Romans | Greetins and Benedictions | Romans 16:1-27 | Ep. 38

Welcome to Preaching from Bryanson Bible Church, located in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa.

It is our prayer that this teaching would bless you, deepen your love for God's word, and encourage you as you follow Jesus.

And if you're not a Christian, we pray that this message would encourage you as you explore the Christian faith.

Amen indeed.

But Buddy's not preaching.

So I'm really privileged to have this opportunity.

Being kind of one of the newer guys to finish up Romans is indeed a great privilege.

And so for the last 15 chapters, we have been looking at just marvelous theology.

We've been looking at Christ.

We've been looking at the gospel and how it impacts our lives.

And so maybe this morning as we came to chapter 16 and you heard that, you were kind of surprised and thought, well, this seems a bit of a weird ending.

A long list of ancient names that are maybe hard to pronounce.

And so maybe you felt like I do, you know, when you watched a great movie and the credits start to roll, what do you do?

You stand up and you think, I, you know, I wasn't part of this.

Let me uh head for the exit.

And so maybe mentally this morning you checked out and you kind of said, Well, this feels like the credits are rolling.

Uh, is this really how we're going to end Romans?

Well, if you check out early, you're going to miss something really, really beautiful about this chapter.

It's not a boring appendix, it's not a list of extras, it's the gospel with skin on.

It's what the gospel looks like in real people, in real life, in the real world.

And I wish we knew more about these people.

Most of them are only mentioned once in the scriptures.

And so there's something to be said about anonymity in terms of just how God uses us in general.

And uh very few of us will be the Apostle Paul's, but the majority of us will be these wonderful saints who are an integral part of the gospel.

And so Romans 15 showed us what the gospel produced in Paul's heart.

That's what we looked at together last week.

And how Romans 16 shows us what the gospel produces in the church.

This beautiful, diverse, unified family of God.

And so the theology of Romans is no longer explained in chapter 16, it is displayed.

It is on full display for us to see.

And so this chapter matters because the gospel does not just save isolated individuals and then leave us isolated.

The gospel puts us into a people, into a family, into a community, into a church.

And so this isn't just a list of names, it is in fact a beautiful gospel community, a gospel church that God has produced, this church at Rome.

And so it puts the beauty of Christ on display for all to see, and we're going to see that.

So as we look at this picture together, I want to challenge us with three things.

Number one, we're called to live this.

We have the privilege of getting to live this, this gospel family in verses 1 to 16.

Now, if I'm honest, on my cynical days, or maybe sometimes on my days off, if I bump into a fellow pastoral colleague, or I might be at a conference somewhere.

I've been known to joke when I'm asked, how am I doing?

How are things going?

I sometimes say, ministry would be great if it wasn't for the people.

It would be wonderful if it wasn't for all of you people out there with your difficulties and your problems.

But that's the whole joy and the blessing of ministry is that ministry is not ministry without people.

That's a simple thing.

We wouldn't have got into ministry if it wasn't for the people, because people matter.

The church is about people.

And so when you think about it, without people, Romans is just a theological textbook.

But Romans connected to people is the most astounding miracle we could ever behold.

This miracle of new life, how God can rescue a sinner and change them by his grace and transform them into a son and daughter of God.

So Romans 16 embodies the artworking of the entire theology of the letter.

And the first person that Paul mentions here in verses 1 and 2 is a lady by the name of Phoebe.

And he holds her in high regard.

And I don't think it's an accident that he mentions her first, because commentators would say, and I agree, that she probably was the one who carried and delivered the letter to the church in Rome.

So beautiful picture.

Even though we don't know much about her, we do know that she was dearly loved by Paul and he was willing to entrust this gospel.

We don't know how many hours he spent thinking it through, crafting it, praying it through, bursting out into adoration and praise in between.

But here he hands it over to her.

And if you know anything about the culture of that day, women were not regarded highly.

Their testimony did not count in a court of law.

And he says, Phoebe, I want you to take this letter to the church in Rome.

He calls her our servant, our sister.

She was likely the head deacon of this church at Kencria, which is just near Corinth.

And she had such a deep love for God, and Paul had such a deep love for her, she was known as a patron or a benefactor, which means she had the means to support Paul at times.

She probably had the financial means to be able to go on this journey to Rome.

And she's an honored, trusted, and essential partner in the mission of the gospel.

And because she was faithful, we have the book of Romans today.

And then after Phoebe is named, the names just keep coming.

At my last count, I think there's about 37 people that Paul mentions in chapter 16, of which he names 35.

And so what strikes us immediately as we read Romans 16 is the staggering diversity of these names.

And because you and I don't necessarily understand the culture, we have to dig a little bit into these names.

But I want you to see that there were men and there were women.

Paul sends greetings to 17 men, I think it is, and 10 women, which shows us that women were not just kind of this ornament on the side of the gospel, they were an integral part.

And for an ancient document to mention this many women shows that Paul was not a misogynist.

Paul had a high regard for men and for women.

Then we read about the rich and the poor in the same church.

Slaves and free, Jew and Gentile households and house churches.

So it wasn't as though Paul said, Well, let me just talk to the Jewish house church in Rome and let's talk to the Gentile house church in Rome.

No, this was not one monolithic organization.

God's word had spread, and the Roman church was gathered in various homes, completely diverse.

There were couples, there were siblings in that list.

There were Greek names and Latin names and Jewish names.

That just shows the diversity of what's going on here.

Frisca and Aquila are a husband and wife couple who Paul says they've risked their necks for my sake.

They're probably one of the few couples that you can read about elsewhere in the New Testament.

And they were thrown out of Rome for a period in time.

They were tent makers.

Paul was a tent maker, they had connected.

And so a lot of these names, when you think about it, Paul must have met on his journeys, even though he hadn't been to Rome.

Mary worked hard.

Andronicus and Junior were fellow prisoners with Paul.

We're not sure where and when.

Trifina and Triphosa were probably sisters.

Most commentators say they were probably twins because twins were given very similar names.

What a beautiful thing to think that there were twins in the Roman church, Trifina and Triphosa, who were serving and working hard in the Lord.

Persis worked very hard in the Lord.

Eponetus was the first convert in Asia.

So the church had an Asian.

Rufus is mentioned.

And if he's the same Rufus as Mark mentions, then he was from North Africa.

Because his dad was Simon of Cyrene, who carried the very cross of Christ.

I'm sure maybe it's the same guy.

There's social diversity here.

So you've got Phoebe, who appears to be a woman of means.

You've got Prisca and Aquila, who are able to host the church in their home.

You've got Gaius, who's a host, you've got Erastus, who's the city treasurer, and yet alongside them are names that are commonly known as slave names.

Names like Ampliatus, Ubanus, Hermes, Hermas, Patrobus, Philologus, and Olympus.

This gospel family stretches from those that society would say, hey, those are the movers and the shakers all the way down to whom society would just overlook.

And what holds this church together?

What is it?

What could possibly bring this kind of diversity together?

It's not race, it's not class, it's not status, there's only one thing, and that is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a gospel family.

And you know what?

When I was at Bible college, I was taught that if you want to plant a church, you plant a church along homogeneous lines.

That was the catchphrase in the 70s and 80s from a guy by the name of Donald McGavren, who the this guru in church growth.

If you want church to be fast and quick and to grow and to make an impact, plant it along homogeneous lines.

Everyone must look the same, sound the same.

But we just don't see that in the New Testament, do we?

Galatians, Corinthians, all of these New Testament letters, Paul is wrestling with this diversity in the congregation that's come together that the gospel has brought about, and it's a wrestle worth wrestling with because it is the gospel on display.

But there's not just diversity.

Diversity is one thing, there is the unity.

They are united in Christ.

Like a choir, as Mark said a few weeks ago, there's a beauty, not in uniformity, but in diversity that comes together in one harmonious voice.

Again and again, Paul's deepest, deepest category is not ethnicity or status.

It is his favorite word in Christ.

In Christ, union with Christ.

Just glance down if you've got your Bibles open and look through those first 16 verses.

As Paul greets, he says, Greet so-and-so in the Lord, greet so-and-so in Christ, greet so-and-so, approved in Christ, greet my beloved in the Lord.

Such a rich variety, but united in and through the gospel of Christ.

Gospel brings together people who would not naturally associate and belong together.

And I want you to see that this is not just Paul tolerating people, tolerating the diversity.

He not only honors and celebrates individuals, there is warmth, there is affection.

This is not vague blessings, there's deep emotion here.

He remembers people, he remembers Mary who worked hard, and Prisco and Aquila who risked their necks, as I said, perses who worked hard in the Lord.

Rufus' mother, who'd become like a mother to Paul.

Such tender details in these verses.

He sees people, he remembers people, he honors people.

I find that line about Rufus' mother particularly moving.

Somewhere along the way, this woman had cared for Paul.

She'd taken him into his home.

She'd fed him.

Maybe she'd counseled him, maybe she'd strengthened him.

Maybe he was on the road on one of his missionary travels, opened his bag, and saw a little lint chocolate from her with a note saying, I'm praying for you, Paul.

I mean, I just think back on my years of ministry and mothers in the faith who've played such a role of encouragement to me.

You know, sometimes people say, Well, how have you survived so long in ministry?

One of those ways is dear mothers in the faith.

They've taken me under their wing.

I remember my first week of ministry, February 1996, when I arrived in Howick, I met Jackie and Gordon Turner.

And Jackie Turner said, I want to introduce you to my son Paul.

Next week he goes off to varsity at UCT.

And I wondered if you would be my surrogate son.

Can I adopt you because Paul is going off?

It was so moving.

And they had me in their home.

They encouraged me.

I mean, Gordon was into finances.

He he explained tax to me and implications of finances and budgeting, things that I thought I knew, but I didn't really know.

And Jackie came and said, like, hey, we see that you're walking around to go and visit the youth in the small town of Howard.

Gordon and I have decided we want to buy you a bicycle.

So they drove to Maritze, bought a bicycle, gave it to me.

Those blessings.

I remember in the third wave of COVID, doing six funerals almost back to back over a two-month period.

Three of those people that I buried were mothers in the faith, those that were continual encouragers, continual prayer warriors.

I remember how my heart broke.

And then as I was trying to process things, coming here to BBC and connecting with Sandy and journeying with her over those months, as she just encouraged me and became a new mother in the faith to me, given that I'd lost some other moms.

The blessing that you and I have of being moms and dads to others in the faith.

Go and talk to Ed, who heads up our family ministry, and he'll tell you his story how he ended up in Cape Town and his mom had given him 10 Rand to go and start a new life.

He had nothing.

And then his brother that he connected with died two months later and he was left on his own.

But when he attended this church, this couple saw him.

They took him and invited him for lunch.

This stranger just wandering around in the foyer.

And that became the means that got him on the path eventually to ministry and to bring him here.

Friends, don't underestimate the power of your life to be moms and dads and in the faith.

We live in an age of speed.

We live in an age of utility.

Don't allow people to just become functions to you.

You know, sometimes we think, well, this shoe salesman is interchangeable with every other kind of shoe salesman.

He's just performing a function.

I don't know his name.

I don't care what's happening in his life, as long as he delivers what he's supposed to do.

And that's because we come into contact with so many people on any given day.

But I believe the gospel would say, let's slow down, let's notice, let's think, let's pause, let's see what God is doing in people's lives.

Let's not treat them as just functionaries, robots that are interchangeable with every other kind of person in that function.

One of the simplest ways we can live this text is by learning names.

I think of a girl who rocked up at my youth ministry many years ago, and I had trained our youth leaders to really learn people's names.

If people come here, we need to know them.

This girl disappeared for a number of months and came back, and some of those leaders remembered her name when she walked in the door and greeted her by name.

That was so arresting to her soul that she gave her life to Christ simply because someone remembered her name.

And she said, if this is a place where people, where I'm noticed and where people remember my name, tell me about your God.

Tell me how I can trust him.

So Paul says again and again here, greet them, greet, greet, greet, greet.

It's like an overflow.

And so I put together this chart for those of you that like stats in my Bible software.

35.6% of all the times Paul greets people with this greeting.

Look where it is.

Romans 16.

It's like off the charts.

And maybe it should be off the charts because the theology and the depth and the doctrine and the gospel in Christ is off the charts in Romans.

And look what it produces: it produces people who are noticed and off the charts.

This love is not merely assumed, it's an affectionate love that's expressed.

Here's a verse, verse 16.

Go and apply this in the foyer.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

If Buddy was preaching, maybe he'd say, Turn to your neighbor, hey neighbor, I don't know.

But Buddy's on leave today, so I get to say that.

But I remember back in high school, just wishing as I sat next to Lizel and we weren't even dating yet.

Like, why can't a preacher preach on this verse and do that?

But it never happens.

So here I am all these years later, and I've kissed Lizel far too many times.

But maybe you're out there and you haven't yet been kissed.

Here's verse 16.

But in that culture, it was a visible expression of just familial love, as it is in parts of Middle Eastern culture, just kissing on either cheek, appropriately, sensitively.

But I want you to see what was radical about this.

It wasn't so much the kiss, because that was common in the culture.

There was a common form of greeting.

What's radical is that slave and free in different ethnicities were expressing that level of affection to each other.

Do you see how astounding that is?

Even if we think of our own South African context and our own history, is that something that would have taken place 50 years ago?

This took place in the early church.

In a context not too different from our own.

Don't think, oh, well, times were different then.

There's always been division in society.

And that's why this passage matters so much.

The church itself is part of the message, not simply the platform for the message.

Can I say that again?

The church is actually integrally part of the message, not merely the platform for the message.

In other words, this is in our DNA.

What we do here is not just something that we preach, some kind of message that we put out to an audience.

When people come in here, they need to see the gospel and the barriers of hostility that it's been able to break down because we have a common father and we are brothers and sisters in Christ.

The church is a place where the gospel is seen, lived out by real people in real life, in the real world.

The early church was the first multi-ethnic religion in history.

And I would say that where the church is healthy, that is still the case.

You can look at other religions, you can look at other ideologies, and there's always these pockets.

Christianity is found across the world, across all sorts of people.

And I'd go out on a limb and say that this might be the most diverse list in all of ancient history, Romans 16.

I challenge you to prove me wrong.

In fact, I went onto AI.

I love to just play with the political correctness of Chat GPT.

I said, I believe this is the most diverse list in all of history.

And what did Chat GPT say?

You can't say in all of history, that's too absolute.

That's too.

I said, prove me wrong.

And they said, Well, there was the Stoics.

And then I said, Okay, but where were slaves and frees with the Stoics?

And they said, Yes, you're right.

It was just this glorious ideal.

It never actually manifests itself in an actual living body of people.

And so basically I won against Chat GPT.

I broke the internet.

I broke the internet.

Because this is the most astounding picture of unity and diversity, and it cannot be explained.

That's why Francis Schaefer said the way the church engages with each other is the final apologetic.

What's apologetics?

It's defending the faith, and we can give arguments to atheists, and we can do this and we can do that.

Yesterday was human rights day.

At the end of the day, this is rooted not in secular philosophy.

It's actually we have human rights because ultimately the Christian ethos and the Judeo-Christian world has influenced society.

And that's the beauty of this.

The final apologetic.

Not only to hear the gospel from our lips, but to see the kind of people it unites.

How else do you explain who's in this room this morning?

We can only explain it by the gospel.

Didn't Jesus say this was the defining mark?

He said, By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

So as far as I can see, this is one of the church's greatest callings and it's one of our greatest apologetics.

So this is not just a list of names, it's a portrait of a gospel community won by Christ.

And as we look at this picture, the implication for us is clear.

We get to live this.

We get to be part of this.

We get to be a place where names are remembered, where ordinary faithfulness matters, where diversity is not erased but united in Christ, where affection is visible, where people are not the problem, like me on my cynical days off, where people are not the problem.

Where people matter because people are the point.

People are the point.

So let's live this.

And I wanted to camp there for a while in these names.

But number two, protect this.

Protect this gospel unity, verses 17 to 20.

Paul's just shown us this beauty of a gospel community.

Beauty of diversity, beauty of affection.

And now verse 17 comes and it feels like a jolt.

Like, what is going on here?

But he's saying, if this is what the gospel creates, then this is what the gospel must also protect.

He doesn't just say, Well, now, after all the warmth and the fuzziness, you know, we're just kind of united around nice things and sentiment.

No, he says, I don't want you just to enjoy this.

You have to guard this.

You have to protect this.

And unless you've been in a church where unity goes out the window, it is one of the most painful things to endure.

It's like when you have unity, you don't notice it, it's the air that you breathe.

You have to protect it, you have to guard it.

That's why Paul says in verse 17, I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.

Avoid them.

Now we need to be careful here.

Romans 16 is not Romans 14 all over again.

And if you're here for those sermons, in Romans 14, Paul calls us to welcome those with differences over disputable matters.

He says, welcome one another where these are gray areas, where these are not, you know, doctrinal issues that are crucial to the gospel.

These are secondary issues.

Welcome those over disputable matters.

So Romans 14 says, welcome the weak, but Romans 16 says, avoid the divisive.

So this is a different category.

Romans 14 about secondary matters.

Romans 16, people are going to come in and they're going to cut at the core of the gospel and they're going to seek to divide us.

And the unity that Paul is protecting here is not just peace at any price.

It's unity rooted in truth.

Look at verse 17.

He says it's rooted in the doctrine that you have been taught.

The very truth that creates the family is the very truth that must protect the family.

Sadly, we have seen this in our own South African history.

The tragedy of getting this wrong.

Don't think many people know, but back in 1857, the Dutch Reformed Synod, which was the grouping of all the Dutch Reformed leaders at the time, the Synod in 1857 made an official ruling, and you can go and read that ruling, that allowed separate services for different races because of what they called, and I quote, the weakness of some.

Black, colored, Indian, and white, no longer sharing communion at the same table.

The decision endorsed prejudice rather than confronting it, paving the way for apartheid years before apartheid had come in.

That laid the foundation.

This was not the weakness of Romans 14 that we were talking about.

It was sinful prejudice that denied the very truths that the gospel and Romans speaks about and Romans 16 displays.

Cut against that.

And when the church accommodates sin instead of confronting it, division is not healed, it is legitimized.

So I want you to see the difference between Romans 14 and 16 because in our own history, those things have been misunderstood.

And so there are times when love requires patience with the weak, and times when love must confront, it must be firm towards what is false and stand against it.

And Paul knows that not everyone who enters the church strengthens it.

Look what he says in verse 18.

By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.

The danger of heresy and the danger of false teaching and false teachers is always dressed as something attractive.

They're always winsome.

They're always using spiritual sounding language.

There's always a measure of charm.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to deceive.

And that's why Paul says, watch out, be alert, don't be gullible, be discerning.

Not everyone who sounds spiritual is actually serving Christ.

Some might be serving their own appetites, their own agenda, their own platform.

Don't confuse niceness with godliness, or charisma with faithfulness, or confidence with the truth.

Paul says, look deeper.

Does this align with sound teaching that you have received?

Does this breed division and confusion?

Maybe that's a sign that it's false teaching.

And then the sobering command, he says, avoid them.

Avoid such people.

And maybe at first it sounds really, really harsh, but it's actually protective.

Paul loves the church.

So he stands against everything that would threaten that unity.

If something is going to come into your home and poison your family, you're not casual about it.

Look at all these companies that have been recalling products off the shelves.

Why?

Because it's got this or it's got listeriosis or there's this thing that can go wrong.

And so we don't just treat lightly poison that's coming into our family.

So why would we treat it lightly when it comes into the church?

In verse 19, Paul says, I'm not paranoid.

I see your obedience, brothers and sisters.

This is a warning.

I'm not saying this is true of you.

But he urges them in verse 19 to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.

What a wonderful balance.

I want you to be wise, but don't become so wise that you become cynical.

And I want you to be innocent, but not so innocent that you're completely naive and gullible and you just let anything in.

Grow in discernment without losing your heart and your tenderness.

And we all know those heresy hunters who've got such hard hearts and they're just always on this crusade.

No, don't let your heart get hard, even as you are alert.

Don't become suspicious of everyone, but be alert.

And then comes the great promise in verse 20.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

This God of peace who loves peace and is a God who creates peace, he's gonna crush Satan.

Why?

Because Satan comes to destroy that peace, to kill that peace, to bring division into the church.

Because behind all division and all deception lies our great enemy, the one who loves to corrupt the gospel.

Everything that Christ died to unite and bring together, this evil one desires to corrupt and pull apart.

And so the God of peace who loves peace will crush the destroyer of peace ultimately.

And so the same church that is called to be warm is called to be watchful, and the same church that is called to welcome the weak is called to warn and refuse the divisive.

So live this, live this gospel family, protect this gospel unity, and thirdly and finally, trust this.

Trust what?

Trust who?

Trust our glorious God, verses 21 to 27.

And so, even here, before Paul lifts our eyes fully to God, he mentions some more names here.

To remind us that the Christian faith is not a solo enterprise.

When you feel like you're losing your faith, when you feel like you're alone, before he points us to God and reminds us that we're not alone because God is with us, he points us to a few final names and says, just remember, guys, we're part of a team, we're part of a wider body.

We're also here to encourage and support you.

So similarly, verses 21 to 23 are easy to rush past, but they matter.

Timothy, Lucius, Jason, Sosa Parta.

And then I love this.

Suddenly Tertius steps out from behind the camera and says, Hey guys, I've been the one filming here.

He steps out from behind the papyrus for 15 chapters.

He's been writing down what Paul said, and he kind of breaks the barrier and says, Hey, it's me.

And he's not just a pen, he's a brother.

It's such a beautiful, touching moment, this hidden hand suddenly saying, Here I am.

And then we see Erastus.

In fact, some archaeologists have discovered this stone pavement which actually has Erastus' name engraved in.

Chances are it probably is this same one, a high-ranking city official.

And he's standing alongside Cortis, a name that was common among slaves.

Cortis literally means fourth.

Tertius actually means third.

So whether they both were originally slaves and been freed or currently, I don't know, but high or low status, they are together as brothers, serving the church and encouraging them.

And yet, as precious as these co-workers are, this is not where Paul lands the plane.

He takes off and he takes us to where he has been going all along for one single aim, and that is God and the glory of God.

And here it is, verse 25.

Now to him who is able to strengthen you.

Now to him who is able to strengthen you.

Just reflect on that for a moment.

God is able.

If you forget everything else in Romans, Paul comes and says, God is able.

I don't know what you're going through.

Maybe you haven't put your faith and trust in Christ.

And here in week 38 is that day when you realize God is able, able to save you, able to rescue you, able to transform you.

After all the sin we've seen, all the grace that we've marveled at, all the suffering that we've been told to endure, all the obedience we've been called to pursue.

The grand finale is not found in Paul's strength.

It's not found in Tertius' hand and all the ink he used.

It's not found in the church, it's not found in you, it is found in God who is able.

So the Christian life is not just about beginning well, it's about being sustained by the God who is able.

As Tim Keller said, the gospel is not just the ABC of the Christian faith, it is the A to Z, as Keller would say it, of the Christian faith.

Our hope is not in the firmness of our grip on God, our hope is in the firmness of his grip on us.

And as we know, he's working together all things for good for those who love him.

And how does God strengthen us?

Verse 25.

Paul says, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, God strengthens us through the preaching of his word by taking the gospel and driving it deeper into us.

The longer you're a Christian, the more you become aware of your need for Christ.

The closer you get to the light, the more you see that you need the cleansing power of the gospel.

It's not the opposite way around.

We don't begin by grace and continue by self-effort.

We've been justified by Christ and we will be sanctified.

The same Christ will keep us.

And Paul then reveals that this plan was kept secret in verse 25 for long ages, verse 26, but now has been disclosed.

Redemption is not accidental.

God didn't have his arms folded, say, Oh, the world has messed up what I do now.

No, this was always a plan throughout the pages of history to unfold the gospel to the glory of God.

That means our God in verse 26 is a missionary God because that plan has been made known to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith.

The God of Romans is a missionary God and his saving purpose is global, as we looked at last week.

And this leads Paul now to where all true theology must lead.

To worship.

To worship.

And he ends this book in verse 27.

To the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Romans ends in adoration.

And we've seen this before.

It's not as though Paul could wait till the conclusion.

He's bursting through the whole time.

But now he ties it all together and he says, What a wise God we have.

Wise enough to judge sin but not compromise his holiness.

Wise enough to justify sinners without compromising justice.

A God that's wise enough to take even evil itself and turn it around for good.

Wise enough to give us mercy, to give us grace, to weave suffering and mission, all of this, the closed doors that Paul had, the open doors to weave it all together into one breathtaking purpose in Christ.

And so today, at the end of 38 weeks, we have climbed a mountain called Romans.

We've seen the ruin of sin and the triumph of grace.

We've seen the righteousness of God revealed through the gospel.

We've seen justification by faith.

We've seen our union with Christ.

We've seen the gift of God's Holy Spirit.

We've seen the hope of glory.

We've seen the mystery of God's purposes.

We've seen the obedience of faith.

We've seen what the gospel produces in the heart.

We've seen what the gospel produces in the church.

We've seen what the gospel produces in the world.

And now circling back to what we said on week one.

Here it is, the summary statement.

The gospel offers us a new hope by giving us a new identity in Christ that unites us as a new covenant people of God and calls us to a new way of life.

That's exactly what we've seen here in chapter 16.

Live this, protect this, trust this, live this gospel family, protect this gospel unity, and trust this God who is continuing to build his church.

Friends, what a gospel, what a savior, what grace, what a church, what a God.

Now to him who is able to strengthen you, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for your word.

That's like a two-edged sword that cuts our hearts.

We thank you for all that we've seen, all that we've experienced.

And Lord, we do pray that it would not be business as usual.

But that at any point in the future, when we flip over to the book of Romans, we might again just revel.

Revel in your goodness to us, your grace to us, the gospel to us in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Holy Spirit, we come and we plead for you to be the after-preacher.

Long after we've closed the sermon series, long after we've closed this book publicly as a church.

Won't you come and open that book in our hearts?

Open it in our lives.

May we be different as a result.

Lord, we thank you that your word never goes out and returns to you void.

It always accomplishes your purposes.

And I pray that even in the weeks and months and years that lie ahead, Lord, when we're in the thick of it, may we be reminded that there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

May we be reminded that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

May we be reminded that you are working all things, that we are more than conquerors, that there's nothing that can separate us from the love of God, neither height nor depth, neither the present nor the future, neither angels nor demons, nothing.

Lord, fill our hearts with these bedrock truths so that we could be the people of God that go to the nations and make a difference for your kingdom.

Because we pray this in your name.

Amen.

Thanks for listening to this sermon from BBC.

If you have questions about what you've heard or would like to find out more about the Christian faith, we'd love to hear from you.

You can visit our website or reach out using the contact details below.

God bless you.