Transcription
[Music] Grab your Bible, grab the app, let me grab your phone, and get to Romans 16. We're gonna pick it up in verse 25 here in a moment.
About three weeks ago, I loaded up with our two older boys, and we got the car loaded up. We're all packed up because they were going to this is a rite of passage. They were gonna take their first camping trip, their first ten camping experience outside of the backyard. And so we loaded up the car and got everything ready to go and headed down to Northwest Arkansas, a couple-hour drive. And on the way, constant flow of questions, you know, what do we do when we get there? What are we set up first? What can ice for my tent be by your tent? And how close can it be to your tent? And what about wild animals eating our food? And what do we get to cook? And how much do we get to cook tonight? When we have enough food? So lots of, lots of questions, which is so fun.
And so we left with plenty of time, sun shining, and we pulled in off the off the highway onto a gravel road, headed down through the trees to the campground. And as we turned the bend to where the campsites were, it was wall-to-wall people, like wall to wall to wall people. It was a zoo, an absolute zoo. And so we, you know, we kind of had to do the drive through the campground, kind of eyeing any space that might be available for us. And there just wasn't any space. And so we drove around. I even talked to somebody had a campsite, it looked like they had room to share, but that didn't happen.
So we come back in the car and got gone up the road. And the boys like, man, would write down, what are you gonna do? And hey, you know what? There's another campground about 30 minutes down the road. We'll just head that way. And so we started driving, you know, sun is starting to set. And 30 minutes later, we pull into the next campground and around the turn, and there they're like a third of the campsites are open. So we were just really happy. Praise God, you know, wow, thank you Jesus. You went before us.
And so we're pulling in, we park in front of one of those campsites, and I just saw voice, hey, go ahead and start unloading all of our stuff. You know, so I was gonna help so, but they can let them do the heavy lifting. So they start taking the, you know, the sleeping bags in their backpacks. And I'm getting some stuff out of the car. And as I leave the car and start to walk over to the campsite, I notice a little sign on the campsite and it says reserved. And then I look around at all the other vacant sites and they all have the same little sign.
And so the boys were like, what, what's up? Like, well, this, this sign says it's reserved. What does that mean? That means somebody called ahead and got this site. And Owen looks at me, he goes, why didn't we call ahead? I was like, well, first of all, we live under grace. There is no, no condemnation. So that's not, let's, let's live there. Okay? Let's, let's, okay. He was like, yeah, we didn't. So we're having fun, this is awesome, we're excited. It's getting dark outside and we're gonna find somewhere to camp. And so I said, no worries, we've got, there's another campsite probably somewhere.
And so we all get back in the car. And I get on them, get a map out. And it's an hour the other direction. So we start driving. And about thirty minutes into our trek to the next campground, I noticed something's wrong. We're on, you know, back roads of Arkansas. I pull off onto the side of two-lane highway, pitch black. And the tire on the right-hand back passenger side is completely flat because we picked up a six-inch tin stake at the last campground. And only an inch of it is sticking out of the tire.
So I'm like, hey, no problem. We got this. We're gonna have fun. We're having fun doing this. So I'm gonna unload everything that's on top of the spare tire in the back of the car and on this highway. And you guys just hang tight. We're gonna get this spare out, no problem. And so I get everything unloaded. And I take the spare out. It's got air in it, praise the Lord. And I check up the car and I start proceeding to take one lug nut off at a time. And when I get to the last one, it's just locking lug nut. Got the key. And I start, you know, I would start working on it. It's not coming. Will not budge.
So for 30 minutes, I sit there. I stomp on it. I do everything. You finally, I just, I say to Owen, I say, hey buddy, like this thing keeps slipping. Will you come and and hold it and I'll jump on it? Cuz that'll be safe. And so we tried it the other way around. I just thought, you know, we gotta do it. You gotta do. So the good news is that after two hours, the tow truck showed up. So and here they are. We made the best of it. We're in the tow truck. That was at midnight, at 1:00 AM. We got to the Hampton Inn. It was a wonderful camping trip. We really enjoyed it. And so Harrison, Arkansas is a wonderful place to stay at the Hampton Inn. But sometimes you are reminded that your strength is just not enough.
Now, here's the good news. This was real validating for me. When the guy who was driving the tow truck came, he tried all of his tools. He could not get the lug nut off. He was like, this thing is stuck on there. They had to cut the lug nut off the tire. So I felt better about that, to be honest.
Romans chapter 16. Drove his chapter 16. You know, you at times you're reminded, we're all reminded, mercifully so, that our strength is not enough. And when we get to the end of this brilliant letter penned by the Apostle Paul, and he gets down to the final verses, what he wants to leave us with, what he wants to say, turns to the topic of strength. We're gonna pick it up in Romans chapter 16, verse 25.
"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."
Now, at the top of the the passage in your Bible, this passage, the heading probably reads as it does in most translations. It just simply says doxology. Doxology is a word that is it's formed by two Greek words, the word doxa, which means glory, and the word logos, which means word. So in the simplest sense, a doxology is a word about glory. And the New Testament writers love doxologies. And so as you peruse the New Testament, often they are breaking into doxologies or at the end of their letter or the Epistle, they're giving a doxology. There's one at the end of first Peter that's beautiful. John uses one in Revelation. The most famous doxology in the New Testament is probably the one at the end of Jude, and that's Jesus' brother who pens that one.
Paul loves doxologies. And so he loves him so much that he doesn't just do one in Romans, he does two. And so you'll remember that at the end of chapter 11, after walking us through all of the nuances of the theology of the gospel of grace, he gets down to Romans chapter 11 and verse 36 and what does he say? "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forevermore. Amen."
Paul has come through all of these 11 chapters and he wants to remind us, as a doxology does, because the assumption, the presupposition that is under any doxology you come to is that it's about him. So everything I've written to this point, Paul is saying, ultimately was meant to reveal that from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. That's where we were going. That's that what's behind everything that I've written to this point. Which is why when you get to Romans chapter 16 in verse 25, Paul starts with the words, "to him." Because he wants you to know that from Romans 1:1 all the way through chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, term 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and everything we've seen to 16, all of it has been to point us to him. All of it. That's what it's all been about. It's all been about him.
But what's interesting about this is he, he doesn't just do the normal doxology here or a run-of-the-mill doxology. Otherwise, it would just be the beginning of verse 25 and me into verse 27 and it would read like this: "Now to him, to the only wise God, be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen." Which would be a great doxology, right? It's a good doxology, wonderful doxology. But Paul, in the middle of all this, has some things that he wants to remind us of. Namely, that God wants to strengthen your life. God has strength for you. God has strength he wants to supply to you. And so he takes us through this doxology and gives us three truths about the way and how and why God wants to strengthen you.
And the first truth that he brings us to is that God strengthens us to His glory. God strengthens us to His glory. Go back to Romans chapter 16 and verse 25. "Now to him who is able to strengthen you." Paul wants us to start out before we get into anything else and to understand that God strengthens us for His glory. And everything else in verses 25 through 26 is going to undergird this. But you think about this, like if you're riding a doxology, which is a word about glory, a word about God's glory, the Creator God, the sovereign of the universe, what are you gonna say? How are you gonna ascribe glory to him? How's Paul gonna do that? He could say he's the eternal God. Oh, and he's going to say that. He's going to say that he's been working through time and in fact from eternity to reveal the glorious good news of the gospel to the preaching of Jesus Christ. Oh, he's, he's gonna say that. He could say that Jesus has been unveiled though through ages, the secret of Jesus and the power of Jesus and the revelation of Jesus was only prophesied and foretold. And he's going to say that. But all of those truths serve to highlight one main point for the Apostle Paul, and that is that God wants to strengthen you. That God is able to strengthen you.
And so think about this, when he goes to ascribe glory to God, the way that he says God gets glory, the way that he points to God's glory is by saying that God wants to make you strong. That's an amazing thing. The God of the universe actually gets glory by strengthening your life. It's to His glory, to His power, into you. It's to His glory to strengthen your marriage. It's to His glory to strengthen your home. It's to His glory to strengthen your family. It's to His glory to strengthen your faith. All of those make God look great when you're strong. That's what Paul's starting with. It's to His glory to make you strong. That's the obvious thing from this text.
What is less obvious, though, really important, and I think really clear once you see it, is this. And I'm gonna start by quoting from author and theologian John Piper, because this is very helpful. Look at what he says: "Many kings in history and many dictators today intend to get glory. They want to be known as strong and rich and wise. And how have they done it? By keeping their citizens weak and poor and uneducated. And uneducated people are an educated people as a threat to a dictator. A prosperous middle class is a threat to a dictator. A strong people is a threat to the strength of a dictator. So what do they do? They secure their own power by keeping their people weak. They get their glory by standing on the backs of a broken people. Just look at the regime of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan. We couldn't, and we can mention many others, little kings who keep their people weak so that they can be strong and rich. If any king ever had the right to display his glory by stepping on the backs of a rebellious people, it is God. But what does he do? He displays his glory by making his people strong. Isn't that an amazing thing about our God? He puts his glory on display by strengthening your life."
So Paul wants us to remember right at the front of this, your strength is not a threat to God's glory. God is not threatened by your strength. In fact, he's eager to supply strength to you. He wants to make his strength available to you to strengthen your life. And here's an axiom of the Christian life: because that is true, the more glory God gets, the more strength you have access to. The more glory God gets, the more strength you experience. So I guess you could put it like this: the more you make your life about him, the stronger you will be. The more you make your life about him, the stronger you will be. The more you make your family about him, the stronger your family will be. The longer, the more you make your marriage about him, the stronger your marriage will be. The law, the more you make our careers about him, the stronger your career will be. Because God is able to make you strong.
Now, stop, because there may be someone in here who's saying, I don't make my life about him, and I've got strength. Here's what I would say to that: No, you don't. You have a vapor. You have something that appears to be strength, but in the moment that you need it, it will be gone. God is able to give you a strength that transcends tragedy and triumph. It's not contingent on season. It's not contingent on age. It's not contingent on your setting or your circumstance. Its transcendence over all of that. That's the strength that God can give you. That's the sort of strength he supplies. It's the sort of strength that is available to an eight-year-old, an 18-year-old, or an 89-year-old. That's the strength. That's the strength I want.
You know, the word strength here is the Greek word *sterizo*, and it doesn't just mean strong, it means established. In other words, God, this is so great, God wants to establish you. He doesn't want you to get blown around by life. He wants to make you unsinkable. He wants to give your life a rock-solid quality so matter, no matter what you're walking through, you can describe yourself as strong in the midst of a circumstance that would make other people weak. That's what God wants to do. He wants to make you strong.
How is he gonna do that? He's gonna do it to His glory. But how? How is he going to make you strong? He's gonna make you strong, Paul says, through the gospel. Go back to Romans chapter 16, in verse 25. "Now to him who is able to strengthen you, how? 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 been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God."
How is he going to strengthen you? According to my gospel. What does he say, my gospel? He says, my gospel, and this is kind of unique for the Apostle Paul. In fact, we're gonna learn, and we've seen this, he's hinted at this before, but he makes it explicit in Galatians chapter 1 in verse 11. Because in Galatians 1, verse 11, he says, "For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that I preached, that was preached by me, is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man." So he didn't learn the gospel the way that you and I learned the gospel. In other words, somebody preached it to you, somebody shared it with you, maybe you grew up in a home where the gospel was really plain and clear, and that's the way that you did life. He didn't do them. He says, "It wasn't sure to me by any man. It was I was taught it, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ." Another words, theologians say that Apostle Paul was tutored in the gospel by the Lord Jesus. So this is a unique situation.
Also, when he says, "my gospel," part of what he's indicating there is that he's just written the letter to the Romans. He's saying, the gospel that I unpacked for you, the gospel that I've just written down and recorded for you. So it's not in a possessive sense. He's just identifying that he's been the author of this letter under the inspiration and the power and the authority of the Holy Spirit. That's what's happening there. So don't get hung up on that.
What he's saying, though, is that the way that God will strengthen you for His glory is he does it through the gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel, in simple terms, is the message, the glory, the good news that Jesus came into a world that was filled with darkness, hopelessness, and sin. And he, with him, he lived a perfect, sinless life, blameless, pure, holy, the life that nobody else could live. And yet he went to the cross in your place for your sin, to die the death that you should have died and that I should have died in our place for our sin, so that we could be right with God. He rose in victory over Satan, sin, and death, so that you could taste His victory and you could be clothed in His righteousness. That's the gospel. Paul says you get strength through the gospel. In other words, every time you meditate on it, think about it, read it, hear it, you get stronger. You get stronger through the gospel.
Here's the problem, though, that in Christianity, oftentimes we think of the gospel as just the starting point. So when, when you talk to a Christian, they'll say, you say, oh yeah, you know, talk about the gospel. Oh, yes, I heard the gospel a long time ago. I heard it, I responded to it. Now I'm a Christian. And the gospel is this thing that hangs way back in the past of their story. But the gospel is not the diving board into the Christian life. The gospel is the pool that when you start into faith, you actually begin swim in the sea that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's living and existing in that space that strengthens you in Him to do what He's called you to do. The gospel is how He strengthens you. It's the conduit through which the strength of God for your life runs.
And he says, not only that, he says, "according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ." So interesting that Paul would say, of all the ways that you could interact with the gospel, of which there are many, Paul singles out one that is the uniquely helpful source of strength, of gospel strength, to your life, and that's preaching. In other words, what's happening in this room right now is God's preferred way to strengthen you through the gospel. What's happening in Joplin this morning? This is His preferred way to strengthen you through the gospel. What's happening in West and what's happening in North? In every one of these spaces, as the Word of God is being preached, as the gospel is being proclaimed, He is strengthening your life. Which speaks to the significance of you being here, of me being here. Because if I say, "Oh, I'm gonna skip out on that," to the degree that I'm not present, guess what? I am removing myself from a context in which God was to supply strength for my life. In other words, I'll be weaker. Every time we gather, right now, you are getting stronger. Yes, right now I'm getting stronger. Right now, we are getting stronger as a church. Why? Because the gospel of Jesus is being preached. And God supplies His strength through that.
Now, say, well, it's easy for you to say, you're the one preaching. Fair enough. But it's not me. It's not about actually, it's not about who's preaching. Thank God for people who preach the gospel. But it's not about them. What is it about? Why does the gospel strengthen you? It's not strengthened by me landing all the jumps, all the transitions, or whatever else. It's not strengthened by thou. Praise God. Well, how is it strengthened? How does it become a source of strength for your life?
Go to Matthew chapter 10 and verse 20. Jesus is about to send out the disciples to preach. And he says this: "For it is not to you to speak." Are they gonna talk? Yeah, they're gonna talk. What he's talking about is that they shouldn't be all tied up in knots about exactly what they're gonna say and how they're gonna say it, but "the Spirit of your Father speaking through you." In other words, God is able to take through a human preacher, and through that conduit, he's able to send his power to you, by the Holy Spirit, personally applied to your life, personally applied to you. How do I know this happens? Because it, I experienced this all the time in this sense that I'll be out after a service, after Wednesday night prayer meeting or Sunday, and somebody will come up to me and they'll say, "Oh, I loved, you know, it was so powerful, meaningful to me when you said this." And I'll just nod and smile. That's great. That's awesome. I didn't say that. But that's awesome. I know that I didn't say that. I didn't. Does that bother me? No, that encourages me. Why? "The Spirit of your Father speaking through you." What God did is He spoke directly to that person as the gospel was preached. But it happens. It happens again and again and again and again and again. As the gospel is preached, every time you hear the gospel preached, you get stronger. Every time.
That's though not the only way that God strengthens you through the gospel. Paul begins to add some layers as you go back to Romans chapter 16, in verse 26. "According to the revelation of the mystery." What's the revelation? The revelation, he's going to say it in two ways. Revelation is is synonymous with prophetic writings. What are the prophetic writings? He's talking about the Old Testament. So he says, "according to the revelation of the mystery." So the revelation is actually Old Testament and New Testament, because the mystery is Jesus. And he was prophesied in the Old Testament, and he was brought to light in the New Testament. So all of that is the revelation of the mystery, which is Jesus. "It was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed through the prophetic writings."
So what happens now? When we read the Old Testament, we read the Old Testament with the light bulb on. We go, "Oh, that's Jesus. That's the gospel. That's what God was doing." And notice what Paul says, "according to the command of the eternal God." In other words, the, the gospel story, as it were, was set in motion in eternity past. The gospel itself is not an afterthought. God doesn't do afterthoughts. It's not like God created Adam and Eve in the world, and they went out to get a sandwich and came back and was like, "Oh, you're ruining it." That's not the way it happened. God was not shocked that humanity messed up. In fact, He planned for it because He knew the propensity toward it. And so He set in motion a plan of redemption to save you and to save me before time began. That's amazing. The plan of the eternal God. And you learn that, and that gets in your spirit, and that strengthens you.
As you read and meditate on God's Word, there's something powerful. One of the ways that you're strengthened through the gospel is by rehearsing the story of redemption, by reading it again and again and again. And every time you read God's Word, every time you spend time in God's Word, it strengthens you. But especially as you consistently spend time in God's Word. In fact, the Bible Engagement Project, or the Center for Bible Engagement, they surveyed over a hundred thousand people from around the world about daily Bible reading. And they found out some really interesting things about the way that when you read the Bible four or more times a week, the effect that that has on your life. They said, if you read four or more times a week, you're 74% less likely to struggle gambling. Your 61% less likely to view pornography. Here are 57% less likely to struggle with substance abuse. Your 40% less likely to struggle with bitterness. Your 30% less likely to struggle with loneliness. Your 228% more likely to share your faith with others. Your 407% more likely to memorize Scripture. What happens when you read God's Word? It makes you stronger. It strengthens your life.
And here's the truth: when you go from four to five days a week, and five to six days a week, and six to seven days a week, guess what? The results grow exponentially. You keep getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Because we are strengthened through the gospel. We're strengthened as we sit under preaching where the gospel is laid open. We're strengthened as we rehearse the gospel story by opening God's Word. He strengthens us through the gospel. He wants to strengthen you through the gospel to the glory of God.
Now, what is the result of that strengthening? The result is this: that He strengthens us to live the life of faith. He wants to strengthen you to live the life of faith. Look at, go back to Romans chapter 16. "Has 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." What's the obedience of faith? What Paul is not doing at the end of this letter is going, "Okay, I know I talked a lot about that grace stuff, but now let's get back to business. Obedience, legalism, law-like." He's not doing that. We're not going backwards, we're going forwards. In fact, this, this phrase is not a new phrase. Paul has talked about this phrase already. This phrase has shown up in this letter already. In fact, if you go all the way back to the beginning of Romans, Romans chapter 1 and verse 5, we read this: "Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith."
In other words, the obedience of faith, whatever it is, it's a product of grace. It's tied to grace. And here's what the obedience of faith is: it's the obedience that faith brings. In other words, when grace changes you, when you're made new by God's power through the gospel, by faith, what happens is you become a new person and you get new desires. So all the things, all of a sudden, the things that you used to want to do, you don't want to do anymore. And the things that you used to live for, you don't live for anymore. And the direction you used to go, you don't go anymore. Why? Because God, through His grace, has reoriented everything about your inner life. And all of a sudden, there's a trajectory to your life that is formed by faith. That's the obedience of faith. All of a sudden, the direction of your life is is brought about and moved forward, not by your flesh, not by sin, not by what your being preached to from the world. All of a sudden, the direction of your life is oriented by faith that lives in grace. That's what God is doing. That's where God is taking you.
But Paul, why would he bring this up at the end of Romans chapter 16? Because he wants to go back to the beginning and say, if you try to do this in your own strength, it will never work. You cannot live out the obedience of faith on your own. So lest any of us forget that we have been saved by grace, and were carried along by grace, and that will only be brought about by a strength that is not from us, it's through Him. So he says, "to him who is able to strengthen you, according to the gospel, by the preaching of the Word, according to the command of the eternal God, and then where does he go? For the obedience of faith." In other words, if you want your life to line up with God's call, God's plan, God's purpose, God's power, then He's got to strengthen you for that purpose. And here's the good news: He wants to.
He wants to. At the end of this epistle, what Paul wants you to know is that God wants to make you strong. And as He makes you strong, it brings Him glory. And He makes you strong through the gospel. And He makes you strong so you can live out your calling, your purpose, and His plan in your life. And so he closes the Epistle to the Romans by saying this: "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."