirit following in the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. But the fact that women are elevated from the way the world would want to keep them down doesn't mean that they're given the same responsibilities and the same role in the family or in the church. It means that within the body of Christ, we're to honor one another. And that includes honoring the women who are listed in this passage as being worthy of honor, support, encouragement, recognition, affection. All of this in this passage, all of this in this list of names. Men of women who are recognized, in many cases, for their hard work. Sometimes for their perseverance in suffering. These folks were in prison with me. Sometimes because of human relationships. They're my relatives. This is so-and-so and his mother, who was like a mother to me too. Because it's not just human relationships, it's also spiritual relationships. We are actually made one family in Christ. When God adopts you into the family, you get a whole bunch of brothers and sisters. My wife and I have had the privilege of adopting four children. Guess what? Our biological children did not get to pick the children that we adopted. And when you and I are in the body of Christ, we don't get to pick who gets saved. Have you ever thought that that person would make a really great member of the body of Christ? And actually that person's already saved and I'm really not so enthused about it. Have you ever met a person who you believe is a Christian, but you kind of wish they weren't on our team? I mean, haven't you ever had that experience? I have. I grew up in church. There are some peculiar people in the church who really are Christians. I mean, we'd like to be able to say, oh, they're not really one of us, but they are. They really are. That's our weird aunt. So we've got to love them. We are brothers and sisters and just like in our human biological family, we sometimes have relatives who are a little stranger than the rest of us. Sometimes within the family of God, we will be called on to give extra love and grace towards somebody who is not someone we would have chosen to be in the family. But the only clue that we're given in scripture as to the basis of God's election, the basis of his choosing, is in 1 Corinthians where Paul tells us that God deliberately chose the people that wouldn't have been otherwise chosen. So it's not just how weird Aunt Tilly got in, that's how we got in. The reason we got to be part of God's family, the reason we got adopted, is because God deliberately chose the nobodies. And we need to remember that whenever we're tempted to feel uncharitable toward our brother or our sister in Christ. Is that clear? People are important, men and women, And even Tertius, the scribe who wrote it all down, verse 22, he gets to say, Hi, I love that. Well, I think we can rightly say that that was not inspired. No, I don't think you can rightly say that. I think God inspired Tertius to add his little, Hey there. His little greeting. It's not much. This is the only thing we know of that he really authored himself. Paul may have said to him, Tertius, why don't you go ahead and put your name too? We don't know. We just know that God in His sovereignty produced what we have. And Tertius, v. 22, who wrote down this letter, greets you in the Lord. Hello. I'm Tertius. I didn't write the letter. I just wrote it down. Paul dictated it, but he has trouble with his eyesight. And when he tries to write anything, he has to use huge letters and that would be inefficient. So he just asked me to write it down for him. So I'm the guy who wrote it down. I wrote down this letter. Hi, I greet you in the Lord. I love that God included that God preserved that because you may feel like You know, I've never really gotten to write a book or preach a sermon. Well, can you make a copy of a CD for somebody else? You can write on the envelope. I'm the one who made the copy of the CD. Hi. That's fine. Tertius made it into the Bible for that. He was a scribe. He wasn't an author. He was a scribe. He just wrote it all out. That's a wonderful function. If he hadn't done that, we wouldn't have this. Is that clear? You may feel like your role is this big within the body of Christ, but there is a purpose and a function that God created and equipped you, gifted you, anointed you to fulfill. And by the way, you may not in your lifetime fully comprehend what it is that God has gifted and equipped you to do. Because it's possible that your role is to be somebody's neighbor. That your role is to be somebody's grandmother. That your role is to be someone's co-worker. And the purpose that will outshine the rest of what you do with your days is going to be the impact you had on someone else who impacted so many more people than you were able to directly. You never know. We don't know. There was a fellow whose name I can't recall, which is fitting given the point of the story. He ran a private school in Britain And they asked him what the secret was of his effectiveness across the years because he was always so unfailingly enthusiastic and attentive to the students who came through his school. He said, how do you do it decade after decade? You treat all these kids so well. How do you keep that attitude? He said, I just remember that I never know, but that one of them might someday be prime minister. What a lovely outlook. What a great perspective. We don't know sometimes the impact that we may have on someone who will go on to have an impact on many others. When I was growing up, one of the people who had a great impact on my life was Billy Graham. He was our neighbor in Montreat. And one of the things that blew me away about Dr. Graham was that the first time I met him, he knew my name. I mean, he knew my name before I met him. He knew that my aunt, who worked as part of his organization, had a nephew and a brother and a sister-in-law who had just moved in to my grandmother's home, where my aunt also lived. And so as we settled in there, Dr. Graham, who at that time was one of the most famous people on the planet, literally. Dr. Graham knew my name. And the first time I met him, it was because he picked me up as I was hitchhiking down Montreat road. I had no idea it was Dr. Graham. I just got in the car, didn't even look to see who was driving. And he said, Jimmy, how are you doing? And I looked over and nearly fainted. And I said, fine, fine, thank you. And he said, how are your parents? And I said, fine. And he said, and how's your Aunt Winifred? And I said, fine, thank you. And he said, and how's your grandmother? Fine. You can let me out right up here. Now he was going to go past my house on the way to his house, but I didn't want to ride with him. I was so scared. I was so overwhelmed because I was in the presence of Billy Graham. And I mean, it was just, it was, it was just overwhelming because this guy is, I mean, he's on TV all the time. He speaks to thousands and thousands and thousands of people all the time. He meets with the president all the time. I mean, this, this is Billy Graham. But you see, he knew who I was because he wasn't too important to learn the name of a 12 year old kid whose dad had taken early retirement because he couldn't keep on in the pastorate. And we'd moved to town to live in my grandmother's house because we didn't have any place else to go. And Billy. didn't see me as a prospect. He saw me as a boy who could use some attention. And so he called me by name, and he showed that he cared. And that had an impact on my life. You know why Billy Graham was so good with names? Because when he was a freshman, I don't know that he was a freshman, when he was in his first year at Wheaton College, He was a transfer student, so he may have had some advanced credits, may have transferred in as a sophomore for all I know, but in his first year at Wheaton College, he was walking across campus one morning and the president of the school saw him walking the other way, said, Billy, how are you doing? Well, he was surprised that the president knew his name. He said, fine, thank you. He said, how are things with your family back in Charlotte? Billy was stunned. He said, well, fine, thank you. And he said, good. Well, Billy wondered, how does he know who I am? And the answer was that the president of Wheaton College got up every morning before dawn and prayed for every student by name. And he knew their face, their name, their hometown, their family. And he prayed for them. Maybe that's one reason why so many of those people who were there while Dr. Edmund was president of Wheaton went on to change the world. People are important. Secondly, attention, affirmation, and affection, three of our famous straight A's, are both commended and exemplified. Paul models that by naming these people, saying something good about them, and then encouraging what? Greet one another with a holy kiss. That's affection. Now it does say holy kiss. But folks, this is a good thing. We ought to recognize one another, affirm one another in whatever is good and worthy of affirmation, and we ought to show affection for one another. This is a good thing. Thirdly, unity is vital. Unity is vital. Paul warns against those who cause division. But please understand, as you look at verse 17, that the construction of that verse balances the call to unity. Look at it. I urge you brothers to watch out for those who cause division and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. How can he call us to unity and tell us to keep away from people? I mean, doesn't that seem like a contradiction? No, it's not a contradiction at all, because it's not unity with everybody at any price. Well, I know these people don't believe Jesus is the only way, but we need to keep the unity. No, no, not with them. Well, I know that these folks are still living in unrepentant sin, and it's very blatant that they refuse to submit to the authority of God's Word, but we need to have a big tent and keep unity. No, not with them. Unity is very important and therefore you are to distance yourself from those who cause division and teach things that are contrary to the scriptures. Is that clear? So, unity is vital, but unity isn't everything. It has to be balanced. Fourth point, look at verse 19b. We desperately need this in our culture and in our church today. I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. Did you hear that? I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. You know one of the problems in the church today? We're not wise about what's good. And we're not innocent about what's evil. We think that part of understanding the culture so we can build a bridge is learning all we can about every perversion that's out there. That's just contrary to the Scriptures. I was reading a review this morning of a book that one of my favorite preachers is about to come out with. And I'm disappointed. Because apparently the approach that this individual is taking, I haven't read the book, but apparently the approach this individual is taking is so that we will be able to answer all kinds of really perverse questions without blushing. And yet I read in the Scripture that one of the things that made God angry toward His people Israel is that they lost the ability to blush. Nothing was embarrassing to them anymore, nothing was shameful, and the Apostle Paul says that there are some things that it's a shame to talk about. So not everything needs to be discussed in graphic detail. Now again, I haven't read the book, so I'm not mentioning the author, but I just want to say We need to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. It's okay not to know some stuff. It's okay if you don't know what certain slang terms mean. Oh, but then, you know, you might end up saying a bad word not even knowing it's a bad word. Well, here's a thought. If you don't know what the word means, don't use it. Is that clear? Is that clear? If you don't know what it means, don't say it. And by the way, my experience has been that about 90% of the vile curse words and obscene statements that people make, they clearly don't know what they mean. And the reason is because if you break down what they just said, it doesn't work, okay? And every now and then when people say something they shouldn't say in front of me, I just kind of challenge them to think about it by asking them, do you really mean that? You understand? I once, I know, upset a person who had been being very vile who got to the point where he said, well, I'll be damned. And I said, it looks like it. And it took him a second, but he got my meaning. Now, I'm happy to tell him how not to be damned, but I'll tell you something. Sometimes people don't realize what they're saying. And you and I need to be careful about what we say. and about what we listen to because we're going to start to think and to speak like the stuff we're hearing that starts playing in our head. Be careful. We need to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. Finally, point number five has four points. Look, look at the benediction versus 25 through 27. This is classic Pauline run on sentence. Okay? If you do this in a term paper, it's going to get points off. Here, however, it's by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so it's absolutely perfect. Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God so that all nations might believe and obey him. To the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ. Amen. Would you say that's kind of a statement that's packed with meaning? It is. Four things I will ask you to note especially. First of all, the gospel is all about proclaiming Jesus Christ. Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ. That's what the gospel is about. Go back and look at the gospels. It's all about Jesus. Look at 1 Corinthians 15 when Paul says, I want to remind you of what the gospel is, and it's all about Jesus. The whole thing's about Jesus. So when you and I are sent forth to proclaim the gospel, we're supposed to be proclaiming Jesus Christ, pointing people to Him. Second point. There was this mystery that was hidden for long ages. Generation after generation after generation, people got little glimpses, just a little peek. Now, it has all come together and been revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The prophetic writings were all pointing to Him, and now that we have the Scriptures so that we can understand by His Spirit what the Scriptures are about, it's about Jesus. It's about Him. The mystery that was hidden has now been revealed. Third point, the purpose of this revelation. The reason God has manifested His glory in Christ Jesus is so that all nations might believe and obey Him. Please notice, believe and obey. Those are the same thing. So much so that sometimes the word is translated alternately. Translated believe here, translated obey there. It's the same thing. You can't really believe without obedience. If you say, I believe, but you refuse to obey, you don't really believe. If you obey, you believe. So please understand, disobedience is a manifestation of unbelief. And we've said before, when Jesus worked miracles, it was always in connection with obedience. He told people to do something. We're not saved by what we do. We are saved by faith that works. You will do good works if you have real, live faith. Believe and obey. And it's not just for some. It is that all nations might believe and obey Him. Fourth and final point, which is the fourth point of the fifth point. Got it. I told you the fifth point has four points. Then why didn't you just say one through nine or something? I mean, I don't understand. One through eight. I mean, I don't know. I don't get it. I think his numbering's off. Here's the final point. To the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ, amen. Number one within the fourth point of the fifth point. God is the only God. God is the only God. And his glory is forever. Not temporary, it's forever. And it is forever through Jesus Christ. It is forever through Jesus Christ. Jesus was not a temporary phenomenon. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And He has been exalted now and glorified at the Father's right hand and is enjoying the glory He had with Him before the creation of the world. You understand? Jesus didn't come to earth and gain the throne that he never had. He left the throne to come to earth to gain the throne for us. So that we could share in his glory. But the glory of God is forever manifested in Christ Jesus. And that is the basis of our salvation. Our salvation is in Christ, not separate from Him. Our salvation is about what He has done and what He is doing. And the reason real faith works is because He is the author and perfecter of our faith and He manifests His life and His character through those who are His. So God is the only God and His glory is forever through Jesus Christ. And that's how Paul ends. And that's how we do too.