Romans 16:17–19Scripture
After today we have one more week in Romans and we have officially gone through Romans. It has been edifying, it has been enriching, it has been challenging, it has been challenging, it has been challenging, but it's been good. It's been good. It's been pretty interesting how much, when you, I mean, when you realize, particularly where it's talking about here in this Scripture we're about to look, we're going to look at verse 12 through, well actually it'll be, no it won't be that, it'll be 17 through 19, so you can turn there, Romans 16: 17–19. In the midst of what it's talking about in these verses, which some of us that were here last week know is talking about those who will lead us astray from truth, it is interesting how easy it is to get off base with truth. There are so many things there, there are so many things that are being pumped into our ears and into our life due to media. I mean, honestly, the secular world has a captive audience in you every hour of your day. Our phone is constantly sending us notifications of the next new or another saying that might undermine truth, and we are at war against falsehoods around every corner. So then it stands to reason that when we go through Romans and we are reminded slowly, week by week, of what truth is, of good biblical doctrine, we
Introduction
Can really begin to see how much, even inside the church, we've gotten it wrong, and as much as our personal opinions and positions have been formed by years and years of things that are not true, although we read something that is the opposite of what we have learned, we can see it in black and white, how much we wrestle against what we see to be true versus what we've been told for years. And there has been some wrestling in our fellowship. Some have endured it and have come out stronger on the other side, and some have run to the four winds, because
Many of us would rather be bedfellows with falsehood than wrestle with truth,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 2:58
and it's a problem. It's a problem. So then I'm going to preach on this again, because oftentimes when we think of false teachers, or we think of those who divide or are divisive or go against truth, we label and point our fingers, what is this, fingers, to the pastors, to teachers, but be careful, that's not what it's talking about here. I mean, that's part of it. I mean, at the end of the day, if you have a platform or a pulpit, that is not a place to be practicing. You should prepare yourself first. That was a lot of P's, I like to do that, but you know what I mean, it shouldn't be a place of practice. You should go to preparation before getting to the pulpit. Those that are ill-equipped and ill-prepared should not be so eager to fill the pulpit, because you can get it wrong and you can ruin lives and you can shipwreck people's eternity, and you can do so innocently. You don't have to be malicious, you don't have to know you're a wolf in sheep's clothing to actually hurt somebody. You can think you're a sheep but actually be a wolf, by the way, because you're ill-trained, right? So we talked a little bit about the importance of training, and the importance of, there are some false teachers that don't know they're false teachers. There are some people who indulge their own appetites and they use pulpits to do so, and they will stand before the Lord one day and they don't even know it, and they'll say, "I did this in your name, I did that in your name, I drew massive crowds in your name, thousands of people got saved at the altar in your name," and he'll say, "I don't know you're not my child." So it will be a shock to even some pastors out there that one day they'll realize they're not a child of God, but they created a movement where people in their movement were actually children of God, and the person leading the movement wasn't. That would be shocking. But then here, if we read this again, let's just do so, Romans 16:17–19 says this: "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions." Notice that could be teachers, or it could be Bob or Sue or Sally or Sam in the fellowship, and quite honestly to some regard those that are most dangerous are those Bobs and Sues and Sallys in the congregation who have people's ear more hours of the week than the pastor. Track with me now, we've got to talk about this, because that might be you. And it is the duty of every individual to make sure that we hold up truth, that we don't even inadvertently give somebody a mistruth and shipwreck their obedience to God, because much like what the apostle Paul is saying to the church in Rome, it is your obedience that has become an example and given glory to me. So be careful, so watch out that you don't fall into the trap of believing a mistruth, because it will shipwreck your obedience, it will rob me of glory, and it will ruin your example to the world. This is serious business. Now in a world where we live where we can't, listen, you'll be tarred and feathered if you point somebody out and say, "That person ain't speaking truth." That's unloving in our culture. It's unloving to call sin. It's unloving to question anyone. It's unloving to push back. It's unloving to say that's not biblical. It's unloving to do any of that, and the apostle Paul is commanding it. So which do you want to acquiesce to? Will you acquiesce to culture and its definition of how you should live and its description of how you should walk, or are you going to acquiesce to the commands of God in his word? Which one will you abide by? That is the question today, then, isn't it? And it's a challenging one, because no one wants the spotlight to be on them, and they certainly don't want culture shining it on them, because it's volatile and it gets nasty when culture gets involved. And the reality is our world doesn't think highly of church anyway or its people, never has, never will.
If you're in this for a popularity contest, you're on the wrong side.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:12
You're on the wrong side. "For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all." Notice it is the obedience that's known to the world. Their obedience to God is known to the world. Oh, that Echo Church would be known, and its people be known, for its obedience to the Lord, not for its events, not for its coolness, not for its whatever, fill in the blank, but for its obedience to the Lord. That is how we would want to be known. Where's that in our world today? Unbelievable. Unbelievable. "For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." He didn't really go on to expand there, but let me just go ahead, for the sake of conjecture here, let me just consider for a moment why he's speaking about this. I think it might possibly be that their obedience has become an example to the world and given glory to God, as I mentioned before, and to get derailed from truth is to be derailed from honoring and worshiping God, because God is truth, and so you can only serve one master. You will worship God and you will serve truth, or you will worship Satan and you will serve lies. Choose this day whom you will serve, but you cannot serve both. You cannot serve both. And to be derailed from serving truth and then serving a lie derails your witness. What is your witness? What of your witness to the world? And then in verse 19, "For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." Let me just go ahead and throw this in there: it is becoming increasingly obvious to me, the more I talk to people today, that people are having a difficult time. What used to be black and white has now become hazy and gray. He's warning us of this hundreds of years ago, and this is only exacerbated to the place that now we have people that can't even, they don't even know what is right and wrong anymore. Can I get an amen up in here? We don't even know what is right and wrong anymore. Listen, I'm going to say a couple of things, I'm going to give you some four points, we're going to close this thing out. It's going to be quick. It won't be painless, but it will be quick pain, all right? It'll be like ripping a band-Aid off. I'm just going to get in there, I'm going to get her done, and I'm going to get out. Now, listen to me today, listen to me. Every time I stand up here there is an opportunity for people to think I am speaking at them. Listen, everything I talk about today is going to hit somebody. Everything I talk about every Sunday is going to hit somebody, right? So take it personal, but don't think I'm coming at you. If it hits like I'm coming at you, maybe the word is hitting you. I'm not trying to get personal, but the Scripture is personal, and so I do care, and I don't want to hurt people's hearts, but listen, man, it's easy to get it wrong. I mean, I've gotten it wrong. Have you gotten it wrong before? Some of us have it wrong, and we should be warned, not just for your own sake but for the sake of those who are connected to you, that you're dividing and separating from obedience to God in your ignorance. All right, so that's important.
So here we go.
Truth is absolute. There is no gray in truth.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:15
Now the world will try to tell you it's not absolute, that it is dependent on opinion, the opinions of men. Truth is absolute. It is what it is. It is what God says it is. It does not, in other words, truth does not come to you. You must seek it out. It's absolute. It's planted, it's firm, it's a statute, it's set. That's why you seek it out. It doesn't seek you out, you seek it out. It is unyielding, unchanging. You must meet it where it chooses to be found. You don't meet it where you choose to find it. You're not the initiator. Often we are not in search of truth. Listen to me, write this down. So you've got absolute, truth is absolute, but oftentimes I've found with mankind and humanity we're not really in,
We're not really in search of truth, we're in search of confirmation, and those are absolutely different.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:43
They are not the same thing. So here's what we do: when we want to know truth, we go find people who will confirm what we believe is the truth. In other words, we go find somebody who will confirm our position or our opinion. But truth is willing to go seek out those who might disagree, for the sake of wrestling with something in opposition to the position you hold. And honestly, that, we don't do that today. Like, man, that right there, we will quit small groups over this stuff. Like, I just, you know, I mean, that's so-and-so, when they believe this and why, and I can't sit in here and labor with this idiot any longer and his lack of understanding, and I have an elite understanding and I'm smarter than everybody and I just can't take stupid no more, and so you leave. And honestly, it might be, it might be just, track with me here, stupid didn't stay stupid, might have left. Now, listen, I'm not trying to be offensive, I'm trying to be real about this.
I'm not calling people stupid, but I'm saying it is not wise when you get pushback to run from pushback. That's ignorant. And so could it be, could it be that you possibly don't know the truth? Possibly you're irritated because you didn't get the confirmation you sought, and
Confirmation is not necessarily truth, amen.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 16:58
It can lead you to believe something that's not true at all. There are going to be people who confirm what you believe and they're confirming a lie. Yeah. Okay, there's a catchphrase in marketing and I wrote it down, I love this, it says this: "A codfish lays a million eggs while the helpful hen lays one, but the codfish never cackles to let us know what she has done." How many of you have ever, how many of you have ever heard your parents say, "I'm only going to tell you once"? All right, because once is enough. When it's truth, once is enough. Once. I want to say this too, so we look at the codfish, it lays a million eggs and no one even knows about it. A codfish lays a million eggs and no one even knows about it. A codfish lays a million eggs and no one knows about it because there's no cackle. The hen lays one egg, cackles, and everyone knows about it.
The hen lays one egg and cackles and everyone knows about it. I would say this: there is a million truths in here and no one knows about it. Lots of people don't know about it.
It only takes one lie to come in here and derail everyone, because when that lie comes, it comes with a cackle,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:47
and everybody listens and everybody hears and everybody pays attention, while this remains. What do you listen to? Do you wake in the morning listening for the cackle? How many truths, how many millions of truths have you passed over every morning to get to the cackle of your phone? Are you with me today? Because at the same time that this lays on your nightstand, I mean, some of you, that would be a, that would be a step up in the right direction, right? But if this lays on your nightstand and your phone lays by it, which one do you go to first in the morning, and why? Notice that this doesn't cackle, but there's millions of truths, but this is going. Are you with me? You with me? And which one do you grab first? Now listen,
Our lives are run by cackles.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:10
How many cackles do you have in your life? And the reality is the apostle Paul is saying, they're there, watch out for
Point 1Watch out for those who divide and boast
Them. Watch out for the cackles. Watch out. So let's talk, that's my first point: watch out. "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." Avoid them. That's too hard for you guys today, we'll keep it softened here. Avoiding people, that seems unloving, we just won't go that far. I want to give you all a coronary.
True greatness, listen to me, is marked by weakness according to the Bible, not by strength.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:58
True Christianity is marked by weakness, not by strength. Watch out for people who walk around like they're God's first cousin. Watch out for people like that. Watch out for those who tout their greatness in the Lord. Watch out for those who act like they are the best. Watch out for those who say they have a deeper, more profound relationship with God than other people in their life. Watch out for those who seem to walk in greater anointing than others, and there is just something about them that enamors you and you're amazed by, because
You should not be amazed by men, you should be amazed by God, not men.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:53
Watch out for those people who rob God of glory, intentionally or unintentionally, if they are God-robbers. If they rob God of glory, that is a problem. Watch out for those who prioritize encounters over knowledge. Watch out for those who preach that suffering, trouble, difficulties, and struggles are not a part of the Christian life. Watch out for those who desire to teach but have not taken the necessary steps to prepare themselves. Watch out for them, they're dangerous. Watch out for those who feed on glory, robbing God of every ounce due to him alone. Watch out for those who use God's name to validate their own desires. Watch out for those who use God to manipulate men into doing what they please. Watch out for those who sling around sayings like "the Holy Spirit is my teacher." Watch out for them. Oh, but that's in the Bible. Yeah, but it uses it in the Bible much differently than the way that person's using it, because when it says that in the Bible it is not to the jeopardy of the word. It is, "Well, I've got the Holy Spirit so I don't need school. Well, I've got the Holy Spirit so I don't need the Bible. Well, I've got the Holy Spirit so I don't need church. Well, I've got the Holy Spirit so I don't need community. I'm one with God, he's one with me, we're a big fat community, you know, no, I don't need nobody else." Watch out for them. Watch out. Watch out for those who say they love God but hate men. Watch out for them. That's what he's saying. Watch
Point 2Smooth talk and flattery feed our appetites
Out, watch out for them. Number two, smooth talk and flattery. "For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." I've had people come in here, and it's fine, and it's fine, I'm, I mean, it's fine, it's not fine to me, it's hurtful to me because I'm immature, but it's fine because it's true. Truth gets real uncomfortable with me saying things like, for instance, like, say, maybe ignorant didn't stay, maybe ignorant left. Considering those things is offensive. "Well, that's unloving, it's unkind, that's ungracious, that's not what a pastor would say." Have you read the Bible?
You see, smooth talk and flattery is not necessarily equivalent to love. It says that people who are divisive, not just preachers but people who are divisive and troublemakers in the church, you should watch out for. They serve their appetites by satisfying yours. Am I, track with me here, track with me here. Let's just back up here, let's just back up here for a second. Let's move off of pastors. Thank you. You're welcome. Let's move off of people in the church that are in fellowship with one another in small groups and in community right here. Let's just move off there. Be like, you're like, thank you, thank you. Let's mess with parents for a second. I mean, because that's the family of families, right? And if you can't get it right in the family, how are you going to get it right in the family, yeah, right? So the reality is that as parents we don't know how to function in our own personal home in a biblical fashion, so then it stands to reason that in the church we get this wrong. And the reality is we would rather use flattery, and what is the other thing, flattery and smooth talk, with our children, because if we make them happy we make ourselves happy. You tracking with me here? So to track with me now, all the teens and the young people in here today, right, see this is not, I don't, you dare take what I'm about to say and leverage it against your parents to get what you want, okay? Don't, don't do that. Some of you are like, some people are thinking, gotcha. Instead of saying no to our children, to get them quiet at the dinner table, by giving them a phone, instead of saying no we give them the phone because it makes our lives easier, it serves our appetites, which is silence. I need a side of silence, please, cooked medium rare. So instead of doing the hard thing and saying no, we give them what they want, and in giving them what they want we get what we want. We can't even do this right as parents. Okay, first, 2 Timothy 4:3–4 says this: "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." Why will they do this? Why will they do this? They will look for teachers who will be the same type of teachers that Paul tells us to watch out for. There will be people in the last days who will gather up for themselves teachers that will suit their passions and fulfill their appetites, and let me tell you, they'll find them. They'll find them. Some of you here today have found them on Instagram, you have found them on YouTube, you have found them on podcasts, you have found them, and what you don't get in one part of your life, you suffice to say you feed your appetite through the week with a bunch of things, and we have gathered for our teachers all around the world, teachers who will give us what we want. It's a problem. I call it experiential sabotage, because today what we don't want, we don't want knowledge necessarily, we want an experience, and there are teachers who are giving it to people today in church. Notice here, if we go back to it, listen to this, don't miss it, because this is really cool: "For such persons do not serve the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the," what? "Hearts of the naive." Now track with me here. So how do false teachers, how do people that bring division, how do they get what they want? By giving other people what they want.
Okay, so if we feed them what they want, if we feed their passions, they'll feed ours. If we feed their appetite, they'll feed ours. But what are we feeding? We're feeding hearts. We're not just feeding hearts, we're feeding, what does it say? They deceive the hearts. Notice that what is deceived is hearts, not heads. Jeremiah 17:9 says this: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" In other words, people who bring division will prey upon your heartstrings, they pluck your heartstrings,
Point 3Seek wisdom like silver, or stay naive
They give your heart what it wants to lead it to deception. Third point, I put "naive."
Right, I don't know how to pronounce that, naive, I spelled it right but I don't know how to pronounce it. "For such persons do not serve the Lord but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." Naive, I looked up naive, it is one lacking wisdom, one lacking experience. Proverbs 2:1–5 says, "My son, if you receive my words," everybody say "words," "if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments," everybody say "commandments," "within you, making your ear attentive to wisdom." Notice where wisdom comes from: my words, my commandments. "Well, I have the Holy Spirit."
Now, the Holy Spirit void of this is not where wisdom comes from. That's an ignorant statement. That's counterintuitive to what God said. The Holy Spirit in us brings illumination to this. The Holy Spirit in us does not bring illumination without this. "Well, I got a word from the Holy Spirit." Not without this. What you got is indigestion, because the Bible said you get wisdom, this is required. Okay, all right. Okay. Wow. Yes. "If you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver," you have to seek truth. I thought truth came to you. Are you with me here? You have to seek it like silver. You know how hard it is to find silver? Go look it up. "Those who seek me, I am truth." Those who seek me with all their heart, they will find me. What about those who don't? They won't.
You mean to tell me absolute truth costs me something? Blood, sweat, and tears is what I came today to tell you it will cost you. So if you're somebody who busts out whenever you are in conflict and wrestling over what is truth, and you run because you don't like the wrestling,
You will run away from truth,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 34:13
and it isn't that the other person's true and you're not, but truth comes out of the struggle, and I'm afraid today we have a generation that is not tapped into truth, that is void of truth, because
We have a generation that don't believe they should have to pay a price for anything that's good.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 34:38
That's good stuff I'm preaching. Listen to me, that's good. We have a problem today, we live in a Crock-Pot, well it's not even a Crock-Pot, a microwave generation that believes that, boom, I should be famous, and boom, I should have a million dollars, and boom, I should be the CEO of a company. Boom. No you won't. No you won't. You will be living in your parents' basement until you're 80, because it don't work that way. You have to pay the price. "If you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the LORD." Did you catch that? Remember the command to fear the Lord? This is how you do it. You seek wisdom like treasure, like silver, like a hidden treasure. That's how you understand the fear of the Lord. You can't have a fear of the Lord without seeking truth like silver and like hidden treasures in his word. We have a generation full of people in an evangelical movement inside the church who don't fear the Lord, because they do not seek truth in here. Well, is there some kind of device we can put on the Bible to make it cackle at us so that we could pay attention to it? Listen,
This is a love letter. It's a love letter.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:20
If Brook decided, well, I don't think you decide to die, but if she just got sick and died, and I was going through boxes and clearing out stuff several years later and I ran across a box and I opened the box and in it I saw a fifty-page love letter to me that she had not yet given me, can you imagine me putting it on my nightstand and never reading it, and then every morning I wake up having this love letter from somebody who was no longer with me in the flesh, and I pick this up every morning to look at my notifications and pass over the love letter? That'd be crazy. There is a large portion of you today that have not read this love letter from front to back, and you come on Sunday and you say you love God, you say you care about him, but what kind of crazy doesn't read a love letter? What is that? At some point we have to begin to question whether the profession of our mouth lines up with the profession of our heart. "Then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of
Point 4Truth anchors you against shipwreck
God."
We live in one of the most biblically illiterate generations in the world, because we are biblically illiterate, meaning we don't even read it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:32
Last point: truth anchors you from shipwreck. Shipwreck your example. "For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." One of the greatest words, and I'll say this and I'll close, one of the greatest words you will ever learn in your life, and you will add to your vocabulary, is "no." Well, that's rude. Well, I just want to help. Well, listen, my wife and I have been, I have serious blood pressure issues, you know, we have, in case you, I'm not young anymore. I'm not as old as some of you, but I'm 46 and I feel it. For those of you who have hit the 80 mark, like, if I take what I feel now and I double it, because there is a big difference between 30 and 46, and the way my body feels when I wake up in the morning at 46 is not the same as it did when I was 30. I'm kidding. And so we're just trying to be very mindful about everything that we do, and so we get in a lot of conversations. Brook, I grew up in a home, let me just say this, I'm going to say this and then I'm going to close, I grew up in a home that you could, when you were done eating, you didn't have to finish your plate. And this is crazy because I grew up in the South, like, I mean, in the South they just, it's a different kind of discipline in the South, I'll just say that right now, right? It ain't the same, like, you know where the word Bible Belt came from, anyway. I mean, they used belts in the South, right? Like, so, and so it is very interesting, but when you were done eating, you put a plate before you and you were done eating, you could be done eating. Now my wife grew up in the Midwest, I haven't asked for permission to say this, and in her home it was you put it on your plate, you eat it, every bit of it, even if it's unto death, right? And you sit at that plate until you have finished every last pea you put on there. Matter of fact, her family wouldn't even let her pick her own food, they would put, she would, if it were served she got a portion of that, so, and she had to finish it, and honestly she grew up in that so long that it has formed in her: you finish your plate. However, we live in a society now that went from normalized drinks to supersized drinks to mega-sized drinks to super mega-sized drinks, and now a child small used to be an adult large. Like, it is nuts what's happening. You go to a restaurant to get food, it's not, you need a dump truck to eat it's so much food, they back up a dump truck and they dump it on the table. It's a ton of food, right? So just because, and if you can eat it, that's great, knock that thing out. Like, I mean, like Landon, he could eat a whole dump truck's worth of food, like, and if you can eat it, that's fine, but if you can't eat it, say no. Like, at the point you're sitting at a table and you're going to make room to put more food in there, it's time to say no. Just say no. Are you with me? Say no. But notice that which cackled the most, the longest, regardless of what we feel in the moment and regardless of what we know in our head to be right,
That which has cackled the longest over our lives rules.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 43:17
Are you with me? So when you spend twenty years being told to do one thing, although you feel and know that you should not do that anymore because you're an adult now and you can say no, you still do the thing that you know is wrong and you feel is wrong because you have more time with this cackle than the new one, and that is the issue with church, because you have been formed by cackles, that when one cackle comes in and says something that counteracts another one, the one you've heard the most will be hard to unfold. So the goal here is to daily put this in, because it doesn't happen overnight.
You're like, it isn't like I got a truth, boom, changed. It is, I got the truth, I got the truth, I got the truth, until it begins to reign supreme and overrules and reshapes and transforms you from ever-increasing glory to ever-increasing glory. It's transformative. It's transformative.
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