Greetings and Final Instructions

We have come to the end of the epistles to Romans. And today we're going to wrap up what we've heard the last few weeks, come to a conclusion, what it really means for us. And hopefully I can give you a synopsis, an overview, what the whole book says, what the whole message is. And I believe Romans, but especially this last chapter gives us safety, security.

We live in a time where people feel very unsafe, very unsecure. And I believe it has to do with that. There's been a major shift in the world. You know, in the past we had ultimate standards, someone's religion, faith, ideology. And I would put myself under, submitted under that ideology or that faith, knowing that is the standard.

But we have reversed it. And now the self is in the middle, in the center, the self is the standard. And it's okay to change, to change your religion all the time, to change even your gender, change your political convictions. I think even in the church we see that we, we're Baptist church here. And I know there's many of us who've perhaps come from charismatic church, Methodist, all kinds.

It's all blending. It's all very flu. There's no more really clear standards. And everything is constantly changing. And people feel like they don't have something strong to stand on in the youth.

We've talked quite a bit about the anxious generation. Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist and sociologist from New York City is talking about. He calls the young generation the anxious generation. And I believe I even would include myself constantly anxious, constantly concerned what is happening in the universities. Ten years ago it started that people needed safe spaces.

In the past, university was known to have very diverse opinions and people should be challenged and they should feel intellectually discomfort because that is important to build critical thinking and resilience.

And we live really in a time that is probably safer than ever. When you just think of childbirth. In the past, many women died in childbirth. Today we're safer. There's so many safeties in our cars and our houses.

You know, just look at German, the norms, how to build a house. And still there's the sense we're not safe.

And I think has to do also what really in academia has been the main push. We live in the age of declaration, deconstruction. Everything is deconstructed. There's nothing you can take for sure. Everything should be questioned, everything.

And you see it even in the Christian world. There's so many, we have access to so many teachers, Bible teachers, opinions on YouTube, everywhere. But I believe Romans, especially this last chapter, kind of concluding everything shows us we have a safety, we have a rock that we can stand on.

You and I in Christ we can be safe.

So I want to talk first quickly about the greetings we just heard. We just heard the end of the greetings and a short warning about false teachings. And then we'll go into the part of the doxology, just a few words to the greetings. The people Paul greets here is a very diverse group. Jews, Gentiles, men, women, many women slaves and high officials in the Roman Empire.

For me, I love that we didn't read it, but it says in verse 13, greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mother, who has been a mother to me too. You know what the story behind this is? There's wonderful biography. Every person that is mentioned in these greetings, it's the son of Simon from Cyrene. This is the person that when Jesus was taken to Golgotha to the cross, he by accident was there just.

And they just called him take the cross carried for Jesus. And it says in Mark 15:21. And a certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, the one that Paul just greeted, was passing on by his way in from the country and they forced him to carry the cross. And I love it because it's, you know, Paul says he was chosen in the Lord. That choosing started with his dead by accident by God's election being right walking there when Jesus was crucified and God picked the dad and he picked the whole family.

Alexander, Rufus, who were well known in the church, and the mother who became a mother to the apostle Paul.

Then Paul talks about the false teachings and commentators are kind of unsure. It's a bit right at the end comes this part about the warnings that there's nothing said before in the whole Epistle of Romans. But commentators are pretty sure also that these are the same Judaizers who really taught a false gospel, tampering with the gospel and he's warning of them. And this is of course, the last part, leads us into the last part, the Doxology. Probably many of you.

And I just now realized, can you do it? You think you can follow? Thank you, Joe. I have this thing, but I. I've never done this, so I probably give up right from the beginning. All right, so we have the Doxology.

And I'm going to read it again because this is really what I'm going to talk about today.

Doxology comes from the word doxa and Logos, the glory, the glory of God and Logos, the word. With words we glorify God. God is glorified here. And you know, I think we could treat it as well, you know, this is just how we end up being prayer. Praise be to God.

Hallelujah, Jesus, or something like this. It's not a side note, it's not just a nice religious ending. I believe Paul on purpose ended on a high note. He ended on the mountain. Just as Jesus was magnified, glorified on the mount of transfiguration.

He stops, he ends his letter on the mountain of glory. Let me read it again now. To him who is able to establish your. Strengthen you in accordance with my Gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with 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 Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith, faith to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ. Amen.

I believe this doxology is. Is kind of like a book cover with the beginning, chapter one, and these verses, these three verses, almost every important concept, every important word in these verses we see already in chapter one. And I want to make a case that really. And commentators say that this is like the framework that shows us what Romans is really about, this doxology. In the first paragraphs in Romans 1, I have a book called Strengthened by the Gospel.

And the thesis of that book is this is really what it's about. It's about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that we are strengthened by it. And these, what we just read now to him who is able to strengthen you, we have the same phrases in the beginning it says, for I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation. Now, you might say that's not exactly the same, but you need to know when he talks about the power of God for salvation, the word is dunamis. And probably if you've been in church for a while, you've heard that word dunamis.

You know where our word dynamics comes from. And in. In the. In the end, in this doxology that we just read, he's able. Is in Greek the same word, just the very verb form dunami.

Okay, so he has the power. He has the power to strengthen you. He has the power to. To the capacity to strengthen and establish you, because that's really what strengthen means, is to encourage, to make strong, but also to make you rooted. And we see in the Bible many pictures of what Our life should be like in Psalm 1, it says, the one who meditates on the word of God.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water. This is such an important picture in the Bible. And see, this is exactly what I said in the intro. We live in a time of constant change, fluidity. Everything is constantly changing.

God says, I want to root you, I want you to establish you. I want you to stand strong. I want you to be that tree that will not easily blown over, but you will be standing on a rock. Then nothing can blow you over. And so we see.

So these same topics come in the end, in this doxology and in Romans 1. And we see also important is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And he said in the beginning, in chapter one, Paul from the beginning says, it's the Gospel about the Son. And see, I believe we live in a time, or let me say about Germany, the way I grew up here in Germany. I often have the feeling when you hear preachers in Germany sermons, then it's often that people talk about their own experiences.

You know, we call it a springboard message. You take one, two concepts, two ideas from the text, and you just bring into your own ideas, almost like a stream of consciousness. You just. People just babbling whatever comes to their mind, whatever they think. That's why I love to be here in this church where we try to faithfully exposit the text, go through the text and say, what is God speaking?

What is the line of thought that we follow here? Or we hear many messages in our time. The five steps to a happy life. There are three steps to a successful life. No, we want to have the word of God.

We need the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That alone will really strengthen us. And just think about the biography of Paul.

You know, some people call it a conversion when he's on the way to Damascus. But he really, truly believed. He believed in the true Son of. In the God. Sorry, say it again.

He believed in the true God, right? But he was persecuting the church. He was on the way to have believers, Christians put in prison, killed Jesus appeared to him a flashing light, thundering. Jesus asked him, why do you persecute me? He had an encounter with Jesus, the Son of God.

And that needs to be our message. I want to give you an example. I realized I was working for an American company. We produced audio equipment and I had good talks about faith. But one day I realized I'm talking about secondary issues.

I'm really quick to talk about church and how our church prep is different Than Landeskirche, you know, the state church, or to talk, you know, just secondary things. And I realized, and I really asked God for forgiveness. I'm not talking about you. You're the center of my faith. It's about you, Jesus.

That's what Paul is saying. It's about the Son of God. I am preaching Jesus Christ. Christ. And then we see also in the verse that we just read is that this gospel was promised in the Holy Scriptures.

It was hidden, but now revealed. We read it in the, in the Doxology. We said it was made known through the prophetic writings. In Romans 1, it said promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. It's amazing.

There's no other faith like this, no religion that promised their Savior. People stood up and says, I have the truth. I have the right way to God. But Jesus was promised. He was prophesied about.

Details about his life were talked about in the, in the Holy Scriptures. I believe that's what Paul. It says that at least 12 years he was in the desert, Arabian desert, to study the Word. And I think what he came to, the conclusion, conclusion is this Jesus I met on the way of to Damascus. He's all over the Scriptures.

That's what he said. What Jesus said to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. The Scriptures are full of me, right? It's a bit hidden. It's perhaps not as clear, but with Paul's writing with the New Testament, these things are revealed.

And then it talks about an obedience from faith. In this Doxology it says, so that all Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith. And in Romans 1:5 it says, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations. This is the purpose. That's one thing the Gospel accomplishes, is that we receive the grace by faith.

We receive the gospel. We see it as a free gift from God and receive it by faith and say, yes, Lord.

And what comes next is the obedience. Some people want to turn it around. I want to impress God with my obedience. I'll be a good Christian. No, we can never be good believers.

New Christians, good Christians. It is only after we received the free gift of grace by faith, obedience will come.

As I said, I believe this book is really about strengthening us, establishing us with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And perhaps some of us might think, you know, that's good and nice to have. But I want to show you why I believe this is so essential to our Walk with God. There's a scripture that really kind of shocked me. In second Timothy three I'm going to read verses two and five.

It says for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy. When you read that list, first you must think that's clearly unbelievers. These are pagan, must be atheists, you know, horrible atheists, horrible unbelievers. But in verse 5, it then says they having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. Avoid such people.

These are people that think they're believers, they think they're fine.

And what are they lacking? They have appearance of living a Christian life, but they're lacking the power. We need the power. We need the gospel. And that's why I believe this whole title that the pastors have given us.

Gospel transformation. We all need it. You know, many times we think it's only for the beginning of our walk, it's for the unbeliever, but we need it. It's not an abc, it's not the beginning lessons of our faith. It's for all of our lives.

It's A to Z. It is for when you come to faith and to the last breath. I'm in contact with an older couple, people who have been very faithful for years, decades have served God. But towards the end of their life they become very stubborn, very difficult, very harsh. And you know, at times I'm really shocked because I knew them when they were pastors and God used them and did wonderful things.

See, it's not enough to start strong, it's not enough to run hard in the beginning. We need the power of the gospel to the last breath of our lives. Do you believe that?

So it is essential. It's not just a nice to have. We need this power to change us, otherwise we're in danger to be like these people in second Timothy three, unholy. Not right.

Now I want to come to the topic of doxology glorifying God. And Pastor Chad has mentioned this already. The Westminster Shorter Catechism asked in its first question, and I think this is the leading question for the whole catechism, what is the chief end of man? Think for a moment. Probably you know the question, the answer already.

But we might say perhaps, you know, to do missions or to be a good Christian, be good citizen, as many things are good. But the catechism rightly says man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That's what you And I are made to be do you believe that we're here on this earth? And thank you, Enrico. You had a lot of songs already talking about and glorifying God with these songs.

It was beautiful. This is what it's about. That's why we're here on this earth. Really consider it. Is that why you're here?

And I believe, and I want to show this now, going through some of the verses we've heard over the last few weeks, showing that this glorifying God is like a red thread that goes through all of Romans.

We have four people divided up in different sections. But I follow here Douglas Moo, one of the probably greatest evangelical commentators of Romans. And he divides it up in four main sections. And the first four chapters is about justification. We're justified by grace through faith.

And then the next big section is chapters five to eight. And there it talks about sanctification. We've heard all about sanctification and glorification. And then we have the section chapters 9 to 11, which suddenly talks about Israel. It comes a bit surprising, but in a way it is really about is God's word trustworthy?

And you know, we've heard that Jesus, the gospel was already promised. It was in the Old Testament, in the Holy Scriptures. And I believe Paul put it in because people could have said, there are all these promises for Israel. Does God not keep his word? If he didn't keep his word with Israel, the same could happen to us.

All the promises we have, I believe that's really what chapter 9 through 11 is about to say. No, the promises of God are yes and amen. They will come true. God will. He does what he says.

That's why he finishes in chapter 11. The people of Israel will, in the end come to faith in Jesus. So it's about the trustworthiness of the word of God. And then the last part, he really. We've heard about the obedience from faith.

Not obedience first, but faith first and then follows obedience. It talks about the practical parts, about how we live it in church, how we submit to the authorities, secular authorities and so on. And I want to show you in these four parts how the topic of God's glory and glorifying goes like a red thread, like I said, through these in Romans 1:21. It takes it in a negative way. It says about the people living, living in sin, right?

We heard all these horrible sins, perversions in the world. And then it gives the reason why people sin. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to Him. But their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. See, this is.

That's where it all starts. God is glorious. Everyone could know about God, but because we don't recognize God, because we don't want God. God deserves to be glorified and that's why he gives them over to their sins. Later then, in chapter 3:23, it says, for all have sinned, right?

In that chapter it talks about no one is righteous, no one seeks God. There's no righteous. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And see, when it talks about we fall short of the glory of God, I think it. It alludes to how God made us in the beginning it talks about that we image bearers and normally we take the image bearers of God as that every person has an intrinsic value.

If you know, in many societies, communist, capitalist is only what you contribute to society that gives you your value. But we know, because we're image bearers. Everyone has incredible value before God. But it is more. I believe the image bearer also means that the image of God, we bear it.

It's stationary. It's not. We're not God himself, but we carry some of his glory in the world. And we have fallen short of that. We missed it.

God has given us such a incredible calling to be image bearers in the world. But we live selfishly, sinfully, and that's why we have fallen short of the glory of God. And then I said the first chapters is one section. And then comes chapter five, the end of chapter four. When it talks about Abraham, we read the whole story of Abram, how he's been an example of faith.

He received the grace, grace of God. It was not by works. He didn't follow the law, but he just received the grace of God. He received the promise of God that he would have a son and he would have descendants as the stars in the sky. And then it says because of that he couldn't say, oh, I've done it.

And God is, you know, is happy with me. No, because he is someone who just received the grace of God. It says, yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.

Because you knew it didn't depend on me. I don't deserve anything before God. But because of his grace I give glory that he would choose me. I'm so weak, I cannot even produce descendants. I cannot even have a son by myself, with my wife Sarah.

And that's why he gave glory to God. And so this topic of glorifying, giving glory to God runs through all of Romans. We see in chapter five that it starts, it talks about now that we have been justified. It's like this is a done deal. We all know we're justified by faith.

And then it says, and we boast now in the hope of the glory of God, do you have. Do we have a hope of glory?

Do you realize when we go through hard times, can we say, but I know one day, one day I have hope. I will live and see the glory of God. I will live in the glory of God, and I will reflect some of that glory into the world. It's the hope of glory. And then he talks about the suffering.

Like we've heard from Martin, a lot of, you know, there's a lot of suffering that we have to deal with. It's going through rough times at times, but that causes us endurance and so on. But we always need to have before our eyes the hope of glory. And then in chapter eight, it talks about something called the golden chain of salvation. Phineas preached on that.

Those he called, he also justified. Those he justified, he also glorified. It's like links, links of salvation. He calls us with that we're justified because we're justified. We're glorified.

It belongs together. Can you. Have you ever thought of yourself, I'll be glorified. I'll be glorified.

And I know sometimes we Protestants have a bit of problem. I know from church history, Luther was really against the doctrine or that against the understanding of glory. He says, we need the theology of the cross. And I think it had to do with the times then that many supposed saints did all these crazy miracles. They were levitating and doing crazy miracles.

And perhaps some of, you know, you know, what's sometimes happening in charismatic world. You know, we have gold dust and then winds are blown into an assembly and people claim, oh, it's the spirit of God that's fakery. But there is true glory. We shouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water, you know, only because there's been wrong understandings of glory. God has glory for us.

And the main thing is we will see the glory of God face to face. You know, we talked in the youth, I've mentioned this, that, you know, when it, when, when God says to Abraham, walk before me in, in Hebrew, the word really the four, it doesn't mean to walk ahead of God. It doesn't mean work before him. It really, the Literal translation means to my face, walk to my face, walk facing me wherever you go. That's what it means to walk facing his glory, walk seeing him.

And then in chapters nine to 11, like I said, I believe it's about the trustworthiness of God's Word. As he's kept the promises to Israel, he will also keep the promises to us. And then in the end, when it's all a bit confusing, what's going to happen with Israel and all these things. But then he says for another doxology for from him and through him, and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever.

Amen.

All these promises. In the end, it's again to glorify God, to show how great he is, how marvelous, that his ways are beyond us. We don't understand everything, but he is to be glorified. And in this last part, chapters 12 to 15, when it's really about the obedience from faith. And as we heard last Sunday, as Tim preached about that God bridged the gap between the Jews and the Gentiles, there was so much tension between these groups in the church.

And he talks about, We've heard it already, last time, last Sunday, it's all about to glorify God, that we would glorify God with one voice. It says in Romans 15:6. And then in Romans 15:9 it says that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. As it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles. I will sing the praises of your name.

That's why we're here on this earth, to glorify Him. Everything he does is to give honor and glory to him. And I just want to finish with Jesus. Jesus as he's presented in the whole book of Romans.

Because I believe we need to be like I said before, sometimes, like I've said in Germany, sometimes people talk mostly about themselves, about their experience, about their take on things, their take on scripture. It is about Jesus.

Jesus in Romans is seven times mentioned as the Son of God. Couple times, his own Son. God's own Son, really saying how unique the relationship between the Father and the Son is. He is described as Savior, deliverer. He's the last Adam.

Under Adam, we were all under sin. The whole humanity came from Adam and is under sin. But Jesus brought righteousness. We're part. If you're a believer in Jesus, if you entrusted your life to him, you're part of a new humanity.

And the most startling One, in Romans 9, 5, it says the Christ who is God over all, blessed Forever. Amen. Another doxology Christ. You know, when you look at YouTube, there's a lot of Muslim apologists who want to show, oh, Jesus never claimed to be God.

Even atheist apologists will say, oh, this is not clear that Jesus, he was a good guy, he was a good teacher, but he's not God. No. He says here very clearly, the Christ who is God, overall blessed forever. This is our Jesus. Now I just want to finish with a prayer and then we'll go into the song, Behold Our God.

Because I believe truly, to glorify God is to step into the glory of God. When we talk about the glory of God, it's. We see it in the Old Testament when the glory of God went with the people of Israel through the desert. It was a day, a cloud would guide them the way. At night, a column of fire.

And it was really to show God is amongst us, he is in our midst. He's dwelling. Sheikhina really means he's dwelling in our midst. He's with us. I believe God calls us as a church, the place that God dwells.

Ephesians talks about we're a temple. We're not a church really, made of stones. We're a temple made of living stones. You and I, every one of us is a living stone. We're to be a temple that God dwells in.

That's what we're made to. To be in the presence of God, to walk before him, face to face, and to reflect their glory into the world and to glorify Him. I believe that's our first calling. That's what I pray for.

God, we praise you, coming to the end of the book of Romans to see your wonderful salvation, how you justified us and we didn't deserve a thing. I was a sinner, lost, dark, filthy, my thoughts and words. But God, we thank youk that yout saved us, that yout made a way to know youw.

And God, you called us to come into youo glory, to know youw, to glorify youy, and to reflect yout glory into the world. God, I pray for everyone that we would experience this this week. We walk before you in your presence. We see you in hard times and good times. But we can say, God is with me, his presence is with me.

I've seen his glory and I will glorify him forever. Amen.

Thank you for joining us in person this afternoon and also online. Thank you for joining us. And I trust that the Holy Spirit has spoken to your heart. Thank you, Jonathan, for bringing the Word to us. I want to leave you with another doxology found in the book of Jude.

And Jude was written, they think, after Paul's letter to the Romans. And it almost seems like Jude copied him a little bit. But you know what? When you find something so good, you should copy it. So I'm going to read to you as a blessing as we get ready to leave this place to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.

To the only God our Savior, be glory, majesty, power and authority through. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages now and forevermore. Amen. Please, have a seat. We'll have another announcement for just a second.