Point 1We are nearing the end of Romans
Let's turn your Bibles to Romans 16. I will turn there with you. We are nearing the end of our journey here, and it has been a wonderful journey at that. In a few weeks here we start an exodus, so if you have failed to join a small group, I would encourage you to do so. The way you get plugged into the life of the community of the church is through small groups. We used to provide many platforms and avenues by which you could, what I would believe, or what I would say this morning, would get a false sense of connection. That would be through different programs and ministries, event-based things, and we had those running all the time, and people love doing that because we live in a culture where it's hard to commit to anything. Considering joining a small group is tough because that's a weekly commitment of about an hour to two hours in one night a week. We would rather attend one event a month and have a false sense of connection, when really you cannot build relationship at an Easter egg hunt or a men's barbecue for an hour. We're encouraging people to do life with one another, and if you don't get plugged into a small group you will not survive in this church long. You will begin to feel an angst in your heart for true connection, and we have killed every form of connection other than connecting with the body through a small group. We've done that with intention. We've not done that because we don't know how other churches grow and how other churches function. We've done that because this is how the Bible does it, and we will be biblical, and that means probably oftentimes we will be countercultural. So as we move into Exodus, and you could jump into a small group anytime, this is a good time to begin to consider which one you will join. All right, so that's that, there's my little pitch. Romans 16, verse 17 through whatever, 20 maybe, says this: "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions." Notice here that you should be on the lookout for that. No, notice the way that it words it here, that you should be a watchman, watching for those who are divisive, and then it gives instructions on how you handle them. "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause division and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but they serve their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. 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. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." Now I'm really only going to have enough time to talk about a few of these verses. 17 and 18 is what I want to zero in on. I really would like to talk about verse 20, but I don't have the time. I don't even know that I can do the 17 and 18 in the time that I have, but
It is a crucial warning, a beacon if you will, in the storm of our culture
Pastor Shawn Gray · 4:16
of false doctrine being taught and pushed out on the social sphere every minute of every second of every day, of which by which your kids have complete and utter access, and quite honestly as adults we scroll and we are impacted by what I believe and can clearly point out as divisive false doctrine against what we have been taught by the apostles, and this is a problem, and it's shaped you. Now false teachers have complete and utter access to you all the time, all the time, and that's a problem, because how then can you do something in an hour when you've been infiltrated every hour of your week, all week long? God's word has a lot to combat, and it is a problem. I recall talking to this leader of a large mission organization about doctrinal
Point 2Purity and unity belong together
Faithfulness. He said something to this effect: "It's crucial, and so is unity. Some people emphasize one, he said, and some the other. There are churches or organizations that are made up of two kinds of people." He called them purity boys or unity boys. If you would consider, today in the church often times the church is made up of one of these types of boys. They tend to gather together. The reality is you will have a church mainly filled with purity boys or unity boys, that the epicenter of their, and the thrust of their organization, is around unity or is around purity, it is around truth or it is around unity. The unity boys naturally emphasize the preciousness of personal relationships and tend to neglect an emphasis on truth. Tend to, notice I said tend to, please don't ask me questions at the end about this. I said tends to, not everyone who loves unity is all about the wrong stuff, but oftentimes unity boys naturally emphasize the preciousness of relationship and they tend to often neglect truth. And I'll say this: why do people that are so hyperfocused on unity tend to neglect truth? Why do they do that? Because if truth becomes the focal point and the thrust of what you stand for, unity cannot exist the way they want it to.
Nothing will divide and separate like bone and marrow, like the sword of God, like truth.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:43
And so there is this idea that, how can we have true collaboration in the kingdom, how can we in the church, how can we have more unity in the church, but where truth is, unity becomes a problem, at least a type of unity that most of the unity boys want. The purity boys naturally emphasize the preciousness of truth, and their error is they tend to neglect the nurture of relationships. Are you with me today? Now if you are somebody who's on Twitter, and you're not like my good friend Jeff who got off that cesspool of problematic issues, and you're like me and you're still scrolling the never-ending abyss of painfulness, I would say that oftentimes what you run into is good old boys who are trying to figure out how to get along with everybody, and then which are called unity boys, and then truth boys, in my circle, that are people who tend to so hold up truth that all they're doing is looking for error, and they're looking at what people are doing wrong and saying wrong and preaching wrong, and all they care about then is truth, but to the point that they jeopardize every relationship they are in. Does this preach to anybody in the house? Because the more we value truth, the greater we're at risk of devaluing those we were called to love like Christ when they are in error. But although I want our hearts to be hearts that elevate truth, I don't want our hearts to be hearts that are constantly around every corner looking for error in men, but then at the same time the apostle Paul says watch for that. So how can you then watch for that and it not become the sole thrust of everything you do, just trying to find error in everyone? How do we do that? Well, I think he gives us an answer in here, I think. So in fact, you could probably categorize people in churches and denominations and institutions and movements in the evangelical church today, or even society in general, along these lines: there are those who emphasize doctrinal purity and there are those who emphasize relational unity. How do you love people and at the same time love truth?
How do you do that? I hope you're feeling uncomfortable with this description, and a good impulse in some of you would be saying right now, "Do we have to choose between loving people and loving truth?" I think the period of history we live in is not an easy time to be a lover of truth, amen. It's not super easy to be a lover of truth nowadays. Matter of fact, if you stand for truth, you will do so under a lot of fire. Truth does not make you popular. The most common criticism, if you stand for an important truth and imply by that stand that others should believe it, that's arrogant, which is the opposite of being loving. Therefore you are undermining relationships and you don't value people. If you value truth, you don't value people. You would never make me feel uncomfortable by speaking truth. How dare you question me, your arrogance to say you know better than I know. That's the thrust of our society. I would say this: if you don't value truth, it's not that you have to not value people because you value truth, but there is a problem if you value people over truth, because
Loving people over truth is ultimately placing people above God,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:29
and you get to choose who's God to you. For many thoughtful people today the only path to peaceful relationship is pluralism, a world with no truth that deserves assent from anyone or everyone. It seems on the face of it makes sense. If no one claims that what he believes deserves more attention than anyone else, then we can all live in peace, right? So peaceful pluralism and diminished truth claims always go hand in hand. If you're going to put living peaceably with everyone, even those who are opposed to God, if you're going to function and live in the same type of relationship with believers as you do enemies of Christ, that's problematic, and really it's the opposite of what Paul instructs here. It's the opposite. I mean, you read it, right, y'all had your study about it, right? See, because what we've done is we said living in unity and living peaceably with a brother, with one another, with everyone, is the same with a believer as it is a non-believer, but Paul gives a specific instruction of what to do with those who bring division, who are enemies of Christ. He says have nothing to do with them. How can we live peaceably with everyone and have nothing to do with them? Well, it's like, "Good, Shawn, tell me all the problems of the Scripture and then you're going to give me an answer, right?" No,
Paul does. I believe purity for the sake of unity.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:35
That's what Paul teaches. Not purity or unity, not truth or unity, but purity or truth for the sake of unity. That's how Paul puts it. I want you to see and feel how out of step this text is today with Western culture. It pictures a way of thinking and living that most of our fellow Americans would consider offensive, unloving, fundamentalistic, that I've been called that lately, somebody called me fundamentalist. I was like, look it up in the dictionary and tell me if you don't want me to be that, because fundamentals are good. But that's what you get labeled when you value truth: a fundamentalistic person, an out-of-date person, out of touch with society, not relevant anymore. It's mainly a purity text, this text that Paul gives us, a calling for vigilance in matters of truth and doctrine, but it's not only that. In a striking way it is a unity text as well, although it seems as if it's not. The goal of the vigilant for right teaching is to avoid Christ-belittling, self-exalting dissension, and that is at the heart of every false teacher: Christ- belittling, self-exalting teaching, and I would just include others-exalting
Point 3Paul's two commands: watch out, then avoid
Teaching. Let's read it again, just this portion: "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. For such persons do not deserve our Lord Christ," for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, not deserve, that was wrong, do not serve, "but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." Verse 17 gives two commands that seem to contradict one another, but they're joined by a phrase that shows what they are is actually not contradictory, and verse 18 gives two reasons why these two commands are crucial. Let's first look at the commands in verse 17. Watch out for those who cause divisions. That's the first command. So in your notes, what are the two commands in 17? Number one, watch out for those who cause divisions. That's in 17, because they create obstacles and stumbling blocks. He said, "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles." So it's clear from this command that Paul is concerned about unity. He cares about it. He doesn't want somebody bringing dissension amongst the ranks, he doesn't want somebody to separate people from truth. He cares about us being united to Christ and doctrine, and proper doctrine at that. He cares, let no one divide you from God, his truth, and one another. He cares about unity. The first command is because he's concerned about unity. Truth doesn't trump unity is the reason for the command. Are you with me? But he is more concerned about our unity to Christ and our unity to his truth than he is our unity with one another. He wants us in the fellowship of believers to be united in Christ, for Christ, by his truth, and if somebody comes in to try to break that up we should watch out for them. And then he gives us the second command: what we do when we see somebody who comes in to try to disrupt community.
What do we do with them? Avoid them. He says, the second command in verse 17 is to avoid these people. The last phrase in the verse, "avoid them," that's what it says in black and white. I'm not making it up, and some of you might want to try to make this PC, but the reality is
It's just there. That's just what he says.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:44
Avoid them. "That's not Christlike." No, that's not cultural. If it wasn't Christlike it wouldn't be in here. "Well, Paul was kind of a punk." The canon is inerrant, it's his word. He said stay away from them. Now the reason I said these two commands sound contradictory is the first one is driven by a passion for unity: watch out for those who cause division. And the second one is in fact a call for division. That's why it seems like it's confusing. One fighting for unity, so watch for people who break the unity, and then the second one is have nothing to do with them, which seems not unified. When you spot such a division-causing person, he said divide them, avoid him. What is it then between these two commands that helps us see how they are not in fact contradictory at all but they work together? I believe it's Paul's reference to doctrine in verse 17. He said, "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause division and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine." Everybody listen to me, contrary. Watch out for brothers who cause divisions and create obstacles. This is it: contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. The issue here is not the same as in chapter 14, where Paul's dealing with different convictions about nonessential things. That's not what he's talking about there. He said in verse 5, "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." There was no talk in chapter 14 about avoiding those types of people, immature believers. The whole point was to help the strong and the weak Christians live together in unity, in mutual respect and understanding. I believe that it is possible for us to have nothing to do with an enemy who brings division in the fellowship of believers. I believe that it is possible to still leave room to love them. Third, with regard to the second command at the end of 17, avoid them, we need to be sure we leave room for obedience to the teaching of Romans 12 that says we should bless those who curse us. In verse 14, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all," and so on. So I would propose, according to the rest of Romans, if we take in context everything that Paul has taught us here,
Avoiding somebody does not mean stop caring about them, stop praying for them,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 22:59
don't be, and I would even propose it doesn't mean no contact at all, but rather avoid the kind of contact that communicates life can go on between us as it always has. Something has to change about your relationship. It can't, it just can't go on the same. If you, as a professing Christian, persist in departing from the doctrine the apostle taught, we can't simply hang out together like we always used to. Now just pause here for a second, look at me, look at me. There have been people that I have watched for in my life who fall into this category. I still pray for them, occasionally I reach out to them, I'm concerned for them, but
Life has not gone on as it always used to.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:19
My relationship with them cannot exist like it used to. Are you with me today? "Well, Shawn, that just seems unloving and uncaring. I mean, if you really love them you would continue to be as chummy and as much of a homie and as chill with them as you used to be." I can't, because God is my first love, and if you as a person are somebody who wants to divide people from the God I love and the truth he has told me, we can no longer do life together like we used to. Does not mean I don't love them, it does not mean I can never have contact with them, it means that my contact with them changes. There are sometimes in your life where contact has to change, and let me just give comfort and solace to those who are in the midst of this: it is okay. But complete removal of yourself from them maybe is not God's plan nor is it Paul's command, because if we look at the rest of Romans he still says pray for them, care for them, love them, but you cannot go on as you always have. I just want to say, can we just talk about false teachers for a second? I'm doing everything in my power to not go off on some kind of long soapbox about this, because we've got problems today, let me tell you, let me, okay, I'm going to say something that I would have never said five years ago, ever, because I was ill-equipped and uneducated. I mean educated, matter of fact, when I went back to school to finish my bachelor's seven years ago, when I went to apply and submit all my hours, I had as many hours as you would need for a doctorate but hadn't even completed my bachelor's. Okay, so that's that, congratulations, idiot. I mean, that's basically what you can say, right? At the end of the day though, it was not focused and I was not yet prepared, yet I had started this church and I had served for thirteen years in youth ministry.
So as I went back to school I began to learn some things, go figure, and then as I would recount some things I had preached and some ways that I had done things and things I had said and some stances I had, as I began to get educated, the more educated I got and the more trained I got, the more I realized I had some things wrong. The reality today is
Everybody wants to be platformed and everybody wants to teach, but very few people want to prepare,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:53
and the pastorate has become a place for people to get a following, to have a voice, and we have converted the pulpit from a place of truth to a place of leadership development, a personal affirmation or inspiration, and we've developed followings so huge, not because we preach truth, but because we've used flattery to gain a following, and it's a problem. It's a problem, and the reality is
False teachers seem nice.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:44
I'm not trying to give myself a pass, because I don't seem nice, right? Oftentimes some of you will actually just tell me that, because I think you can just be unnecessarily grumpy and mean, and that's not Christ either, but false teachers seem nice. That's
Point 4False teachers seem nice, flattering our appetites
What the apostle Paul says. That brings us to the final verse 18, two reasons Paul gives us for why doctrinal vigilance is so important. Verse 18, let's read it together: "For such persons," that is the persons who depart from the doctrine, notice here that's a false teacher, those who depart from doctrine, they don't have to, like, if they have horns barely peeking out for you to realize that they're a false teacher and a wolf. I'm not sure they even know. I think some false teachers know exactly what they're doing, I think many don't. That's why they'll stand before the Lord, as it says in Matthew, and say, "I did this in your name, I preached this in your name, I healed this in your name, I prophesied this in your name, I did this in your name," and he'll say, "I don't know you," and they'll be shocked. They were false teachers. Verse 18: "For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but they serve their own appetites, and by," listen to this, "smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." Let's take the second one first. Verse 18b, "by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." The word for flattery is simply and actually translated blessing, and smooth talk does not necessarily mean slippery, it just means pleasant and plausible.
That's the actual definition: pleasant and plausible.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 31:03
So flattery means blessing and smooth talk means pleasant and plausible. Not pleasant and true, not pleasant and factual, not pleasant and fact, but pleasant and plausible. Yeah, that could be, are you with me? Yeah, that might, yeah, maybe, yeah, right, maybe I can get with that. So the reason we must be so vigilant over biblical doctrine is that those who depart from it take simple people with them by pleasant, plausible speech that presents itself as a blessing to the individual. Sound familiar? Without me going into much detail and names,
False teachers don't get a following by being rough or harsh. They get a following by being nice.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 31:57
That's why people, when they go look to somebody to give them advice, they go to somebody who's going to be nice to them and won't call out their stupidity. And then when somebody comes to me and I, like you asked, I tell, are you with me, they're like, "Well, Shawn's not loving, he's ungracious and he's unkind." Yeah, truth will do that. Are you with me today? And so we'll just go and we'll find somebody else. How many of you have a friend who would never say you're wrong, and that's the friend you run to lots? Nobody raise your hand because you're smart, but we all have one. We all have one. We all know one. The reality is it is in our nature to chase flattery over truth. We're not supposed to live in shame because we've been set free from what we have done through Jesus Christ our Lord, but the way to freedom is shamefulness for what you've done. We want to unhitch people from the shame that drives people to the foot of the cross, and that's flattery. Well, we don't want people to feel bad about themselves. Good luck getting them saved, because it is identifying that you're a sinner that causes you to feel shame that turns you away from the one who caused the shame to the one who can set you free from the shame you caused. And I'm just sick of it. I'm just sick of all of the flattery that keeps people out of heaven and puts them in a Lamborghini to hell. I'm sick of it, because it's not the gospel, it's your gospel, and it's false. That's just one, but there's many, and we're all guilty of doing dumb things like this, but it is in identifying these things that we stand rebuked and corrected and we make necessary adjustments to be in truth over falsehood. All right, just take two examples from history of false teachers here. Here's one from Arius. Parker T. Williamson said this of him: "Here was a bright, energetic, attractive fellow, the kind of," listen to this, both of these guys that I'm about to do, Arius and Socinus, both of them denied the deity of Christ. All right, here's what he said of Arius: "Here was a bright, energetic, attractive fellow, the kind of citizen whom the Rotary Club would welcome, singing sea shanties in dockside pubs and teaching Bible stories to the Wednesday night faithful." This was an immensely popular man. Everyone loved him. He was super kind, super nice, and super attractive. "His story reminds us that
Heresy does not bludgeon us into belief. It seduces us."
Pastor Shawn Gray · 35:59
There, I wish I talked like that on my own. That's good stuff, my sermons would be so good. That's good stuff. And another writer describes, I think it's Socinus, I don't know how to say his name, so forgive me, S-O-C-I-N-U-S, I don't know how to pronounce that, he denied the deity of Christ, here's what it said of him: "He was a gentleman. His morals were above reproach," I would say morally perfect in every way, "and he distinguished himself by his unfailing courtesies to men." Unfailing courtesies, in fact, "was remarkable in an age when even the great Protestant leaders, Luther and Calvin, would use vile street language when dealing with their opponents. This man was easy on the ears." This means that it is seldom, it will seldom be popular to resist false teachers in the church, because they are almost always perceived as bringing a blessing rather than a curse, and that's the problem with identifying them. And if you bring a blessing to people they will gobble that up. They will gobble that up. They are gentlemen, it says, and Paul says the innocent are carried away by these gentlemen, escorted into the pits of hell. Hence he says watch out for them and avoid them. You cannot protect your children, people, if you cannot even protect yourself. You cannot prevent your children from being seduced by Satan if you are in the process of being seduced by him yourself. False teachers serve their own appetites, and this is the final thing, the other reason why doctrinal vigilance is so crucial. Paul says in verse 18, part A, "because such persons do not serve the Lord Christ but their own appetites," literally their own belly. In other words, the issue in false teaching is not a simple intellectual mistake. Behind the plausible speech and the smooth, gentlemanly demeanor there's idolatry, the idol of the belly, the appetite for food and sex or human approval. This is why we should be very careful with pastors who use the word to make personal points for themselves. It is a full-time job. The smaller our church gets and the more I know about each of you to write sermons, can we just be honest here for a second? It's tough, but I just remind myself I've got enough problems of my own, and
I will not use this pulpit to bludgeon people with the truth.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 39:19
The truth invites people to Christ. It does not mean it won't be hard, it doesn't mean the truth won't convict, it doesn't even mean you won't feel a tinge of shame that turned you to Christ, it doesn't mean any of that, but it means I will not be guilty of taking an invitation and using it like a sledgehammer to attack an individual. There are a lot of people who do this. This is why we should not be ill-trained and ill-prepared, and I know I came off of it, but guys, let me tell you, it wasn't until I got through my master's and into my doctorate that I realized I was a complete Neanderthal and halfway idiot, and much of what I had learned I had learned on my own, untrained, unskilled, and improperly, because the preparation process for knowing God's word to the point where you can rightly handle his truth is intense and it takes time, and let me tell you, we should be very careful about wanting to share too quickly, because we can innocently falsely teach based off of our own appetites because we're ill-prepared and ill-equipped. I've done it. It takes time, it takes time, and we should be mindful of those who want to be thrust without being prepared. It's a problem. This coming from a guy who went years in ministry not valuing an education at all, but it's a problem. Behind the plausible speech and the smooth, gentlemanly behavior is idolatry, the idol of the belly, the appetite for food and sex or human approval. Behind serious false teaching we almost always find not merely intellectual mistakes but worldly passions enslaving the mind of the person teaching, almost always. We live at a time that we should be watchmen. At this time when he writes to the church of Rome, he's telling them to be watchmen at this time. How much more should we be watchmen? It's a problem. It's a problem.
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