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.
In many ways, the way we welcome and receive each other reveals a lot about what we believe about how Jesus welcomes us. A tender, genuine greeting demonstrates that we receive each other just as Jesus receives us, warts and all. It conveys the idea that we accept each other unconditionally, without preconditions. It reminds us that we are all part of the family and that we all have a home here.
Unfortunately today it seems like we often try to substitute technology for the kind of personal contact that Paul is advocating here. It is possible to send birthday greetings halfway across the globe to someone who I’ve never even met personally and I’ve done that on occasion. And there is nothing wrong with that. But it’s not a substitute for the kind of one on one contact that should be present in the church. That’s why even though we stream our services for those who can’t be here in person for some reason, that should never be a permanent substitute for gathering together in person.
So how about the holy kiss? The practice of embracing and kissing friends on the cheek was common in Paul’s day and even today that is a common practice in some places around the world. It was a physical expression of deep friendship and often a demonstration of honor and respect. So the church adopted that custom as an expression of genuine love within the body of Christ. The fact that the kiss was to be holy indicated that it should be free of anything that would have been unworthy of their calling as saints. It was also to be free from any kind of partiality or prejudice that might have arisen because of differences in race, social position, or wealth.
In today’s culture, unfortunately the threat of accusations and lawsuits has often led us to avoid even appropriate forms of physical contact. So I can totally understand why so many of us, and I include myself, would be reluctant to literally engage in a holy kiss. However, there are some appropriate applications of that command for us.
It’s really hard for us to greet someone else warmly and genuinely when there is unresolved conflict with that other person. So that means that we need to handle those grievances in a timely Biblical manner so that we can receive others like Jesus has received us.
Determine my role
We can’t determine from the text the exact role of every person mentioned within the Roman churches, but we do have enough information to see that there were a wide variety of gifts being exercised.
• Phoebe, who is likely the one who was entrusted with the task of delivering Paul’s letter to the churches in Rome, is described as being a patron. She was likely a wealthy woman who contributed financial resources to the church.
• Prisca and Aquila hosted one of the Roman churches in their home.
• Rufus’ mother had been like a mother to Paul.
• And, as we’ll talk more about in a moment, many of the others were described as working hard, even though the specific nature of their work is not identified.
It’s important to note that Paul doesn’t prioritize or rank what each of these people did or differentiate between the importance of their different roles. Each person was equally valuable to the church.
The same is true today here at TFC. We need people who can fulfill a wide variety of different roles. As we saw earlier in in our study of Romans, God has gifted each one of us with unique gifts for the purpose of building up the body and advancing His kingdom. Some of those gifts, like preaching or singing, are very public. and others, like giving or cleaning up after refreshments, might be more behind the scenes, but all are equally valuable and important.
I know many of you here this morning are already serving here at TFC and I want to thank you for that service. But there are also some who aren’t serving right now and we need you to fulfill your role here at TFC so that we can carry out the mission that God has given to us.
Work hard
Paul identifies many of the people he lists here as his “fellow workers” and for others, he writes that they have “worked hard”. Paul acknowledges here that kingdom work is not always easy. And I think that most of us would personally testify that is true. It’s not easy to read the Bible and pray consistently. It’s not always easy to serve others. It’s not always easy to share the gospel with others.
No doubt there is a balance that is needed here. The Bible, particularly in the book of Proverbs, reveals that there is great value in hard work and that we are not to be lazy or idle. And I think those passages certainly apply to our service within the body of Christ.
But we also need to guard against the extreme of working hard in our strength and power like everything depends on us. We need to learn to rely upon God’s guidance, gifting and power. We’re going to address that part of the equation in our next point.
Trust the results to Jesus
In a world of social media, it is easy to judge our “success” based on how many “likes” we get. And I think that it is easy to let this carry over into our service within the body of Christ. Far too often we tend to judge the effectiveness of our service based on how many people notice what we’re doing or give us a compliment. And even as a church, it is easy to fall into the trap of measuring our effectiveness based on attendance or giving numbers. While I think it is important to track those kinds of objective measurements and they can help us evaluate our effectiveness, we need to be careful not to be driven only by what we can see and measure.
That’s why the phrases “in Christ” and “in the Lord” in this passage are so important. Although Paul and all of the people he mentions in this passage worked hard, they did not do that in their own strength and power. They employed the gifts that had been entrusted to them by God the very best they know how, but then they trusted the results to God.
Paul expresses this idea clearly in his first letter to the church in Corinth:
1 Corinthians 3:5–7 ESV
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
Both planting and watering are hard work and both Paul and Apollos had been faithful to do that to the best of their ability. But they recognized that ultimately only God was responsible for the results.
I’m convinced that if we really understood this principle and took it to heart, it would free us up to do so much more for God in two important ways:
• First, we can usually accomplish a lot more when we don’t care who gets the credit. I love what Ronald Reagan said about this:
“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.”
• Second, I think that we are often hampered in ministry, especially when it comes to sharing our faith, because we’re afraid of failing or of being rejected. When we recognize that God only holds us accountable for how we use the resources he entrusts to us, and not for the results, it frees us up to take some risks for Jesus and His kingdom.
I’m still learning about this balance between hard work and trusting the results to Jesus, but I think I’m getting a lot better at it, especially when it comes to my sermon preparation. Digging into the text and studying it requires hard work. It often stretches me to the limit of my abilities. But at the same time, one of the most important parts of my sermon preparation each week is to spend time in prayer, asking God to guide my thoughts and words and to help me develop a message that is relevant for us as a body, and then just trusting Him for the results.
Since your ministry is different than mine, the exact way this balance plays out in your life is going to look different than it does for me. But it’s important for all of us to find that balance between working hard and trusting Jesus for the results.
We’ve seen this morning that...
The church consists of ordinary people doing extraordinary work in Christ
And we’ve also talked about four things that each of us can do to let Jesus do some extraordinary work through us right here at Thornydale Family Church:
• Welcome and receive others like Jesus welcomes us
• Determine my role
• Work hard
• Trust the results to Jesus
› Action
So let’s close our time by pointing out some ways that you could respond to God as a result of what we’ve learned here today.
If you’ve been here at TFC for any amount of time, you’re probably at least somewhat familiar with our Discipleship Path. At a minimum, you’ve hopefully seen it on the back wall as you leave this auditorium each week.
The Elders developed this path several years ago as a tool to help us grow individually and as a body in our relationship with Jesus. We used a circle to communicate several important truths about our spiritual journey:
• First, it never ends. We never graduate our get to the point where we no longer need to grow.
• Second, there is almost always some overlap in these steps. For instance, you could be growing, serving and sharing all at the same time.
• Third, our mission is to reproduce this same path in the lives of others. When we share, we start another person on the path at the “Come” step.
We’ve talked about this discipleship path from time to time, but one of my goals this year is for us to visit it more regularly so we can help you take the appropriate step or steps throughout the year.
Today obviously I’m going to focus on the “Serve” step.
First, if you’re already serving somewhere here at TFC - thank you so much for your service. And if you feel like that is where God wants you to serve, then I want to encourage you to just keep on serving there.
But maybe you’ve been serving for a while and you’re not really sure that you’re serving where you can best utilize your gifts. That’s actually a great thing because as we say frequently the best way to discover your gifts is to start serving and then let God guide you.
And then there are some of you who aren’t serving anywhere right now - maybe because you don’t feel like you have anything to offer. I can assure you that is not true. Jesus wants you to serve His church and He has equipped you to do that.
If you fall into either of those last two groups - you’re not currently serving or you don’t feel like you’re serving where God wants you to be then I want to ask you to do three things:
• Pray. Ask God to help you determine where your gifts could be utilized best in the body.
• Talk to an Elder. The contact information for all our Elders is on the back of the bulletin and any of them can help get you plugged in to a place of service.
• Begin serving. That’s the very best way for God to direct you to where you want to be. Even if that is not ultimately where you end up serving or if that service is only for a season, you will help our church to accomplish the extraordinary in Christ.
› Inspiration
The church consists of ordinary people doing extraordinary work in Christ
None of the people Paul listed in this passage were famous or powerful in the eyes of the world. And I’m sure that none of them had any idea that their names would be enshrined on the pages of Scripture so that we could read them almost 2,000 years later.
While it is true that none of us here will ever have our names recorded in the Bible and most of us will never be remembered by the world for long, God knows your name. And you are so valuable to Him that He sent His Son to rescue you from the wrath that you deserve. And He has also given you a role to play in His kingdom that no one else can carry out as well as you can. The only question is whether you’ll let Him do the extraordinary things He wants to do through you as you serve Him in Christ.
