Doing My Part Series

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

› Engagement

Back when I was a member of the school board in the Amphitheater School District, the district constructed a new elementary school as well as some other new buildings at existing campuses. And their practice was to place a permanent plaque on the front of those buildings that contained, among other things, the name of the school board members. So at least as long as those buildings remain, my name will be preserved. And, I’m not going to lie, I think that’s kind of cool.

But this morning we’re going to look at a group of people who had their names preserved in a much more important and significant place - the pages of Scripture. While a couple of these names might be familiar to you because they are included elsewhere in the Bible, these people are just ordinary people who played an important roles in the churches in Rome.

› Tension

It is easy for any of us to think that we don’t really matter to God’s kingdom our that our part in the church is so small that it doesn’t make a difference. But this morning we’re going to discover that just isn’t true.

› Truth

Over the next two weeks, we’re finally going to wrap up our study of the book of Romans that began back in the fall of 2014.

In this last section of Paul’s letter, Paul is no longer teaching, but rather sending personal greetings to a number of individuals there in the churches in Rome and sending greetings from another group of friends who are with him in Corinth. This is one of those passages that we could be tempted to just skim over or even ignore, but these final words have much to teach us about what our church ought to be and to encourage each of us to do our part.

Read Romans 16:1–16 ESV

If I counted correctly, Paul addresses 25 people by name here, along with two households and an unnamed mother and sister. We don’t know much about most of these people except what is mentioned here, but just from what we read in these 16 verses, we see that the churches there in Rome were made up of a very diverse group of people. Among the names listed we find both Jews and Gentiles. We find slaves, blue collar workers and the very wealthy. And we find both men and women. It is particularly notable that Paul mentions either 8 or 9 women by name, depending on whether the name Junia is a male or female, plus the mother of Rufus and the sister of Nereus.

There was nothing really notable about these people. Had Paul not mentioned them by name here in his letter, we probably would have never run across their names. Yet they were important enough to Paul and to the church for him to address them personally here. But these ordinary people were indispensable to the work the church was doing there in Rome.

So what was it that drew then together and united them in their mission? What was it that empowered these ordinary people to do such extraordinary things for the kingdom of God? We find the answer to that question in the phrase that Paul repeats 10 times in this passage - “in the Lord” or “in Christ”.

So here is the main idea I want us to take away from this passage this morning:

The church consists of ordinary people

doing extraordinary work in Christ

› Application

HOW TO LET JESUS DO EXTRAORDINARY WORK HERE AT TFC

Welcome and receive others like Jesus welcomes us

Paul uses the command “greet” 15 times in this passage culminating with the command to “greet one another with a holy kiss” in verse 16. I noticed that when I read that verse earlier some of you looked a little uncomfortable, perhaps thinking that I might ask you to do that this morning. Would it make you even more uncomfortable if I told you that same command is found three other times in the Bible - in 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians - and Peter also gives a similar command in 1 Peter 5 when he commands his readers to “greet one another with the kiss of love”.

I’ll let you think about that some more for a few moments while we go back and look at the other 14 times that Paul uses the command “greet”. In Greek, that is a compound word that literally means “to draw to oneself” or “to enfold in the arms”. Figuratively it means to embrace, welcome or even to give honor to.