Serving, Welcoming, and Warning

Introduction

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. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. I’m pretty sure the song we just sang actually has to do with that in Romans 15, where we’re going to be leading into in just a few minute moments to finish the book of Romans, which is my goal this morning. We’re going to cover a fairly lengthy section of text, but I want to do that in really three segments as we work through the sermon this morning. And so you can be ready for that.

I’m going to be in Romans 15, beginning in verse 14 here in just a moment, and read to the end of that chapter, and we’ll have some things to say there, and then we’re going to read through the end of 16 as well. One thing I’ve tried to do as I’ve worked through Romans is read the text. So you’re actually getting the text and not just a bunch of things I say.

That you’re hearing that and hearing the words that are inspired from God Himself. And so that’s part of my goal as I’m working through a book like this is that we’re actually hearing these words and then meditating on them as we think through a book like Romans. Another matter I need to take care of. Last week I mentioned something about pictures being taken with the Bible. And if some of you went to Erica and talked to her about that. That’s not what I was talking about. Caleb posted that picture. It’s fine to do that sort of thing. It was just a point about if we do this a lot and we’re just trying to bring attention to ourselves and build our own kingdom. That is not the idea of what it means to be in alignment with the will of God and what God is trying to accomplish through us.

So just be mindful of those things. I post my own pictures of the Bible at times too. So just the way it goes. Let’s begin reading in verse 14. Romans chapter 15 and verse 14. I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another, but on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, then I have reason to be proud of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem all the way around to Lariculum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ.

And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand. This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, since I no longer have room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints.

For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what I have collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.

May the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Interesting ending there. It sounds like the letter’s over, although he’s going to continue on here in a moment with some salutations, further greetings, and actually some further instruction as he concludes the letter to the brethren in Rome. But I want to start quickly just with a summary. I want to move through this quickly so young people who are taking notes, don’t be upset when we flip these slides fast. You can get them from me later if you want to. I just want to summarize and overview some of what we learned in the book of Romans. And as first that Paul is concerned about Jew and Gentile coming back together. Claudius’ edict is being revoked at his death in AD 54.

Jews like Aquila and Priscilla are coming back. And there’s a little concern that there may be conflict between these two very different ethnic groups. Paul sets out to make a case and to really, it’s backing both groups a little bit as he works through this to try to bring unity. That what actually matters, the marker of God’s covenant people is faith in Jesus Christ. It’s not the law of Moses, it’s not anything else. There’s no other badge or markers that make you justified or right before God. That marker that makes you part of God’s covenant people is that you believe in Jesus, that you follow him, not the Judaic system or anything like that. And so he’s trying to convince the Jews and the Gentiles to come together as one.

And he’s doing this really all throughout the letter. Now here’s a little breakdown by chapter. If you want to see something like that, some of you are visual of the things that we’ve covered. The first column on the left is the first major section in red. Next is the next major section, chapters five through eight. And then there’s this interesting section in 9 through 11 that’s about God’s faithfulness to Israel. Why is he talking about this? Well, if justification comes to Jesus Christ, then what about the Jews? What about Israel? Was God faithful to them? Paul says, yes, he was. All of this plan through Christ fulfilled God’s promises to Israel. And so he remains faithful to Israel, and he makes this point through chapters 9, 10, and 11, that God has not abandoned Israel.

In fact, he’s worked through Israel through Jesus Christ to fulfill the promise to Abraham to bless all nations of the earth. That was the original promise. Right? And so he’s arguing very systematically for all of this through the book of Romans. And then he makes the case in 12 through 16, and I’m being very broad here, that the important thing here is that they learn to live in harmony with each other. And there’s a lot of other instructions given throughout that, but he sort of weaves that through the whole thing. And when we come to the end of the letter, Paul’s gonna kind of tie all this back together. A lot of what he’s saying here has to do with his ministry and again their connection to each other, but actually weaved through that, and I can’t get into the depths of this right now, but I’m just telling you about it, is connecting it back to chapters one and two and other parts of the earlier part of the letter, where he’s saying, Remember that stuff I talked about earlier about the problem of sin and the Gentiles being brought in?

That was my work. That’s my ministry, that’s what I fulfilled. And now I want to go to Spain, and he’s just kind of giving them details about his plans coming in the future. But in the midst of all of this, there’s some really interesting details that I think we can take note of. And so I want to learn some lessons from Paul’s final words this morning to Rome. Some things we can pull out of this that I think can help us as we think about our own work, our own service, or our own ministry in the kingdom, and how we should view it, view it the same way or in the same sort of way that Paul views it with the same kind of attitude. And in particular, this first section, he’s he’s getting into the details of what God has called him to do.

1. Humble Service Is an Offering

And what I want us to take from this, and there’s so many points that we could take from, particularly chapters 12 onward, that relate to this one concept, the idea of humility, the idea of attitude. Paul is very careful in the book of Romans, the way he words everything he’s doing. And there’s a reason for that. Rome is not a church that he founded. It’s not one of the churches that he went to and established himself. And so he’s he’s pretty careful about how he describes what he wants to do among them and how he wants to help them. And he gives a little more detail about that here in this little section in the early part that we just read in 14 to about verse 22.

He actually describes his ministry or his service in priestly language. It’s kind of interesting. If you notice that first part that we read, he says he’s a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. This is verse 16, in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. He’s going to go on to give all the credit to Christ and the credit to the Holy Spirit and what has been accomplished. This is not something that Paul has done.

No, this is something he was called to. He’s merely serving God’s purposes, and he portrays this much like a priest would be in the temple, just humbly doing their service for the glory of God and for the benefit of those around them. So humble service, we need to understand, is an offering. It is something that we are offering to God for his glory because he is worthy. It is for the growth of his kingdom and his purposes. And the credit, all the credit for whatever we do or whatever service we provide or we are a part of, all of that goes to Christ and to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Now, there’s a whole lot that could go into that idea of sanctification. The concept of sanctification is making something holy.

And we put a lot of attention often on the first part of this process, which is justification, which Paul does too, and that is being made right.

But sanctification is a much longer process. Justification, I’ve heard it described this way, it’s like a boat breaks down out in water, right? Stranded. And justification is it gets towed in to the dock, and now it’s fine. Sanctification is it gets worked on and repaired so that it can go back out to sea. Much longer process. And the way Paul sees his work is he’s bringing the Gentiles to obedience. He’s bringing them to a place where now the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit can get them where they need to be. Paul is only the first part of that. He’s making sure the good news of the gospel gets to them. But most importantly, what I want us to see in relationship to ourselves is the humility that comes with what Paul is doing here in this text.

So much so that he’s actually careful to make sure they understand he has no interest in stepping on other people’s service or work.

That’s the means by which he says he fulfills his ministry of the gospel of Christ in verse 19. And the whole idea there is when I come to Rome, which I hope to do soon, I’m not coming to step on anybody else’s work. I’m not going to come and take credit for things that other people have done. I understand there’s other people who’ve already come and founded the church. Traditionally, people think it was Peter. It may have just been Pentecost Christians who ultimately went back to Rome and started the work there. We don’t know exactly how the church in Rome was established or formed. But Paul wants them to know I’m not coming there just to take over. I’m not going to walk into Rome and say, now this is my work and my service and my ministry.

He is merely there to help in any way he can. And all the way back in chapter 1, he says, I want to come for mutual edification. You have something to offer me. I have something to offer you, and we can work together in the Lord. And he’s very careful to describe all of that in that way. And it’s interesting as we look to the story of Paul and where he ends up. He comes to Rome imprisoned, probably not what he expected. He’s actually has this dream or this idea of going to Spain. We don’t know if Paul ever made it. May have never made it to Spain. But it’s interesting that when we work for God can work through us. When we open ourselves up to the things of God and to what is most needed for God’s purposes, he will work what is most necessary in our lives.

And so the idea here is it’s it’s okay to plan, it’s okay to dream, to have ideas and the things that you want to do. You may never get there. But just take note that one of the first steps of Paul going to Spain is writing this letter. And it very well may have been that was actually God’s purpose for Paul, whether he ever made it to Spain or not. Is that he set out, he wrote this letter, he was preparing the way, he was connecting with these people in Rome, telling them much needed information that was so important, it is inspired of the Holy Spirit, and we’re still reading it today. Whether or not he ever made it to Spain is rather insignificant.

It may have just been the very first step in that process that God actually purposed to use for what Paul was doing. And so we’re now reading it and learning from it even today, thousands of years later. And so whatever dreams or goals that we have, things that we want to accomplish, that’s great. And that maybe that is God’s purpose in our life. But it may just be God’s purpose in our life to take some of those steps along the way, and he can work through those. So God can work through us if we are working for him. And if I approach this humbly with my focus on honoring God and working in his kingdom, we’ll understand and I’ll understand my service is not about what I get.

My service and my ministry, whatever it may be, is about what I offer. Remember back in chapter 12, we’re called to be living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. That is our reasonable service. That’s our ministry. It’s to give of self. It’s not about getting what I get out of it. I’ll get plenty of things out of it, but the focus is about what I’m giving and what I’m doing in service to Christ, in service to his kingdom. And it may be that I find the things that I’m wanting to do somebody else is already doing. Paul’s very careful about that. Maybe in my mind and the way I think I want to build my kingdom, if I’m being self-seeking, I would like to provide a certain service or a certain ministry, but it’s already being done.

And it may be that I need to find another way to serve and to minister to God’s people and to the people around me in my life. As we go through the letter toward the end of chapter 15, he begins talking about this contribution to the needy saints in Jerusalem. And he makes this interesting point here that there are some ministries or some services that are spiritual. In your Bible, it probably says something like in verse 27, they shared, which is actually the word for fellowship. Okay, so that’s coinineo. It’s the word fellowship. They shared or had fellowship in spiritual blessings. The word blessings is actually not in Greek. They’re filling that in translation. It’s just spiritual things, right? Kind of vague. They ought also to be of service.

This is actually a word that has to do with priestly service, the kind of service that would be done in the temple. They would be of service to them in sarkeos, in fleshly things. So this kind of contrast. But interestingly enough, in verse 26, he talks about Macedonia and Achaia being pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. So it’s actually portrayed as well. That word there is also the word for fellowship. It is a contribution, it’s a noun instead of the verb form, but it’s still the word fellowship. So we have fellowship both through spiritual things and through fleshly material things. And there’s a mutual benefit that’s taking place there that sometimes we’re rendering service to people in much needed ways in a spiritual way.

Other times we’re rendering service and having fellowship with people in things that are more fleshly or material in nature. And Paul says here they owe it to them. They owe this, and I think the idea there comes from the foundation of this concept, which is the commonality that comes from being God’s people. They’re seeking equality. They have benefited spiritually, and now they are rendering service back in a fleshly way. They’re having fellowship with them in a very fleshly way through this contribution of money. They receive spiritual blessing, they give back material blessing.

2. Welcome One Another

It’s not all tied up in spiritual activities or actions. Sometimes it’s acts of service in a fleshly way that help people who need food or who need clothing or who just need attention, who need companionship. And all of that is the essence of fellowship, as Paul’s talking about here in Romans chapter 15, and the sorts of things they ought to be doing to work together and to live together in harmony. All of this is a part of humble service in God’s kingdom. Now, as we move into chapter 16, I want to read this, but I just want you to take note of the word greet. The word greet here, this term, is actually can be conveyed as welcome. It is a concept that has to do with being inviting or hospitable to people.

It’s a term that has to do with embrace. So at the end of this, he mentions a holy kiss. That’s not normally the way we greet each other. In our culture, we hug when we want to show affection, or we want to welcome someone. That’s our typical way of doing it. Maybe shaking hands is another way that we do that. So that’s the concept here. And it’s no mistake that this section in Romans, based on the content of the whole letter, is extremely lengthy. You will not find something this long in terms of greeting and salutation in any of his other letters. But he’s making this point about the importance of them welcoming each other and being together and living together in harmony. So here’s what he says in verse 16, chapter 16, verse 1.

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Sincrea, 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. Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risk their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house, greet my beloved Ephenadus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

Great Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Staches. Greet Apellus, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. Greet my kinsmen, Herodion, greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. Greet those workers in the Lord, Trifana and Triphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. Greet Asyncretus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobus, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them. Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympus, and all the saints who are with them, greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.

Most of the content in chapters 12 up to this point, focus on this idea of living in harmony. I’ve already pointed out. Chapter 12, 16 just says that very thing. Live in harmony with one another. Chapter 13 and verse 8 pulls from Leviticus 19. This idea of fulfilling the old law by loving your neighbor as yourself. Oh no one anything except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. And chapter 14, pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding. Chapter 15, I read this a little bit earlier. Live in harmony with one another, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. So he portrays this even in the character and the attributes of Christ Himself, and how Christ treats people.

Welcoming people, embracing people, bringing them in, not keeping separate or avoiding. And he’ll have more to say about that here in just a moment. But I want you to understand that this is just not a boring list of names. That’s not the point here. In fact, whenever you see a bunch of names listed, whether it’s a genealogy or anything else, there’s actually a point to it. There’s some point to it that we should probably look into and wonder why are we getting all of these names? And I would suggest to you that what Paul’s doing here is fitting with his argument rhetorically, with what he’s been doing the whole letter about this idea of living in harmony. And more than that, he is modeling to them what this harmony between Jew and Gentile looks like.

Maybe hard to see. Again, kids, sorry, you probably can’t write all this down. There’s a lot here. But and I tried to color coding it, according to it a little bit for you, and some of you might like that. Even if you can’t read it, you can sort of see the differences. Right? So the Gentiles, if their ethnic background is Gentile, at the very end, that’s in blue. if it’s Jewish, it’s red. And then we have Timothy, who’s later in the letter, toward the very conclusion, who is actually a mixture of Greek and Jew. But what’s interesting is some of them have Greek or Latin names, and yet they’re still Jewish by ethnicity. And we know that for a variety of reasons. It’s just very common in a Hellenized world for someone to have a Greek name or even a Latin name.

That was very common, even if your ethnic background was different. And so you see this list of names and all the different colors. What’s happening here is Paul is recognizing all of these people who have in some way influenced his ministry, or he has seen their work in the kingdom, and he’s realized how beneficial they’ve been for the cause of Christ. Some of these people are well known to the Roman brethren. And he’s saying, hey, remember equila and Priscilla, they were a huge help to me. They even risked their life for me. And I know they’re Jewish and you’re Gentile, but you need to see who they are and welcome them with open arms and embrace them because they are extremely valuable to the kingdom. And the same message is being given for various others as you work through this text, people who are Greek.

One from Asia, right? These people from all sorts of different backgrounds, Paul is saying, and he’s doing this in a purposeful way, I think, these people are important. They matter for the kingdom, and it doesn’t matter if their ethnic background was Jew or Gentile, whether they were from Asia or whether they’re from Rome or whether they’re from Jerusalem, they all have value and purpose in the kingdom, and they’ve all mattered to me. That’s what Paul’s telling them. And I want you to embrace them and to welcome them, and I commend them to you. Now, from a practical standpoint, if we are going to embrace people, if we’re going to welcome them even in a physical way, there has to be a certain level of cordiality between us.

Right? If some of us just sat over here and some of us sat over there and we came in different doors and we left different doors, that wouldn’t be very welcoming or inviting. We had some kind of purposeful division, and I don’t know that the Greeks and the Jews would have had even that sort of relationship. Maybe if there was enough animosity, they would have. I don’t know. But it’s not even necessarily the physical side of it, as it is kind of the emotional or the psychological part of this, but they see each other so differently. We live in a nation, and in many ways, as we always say, is a melting pot, and there’s so much diversity and difference. And so there’s an element of that we accept.

And yet, even in the midst of that, it can be very easy to section ourselves off, to stay with family, for example, or stay with close friends. And I think what we should learn from this example from Paul is the value of all sorts of people in our life and the service that they are rendering, this priestly service in the kingdom, and how much it matters, whether they’re younger or whether they’re older, whether their ethnic background is different, whether they’re a close friend or just an acquaintance. All of these people have value, and I need to be learning who these people are and seeing their significance in the kingdom. And I myself need to be rendering service, and everyone else should be too. This is something everyone is a part of.

You don’t just show up and sit for a little while and then leave. That’s not what it’s like to be a saint, to be part of God’s people. And Paul is portraying this a number of ways throughout the letter, but certainly here, whatever your background is, whether you were burdened with sin most of your life, whether you’ve dealt with all kinds of difficulty in your family, or whether you grew up going to church every single week. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, everyone can render service and everyone can be together and can live in harmony and can glorify God with one voice if they’re here right now together serving in Jesus Christ. And this is the idea and the point Paul wants us to get from this, and he wants them to get from it.

Stop dividing over things that don’t matter. Stop getting worked up about whatever sort of division there might be in the world and realize that what brings you together is your fellowship in Jesus Christ. And so he mimics this through this very physical sort of thing that he’s doing with the saints in Jerusalem by getting these Gentile Christians to contribute, to give money so that he can bring it to them. This is another modeling, I think, of what Paul’s trying to do to say, hey, you should help these people. Can you imagine in the ancient world? I mean, the ancient world was, we worry about racism today. They were extremely racist in the ancient world. They had no interest in mingling with one another. The sort of attitudes they had toward each other were terrible.

And now Paul’s going to Gentiles and saying, hey, why don’t you help these Jews over here? I mean, that would have been, that’s like a joke in the ancient world. Why would you help a bunch of Jews? Unless they had done something for you from a military standpoint, which did happen at times, so it’s in your own self-interest. But why would you just contribute, even out of your own lacking, as we know happened in 2 Corinthians 8 9, for some other ethnic group who you have been butting heads with for hundreds and thousands of years? There’s a message here, Paul is sending, even by this physical action. That he wants them to see the mutual benefit that they can have and the oneness that they now have in Jesus Christ.

And so the message for us is that we welcome each other as fellow servants of Christ, whatever our background is. Whether we connect better with one person or another, we still need to see the importance of a hospitable attitude, a recognition of each other’s value. So what does this look like? Well, we can say what it doesn’t look like. When the brethren are eating together in Galatians 2 and Peter’s eating with the Gentiles and the people from James show up, he leaves and then starts eating with the Jews. That’s what it doesn’t look like. Right? That’s a bad example that Peter gives of the way this should work. But how do we take this today? Maybe when we are together, whether it’s after services and we’re talking, we don’t just stay in our tight little group and only talk to them.

We find ways around and we talk to others. And the amazing thing about that when we do that is we learn so many things about people and we find out ways that we actually connect with them that we didn’t even realize. And part of this is we’re just sort of staying in our comfort level. It’s hard to get, especially for some, it’s harder to get out of that. But I think what we’re seeing in a text like this is the importance of realizing the need to get to know our brethren and to work together. It’s pretty hard to live in harmony when we don’t even actually know each other very well. And I think in many ways this group does a great job at that. But the reality is as we grow and as faces change and some people leave and some people come, that is something that has to continually be worked on all the time.

Or maybe when we go to someone’s house and we share a meal together, who are you sitting with? Is it always the same people? Is it always your family? Are we actually broadening out and getting to know other people in the congregation? These are the kinds of things that matter in terms of harmony and living in harmony together and knowing each other’s lives, knowing the weaknesses we have, knowing the needs that we have. We can’t know that if we don’t know each other, if we don’t value each other, if we don’t greet one another, if we’re not warm to each other. And Paul desperately wants these brethren to see the importance of this. All these different people matter from different backgrounds, and they need to learn to get together and be in unity and fight their battles together against the world.

3. Be Warned About Those Who Cause Division

And then in the midst of all of this, there is this warning. So serve humbly, welcome other saints, but also be warned. Be warned about the people who don’t do these things, who serve in self-interest, who present obstacles to unity. Again, it’s fitting with what Paul’s been doing the whole letter, trying to get them to understand their need to be unified. That one of the problems is people who are creating conflict. People who are divisive, people who are seeking their own glory and their own kingdom and fulfilling their own appetites, and the way they do that is then destructive to the body as a whole. This is something that Paul warns about in many of his letters. It’s just such a danger. When you have people, there are problems.

And those problems have to be worked through, and we can either do it in arrogance and in self-interest, which is disastrous, whether it’s in our home or whether it’s in a church or whether it’s in a business, doesn’t matter. If we’re selfish and self-seeking, all sorts of problems are going to come. But if we’re seeking unity, which sometimes will mean we have to avoid people who are divisive. They have to be called out and warned. And if they won’t change, then they are removed. Because the unity of the group and keeping people in harmony to glorify God with one voice is more important than catering to one person who presents obstacles, and it’s contrary to this teaching about living in harmony. And so Paul warns them.

Stay away from these kinds of people. People who cause division, who put roadblocks in the way of growth among the body, who don’t listen to this teaching. I think he’s talking about the idea of living harmony. That’s what he’s been telling them all through here. So when he says people who are working contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, I mean, that can be very broad. It can also just be he’s been teaching them to be unified and to live in harmony all throughout this whole section. And so people who present problems for that, who are living contrary to that, avoid people like that. Well, that can happen in a lot of different ways. We have to be careful about the opinions that we bring and the division that can cause.

We have to be careful about the influence around us. There’s cultural division and political division, even brotherhood division that exists around us. Don’t let external noise cause division here. Don’t bring cultural division and political division and brotherhood division. Don’t bring it into this place. This is a place for people to live in harmony and to be unified and to grow together and to mature together in Jesus Christ. And so some of the dangers are people who are teaching error, right? As Paul points out here in chapter 16. It can also be the superapostles that he refers to in 2 Corinthians, promoting fear-mongering and causing division while attempting to extend their own realm of influence. You know who I’m talking about. The preachers who go out and they want all sorts of attention.

And they try to get a gathering. Don’t get messed up with that kind of stuff. We have enough to work on here and to focus on at this place. Don’t let the noise create division and bring obstacles to what we’re trying to accomplish here. Avoid such people, Paul says. I appeal to you, this is verse 17, going to the end of the chapter. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause division and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive their heart, the hearts of the naive. 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 and as to what is evil.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you, so do Lucius and Jason and Sospheter, my kinsmen, and Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who is host to me, and to the whole church greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus greet you. 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. Those who present obstacles and create them, they do it through a few different methods. He mentions here smooth talking. They sound really good. They’re able to convince and persuade. That’s the idea. They present plausible arguments that sound really good to people, but actually they’re pulling people away from the truth. The other term there is the word flattery. Well, that’s what it’s translated, but actually, it’s just the word eulogia. You’ve heard of a eulogy, it’s just a blessing. Right? But it’s a fake blessing. They just want to make you feel good. They’re going to praise you and tell you all the good things you’re doing to try to win you over to their side. Right? Be careful. Brother Bowman told me when I was working with him years ago, before I left, it was gonna go other places.

He said, be careful about the people who are super nice to you when you first get there. And I have learned the accuracy of his warning many places. They will come to you, they want you, there’s something going on, and they want you on their side. Unfortunately, it’s just the things that happen with people. Be warned. Be warned about whatever the first story is you hear. Because there’s another side. And the damage that can be created by people who are divisive, who are trying to win the favor of others, to get their own gathering, their own glory, focus on their own passions and desires, and often promise things they can’t fulfill to people who are naive. Did you notice that in the text too? They deceive the hearts of the naive good people who just don’t know better.

Conclusion

And so the warning is as we seek unity and we try to live in harmony, be very careful. Careful about the people who present problems and who create division within the body. Unfortunately, we have leaders, we have men, shepherds, as they’re called, who are set out to help us with that very thing. That’s part of their duty is to watch out for that and to remove influences that do create those kind of problems within the body. Our goal, though, is to live in harmony with each other and to work humbly as servants in God’s kingdom to the praise of his glory through Jesus Christ forever and ever. It could be this morning that you want to start that process. You want to give your life to Jesus Christ.

Paul talks about that in the letter too. Chapters 5 and 6 go into more detail there. About leaving the man of sin, Adam, and entering Jesus Christ, being a part of Him. He says the way you do this, he tells him, You know how you did it, talking to the Roman brethren. You were baptized, you were buried with Him, and then you were resurrected into newness of life, ready to serve Him. There’s a whole lot about service in this letter. You came out of the water, justified. Now you are at peace with God, and now you are in a place to be an instrument of righteousness, part of His army, to serve and to fight for Him. Will you do that this morning? Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing?