December 18, 2005 Romans 16:25-27
25 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, 26 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 -- 27 to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.
Usually when young men are in their lower to mid-twenties they reach a stage where they start thinking about “settling down.” That has several different connotations. It means getting a full time job that pays half way decently. It means finding your own place to live. It means that instead of dating around, he will find one woman to get married to and have children with. Settling down means that he will stay in one place and get into a routine - so that he can have a place he can call home and foundation for the future, instead of just doing whatever he wants whenever he wants.
In a spiritual sense, the whole world is like that young man - trying to settle down. A young lady wants to have a feeling of being loved, so she assumes that she’ll find it by giving up her most prized possession - her dignity and respect and her purity - to the first boy that promises her wonderful things. A middle aged man wants the feeling of being free and young again, so he divorces his wife, finds a new girl friend, - leaving his wife and children behind. The teenage boy doesn’t like feeling like he’s just a nobody in this world, so he gets a strange haircut or dabbles around in some marijuana to try and be known as a rebel. A married couple thinks that getting settled means building a million dollar nest egg to spend the last ten years of their retirement in luxury. The world is full of these lost souls who just can’t seem to figure out how to get established in life.
You also see this attitude in today’s religion. Our religious world is full of what I would refer to as “permanent seekers.” They don’t like to settle on a certain denomination or a certain religion. What they like to do is taste a little bit of this and a little bit of that - and try a little bit of everything. A popular idea today is that everybody has their own personal beliefs that work for them, and that’s fine. So if you want to worship a God that you believe is a woman and doesn’t judge anyone - that’s fine for you - because it’s your own interpretation. What has happened is that the Bible is no longer a solid foundation of faith. Instead, your feelings and emotions and what you want are the foundation. If your own personal beliefs are all that matter - then you can believe in Buddha, Mormonism, Muslims, and whatever else - “as long as you believe”. More than ever people are spiritually running after the next hot craze. They have no establishment. They have no place they really call home - and they tell themselves that they are happy with that.
In a world that just can’t seem to find a foundation, Paul praised God because of His ability to ESTABLISH the Romans and the world. You see, God doesn’t want us to be like the world of unbelievers who are constantly seeking the next thrill, the next fad, or the next movement. We don’t need to build our foundation on new toys, computers, cars or relationships. God wants to give us an establishment in Jesus Christ - to have a place to settle down at, call home and be content with. That’s what God wants for us. That’s what Paul said could happen with the Romans and can happen with us. Let’s look at how -
We Have a Permanent Establishment
I. It comes through the Gospel
Paul said that God is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ. How so? When a recent ex-gang leader was recently executed, his defense lawyers tried everything to acquit him based on his children’s books and the reformations he had made while in prison - to try and exonerate the terrible gang murders that he was accused of committing. None of that defense worked, and he was put to death. There is a death sentence hanging over the entire world. It’s that feeling of guilt that sticks with you throughout your life because of any variety of things you’ve done - whether it was premarital sex, picking on a child that later committed suicide, lying to your parents, it could be anything. It’s that feeling that tugs on you when you think that there has to be more to life than getting new clothes and six figure salaries. It’s knowing that some day you’re going to die - whether you’re rich or poor, famous or infamous. It’s knowing in your heart that you could be doing more to help people - but no matter how much you do - you don’t feel like you’ve done enough. It’s that inability to be happy and content no matter how much you do for yourself. These things make us constantly uncomfortable with this world - because we know that nothing is PERMANENT.
The GOSPEL changes that. Throughout this letter to the Romans Paul did a wonderful job of explaining the Gospel. He wrote way back in Romans 3:21-24:
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
In the crib of Christmas we see a God who loved us so much that He decided to be born into our world to save us from our sins. The cross means that we have a place to go with our guilt. We have a place to take our shame. The empty grave gives us a place where we can find our eternity - an eternal sense of hope and joy - in the promise of a resurrection from the dead. The Gospel takes us outside of ourselves so that we stop looking at what we have and we do for our meaning in life - and we start finding our eternity in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. We don’t need to run to the next faith or the next craze - because we already have our faith established in the eternal life of Christ. Paul explains this so clearly in Romans - much more precisely than practically any other book of the Bible. Luther wrote of Romans -
This epistle is the very heart and center of the New Testament and the purest and clearest Gospel. It well deserves to be memorized word for word by every Christian; and not only that: A man ought to live with it day by day, for it is the daily bread of souls. One cannot read it too often or too thoroughly or consider it too often or too well; and the more one deals with it, the dearer it becomes and the sweeter it grows upon the tongue.
II. It is a revealed mystery
Paul said of this Gospel that it was the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past. It’s really neat to see “mysteries” revealed to people throughout the Bible. Consider for instance -
✓ The disciples on the way to Emmaus
✓ the parables that Jesus spoke
✓ The healing of Naaman
✓ The very Gospel found throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament
The disciples were standing right in front of Jesus and talking with him - yet they couldn’t tell it was Jesus! Naaman had a cure for his leprosy clearly explained to him, but he was so blind that he thought that washing in the Jordan was too basic of a thing! Jesus continually spoke in parables which clearly illustrated basic truths, yet the people listening didn’t get it. The very promises of the Gospel in the Old Testament - like in Isaiah 53 - where God predicts that the Messiah would be despised and rejected - a man of sorrows - were clearly written - yet the Pharisees didn’t see it! The promise of the resurrection by Jesus was clearly predicted. Yet time and again - these people who were TRYING to follow God - couldn’t understand it. They just didn’t get it. How many of us have read the stories of Jesus predicting his death and resurrection - only to be surprised that the disciples didn’t get it - that Jesus predicted this very thing! It wasn’t that they were stupid. It was that they weren’t capable of getting it. God’s Word says in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
So what had to happen - time and again? God had to open their minds so they COULD get it. It’s amazing how with just a few words, or the breaking of bread, the LORD was easily able to open formerly blind minds and get the light to go on. The mystery had to be revealed though.
The Catholic Church likes to speak a lot about the “sacred mysteries.” It’s really an interesting term. Did you know that the term “sacrament” is actually Latin for “mystery”? So when we are given a sacrament we are in fact receiving a mystery of sorts. Most people - when they would watch us pour a little bit of water on a baby, might look at it as no more than a cute little rite that we are going through. Yet we believe that this is much more than a cute little rite. It is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and a spiritual washing of the blood of Christ on a child who was born corrupted in sin. When we take the Lord’s Supper, the world looks at it like we are simply coming forward and receiving bread and wine. Through the eyes of faith, God has revealed to us that we are receiving the actual body and blood that was shed for us on Calvary hundreds of years ago. When we look at a cradle in the manger, we see much more than a poor baby’s birth - we see a Messiah - God Himself being born - hiding beneath the strips of cloth. When we see Jesus die on a cross, we see God punishing His Son for our salvation. These are mysteries to the world - revealed to us in the Gospel of Paul, Jesus, and all the apostles. Through these every day items of word, water, bread and wine we are receiving God Himself. We are being given the promise of eternity through the blood that was shed for us. We are in fact being given eternity! We would never know these things if it weren’t for these prophetic writings which God has given to us.
The sad thing is that the world DOESN’T GET IT. Some people come to a worship service, listen to the Word, the songs, and go through the liturgy and think to themselves, “I’d rather be sleeping in bed.” They peek at their watches to see how long the sermon is or check on whether they’ll get out at the allotted hour they have prescribed for worship. They think that Christians are a bunch of weak minded and brainwashed fools. Why? It’s because the mystery hasn’t been revealed to them - but the Holy Spirit has revealed it to us.
III. We are established for faithful obedience
Stop and consider for a moment now - WHY did God choose to reveal these mysteries to you? How come - out of all the people in the world - He chose to let you see the truth about Jesus? Was it because you were better than the other unbelievers? No. Paul says, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” It wasn’t so that you would smugly look down on the rest of the world as a bunch of blind idiots either. Jesus didn’t enter our world and die on a cross - and the Holy Spirit didn’t reveal these things to us just so we could put it in the “useless trivia” portion of our brains. He didn’t reveal it just to make you feel good about God and leave it at that. Paul said that He commanded these things literally “for the obedience of faith.”
That Word for “obedience” is used throughout Paul’s writings and the New Testament. He uses it to refer to Jesus’ work of salvation in Romans 5:19. The writer to the Hebrews in chapter 5 says that Jesus learned “obedience” through what He suffered. Paul used it when he spoke of the role of children and slaves under their parents and masters in Ephesians. It means to listen to and do what someone tells you to do. This same theme is found in other writings of Scriptures -
1 Peter 2:16 Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.
Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
Titus 2:14 (Christ) gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
Psalm 119:32 I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.
God establishes us with the Gospel so that we can be freed from the worries of this world and start performing some true and faithful obedience in the hosue of God. Instead of looking at this life from the viewpoint of “what can I get out of it,” or “how many toys can I get for Christmas,” or “how can I get to the top?”, the Gospel has freed us from such selfish chains. Since God has provided us with our holiness and righteousness and eternal heaven in Christ, we now realize that we are here to serve God. How do we serve God? God puts Himself in our neighbor, our children, our parents, our teachers, and yes - even our enemies - and tells us to serve them. He puts employers and parents over us and tells us to obey them. With this service He helps to establish good order and provide a light to people who live in this dark world - to open up an avenue through which to share the Gospel with them - so they too might believe.
Think about your role in this picture. God didn’t free you from the desires of this world just so you can now kick back and enjoy life and serve yourself. You are here to fulfill your role of obedience to those put over you - the police, government, parents, teachers, whoever it may be. You are here specifically to spread the gospel so that ALL nations might believe. If God didn’t have a job for you to fulfill - you wouldn’t be here. Think today about how YOU can fulfill God’s desire for you. Who can you invite to Bible Information Classes? Who can you bring to Christmas Eve worship? How can you fulfill God’s role for you?
When I find myself typing on a computer - it amazes me that somebody ever invented some of these machines. Think about the cell phone. How in the world it could be possible to talk into a metal device and talk to someone thousands of miles away - that’s incredible. I don’t know how it was invented, but it sure does work well. It makes life easier for almost all of us.
The invention of God - His invention of eternal establishment - outdoes them all. He made a foundation of words and promises in the Gospel. He established a spiritual foundation in which believers can be happy, content, and able to serve and obey God. He gave us a permanent foundation to build on and work on. That foundation is Christ - who came in a crib, died on a cross, and is coming again in the clouds. Find your establishment in Christ today. Amen.
