Romans 16:1–16Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles to Romans this morning. We're looking at chapter 16, verse 1. Now, how many of you have read this section? How many of you think you have read it correctly? How many of you are wondering if I'm going to read it correctly? Me too. I did look up all the words. I did find it troubling that every single place I looked it up there was a different pronunciation. That was irritating because I was trying to really impress you with my reading skills, but I don't think anybody can really agree how to fully pronounce this, so I did the best I could and I'll pronounce it like I think, and if you know better, congratulations. But I do feel like we should read it. I do feel like we should read it, and so I'm going to read that now and kick this off. Before I do, I'll give you a few more minutes. Romans 16:1-16. I want to say this: how many of you have recently watched a movie, right? Gets to the end of the movie, the very end of the movie. How many of you watch all the way to the end of the credits until the screen goes black? Two people. Do you do it because you fall asleep, or do you do it because you actually enjoy looking at all the names, right? It is interesting though, at the very end they have the black screen comes up and shows the director, shows those who made the costumes, it gives the names of those who were producing it gives name after name, and most of us turn the movie off at that point because we don't care. That's the facts, we don't care about the list of names. I would though
Point 1Every name has a story and a price
Tell you this:
Christ did, and Christ died for them, for those names that are listed there in this letter, and to not value the names is to not value the cross of Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 2:13
It's extreme and it's important. And so I think it's good for us, maybe for me, to just give us a word of caution here, to not listen to this list and approach it like we do the scrolling credits at the end of a movie,
But consider that each name has a story and each story has a price that's been paid for that story.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 2:51
That's very important. Whenever, at christmas or Easter, your family does the family photo time, you know what I'm talking about, and then they show the photo so that you can determine if you want to retake it or not, what is the first thing you look at when you look at a group of people in a group photo? You, my wife said, by the way, I'm not going to call you a liar, but we zero in on ourself. We are enamored with ourself. We consider ourself above all others. But let us this morning consider someone else. "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, I got that one right, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well. Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life," who risked their necks for my life. How many, how much, how many of you would very highly consider somebody who was willing to lay their life down for you and tried, right? "To whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia," or Junias, as some pronounce it, "my kinsmen and fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. Greet my kinsman Herodion.
Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus," who wants that name, right? "Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them. Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
All the churches of Christ greet you." That is good. Whenever we come to Christ, one of the things that often I hear in the church is, will I lose friends? And the answer to that question is yes, you will. You will, 100 percent, with 100 percent certainty.
If you are far from Christ and you come to life in Christ, you will lose.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:57
Isn't it wonderful? Come to church on Sunday morning, a place of such encouragement, right? Sometimes I just feel like a, you know, a Debbie Downer, but it's the truth. How many of you can reflect back to the time you came to Christ, you came alive in Christ? Many of you held Christ at a distance because you valued your friends more than you valued Christ, but the reality is coming to Christ cost you something. One of the hardest things we have in losing, the difficulty in losing, is our friends. One of the things I love about this is Paul speaking of very cherished friends he has gained in Christ. Now consider Paul for a moment. His whole world was turned upside down when he came to Christ. The crowd that he ran with could no longer be the crowd he ran with anymore. I mean, these boys, these people that he ran with, these friends, or as they say today, homies, maybe we don't say that anymore, back in the 80s we said that he ran with, they persecuted and killed Christians. So his entire circle, sphere of people that he hung around with, had to overnight change. This upsets your world. I wonder if he's reflecting on all that he had lost, and at the same time as he writes this letter and closes it out and speaks to the church in Rome, he is considering the great wealth of friends he has gained in his time away from that which he has lost. Can you reflect for a moment on your decision, on that moment you came to life in Christ, you walked away from, and honestly he redeemed you from a life of sin and death and brought you to life in him, and all that you've lost, and can you consider for a moment that great reward of friendships you've gained in Christ? It is a lot to celebrate and to know, not only that this is simply a mass of people who are like you, who you don't know by name, who you have no experience with, but these are people that he knows their name. Listen, they're not even in the same place he's at, they're in Rome, they're far away from him, he's naming them by name. When was the last time you knew somebody by name, a brother or sister in Christ in another church, and you could talk about them with such love and care? This is beautiful. I mean, I would propose to you today that oftentimes in church, because we do not value community, we simply come to be entertained, come to engage in worship, come to hear a word, and we go home with little to no real community. We simply come to an event to charge up our batteries, if you will, for another week, with no true connection. Many of us can be at a church for a year or two years and not really know anyone's name. We simply just come to sing a few worship songs, hear a sermon, and go home,
But it costs you something to know someone.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:54
It costs you something. And I would say, hearing the words of Paul, we understand that this is a great reward. And notice what their friendship is based on. I just for a moment, let's just notice what their friendship is based on: mutual service to the Lord. Notice that it's not talking about interests. Sure, man, I remember my brother John, we used to be in that bike riding club, remember that, John? Remember that really long bike ride we did? No, he didn't talk about that. I remember my sister Sarah, and then once a month they had the quilting club, you remember when I came to the quilting club and all the ladies laughed because I wasn't a lady, you remember that? And I actually made the best quilt out of all you ladies, you remember that? No, he doesn't talk about that. He doesn't talk about the carnival we had at the church, nor the barbecue or the potlucks. He didn't talk about that, or the church picnics, he doesn't talk about that, he doesn't talk about any fishing trips, he doesn't talk about any excursions. This is not Disneyland. Paul simply talks about people serving the Lord alongside of him. That is a very different way to have relationship.
One is Christ-centered, the other is you-centered. The one
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:32
is Christ-centered, the other is me-centered. That is very different. Great value in serving the Lord. If you love the Lord, you will serve the Lord. If you do not love the Lord and you love yourself, you will serve self, and there is a difference in the way we engage the church community, and it is revealed in these sort of things. And Paul, let me just tell you how they served the Lord. They didn't have a cool band, it's not what he says. They traveled and they went from place to place, to conference arena to conference arena, and they performed before people and were applauded by men. That's not what happened. They were imprisoned together,
They stuck their necks out for others and risked their lives for others for the sake of the kingdom.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:31
This is not how we do church today.
We're scared to tell people about Jesus because they may not like us. These people tell people about Jesus and it's costing some of them their life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:43
What's the difference? This is another kind of friendship, a friendship that is based on something other than you. Could it be that Paul is speaking about something today that many of us in the life of the church do not understand, and could it be that the Spirit is trying to help us get a glimpse of the type of friendship and community we have in Christ that is beyond the realm of what we have ever thought the church could or should be?
Then how do we position ourselves to engage this type of community? There's a few things here that I'm going to browse, that I'm going to breeze through
Point 2Following Christ will cost you friends
Here. Five quick things I want to talk about. Number one: you will lose friends. We desire to keep what we have when coming to God, and the reality is
You can't stay where you are and go with God at the same time.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:57
You can't stay where you are and go where God is taking you. You just cannot. The reality is, as God pulls you towards him, he's pulling you away from something else, and if you try to hold on to him and to that which you had, you will be pulled apart in the process. Holding on to what you cherish will pull you apart in the process if it is not God. Number two, I thought it was particularly interesting, and this is going to be trigger-inducing for you guys today, and it's, listen, contrary to popular belief, I don't find pleasure in triggering you. It is not the joy of my life.
Contrary to what you might say around your dinner table, I don't like you to suffer and I don't find pleasure in your suffering. Every Sunday the word just has a way of piercing and separating, and it does that on its own, and it's painful, and quite honestly your pain often becomes my pain. No, not you become a pain to me, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying that your pain genuinely becomes a pain to my heart. I care for you, but I care enough to say the hard things, and this is a hard thing, a word of caution if you will, something I'm concerned about in the church today. Notice that it's Christ-centered,
Point 3Community is centered on Christ and his Word
Notice that Christ is the Word, notice that community is Christ-centered, not you-centered. This branches off into every part of what we do in our engagement with one another. It's Christ-centered. "In the beginning was the Word." Everybody say Word. "The Word was with God, the Word was God," and the Spirit hovered over the face of the deep. Notice this, just real quick: you cannot divorce the Holy Spirit from the Word and God. You cannot any further divorce God from the Holy Spirit and the Word, nor can you divorce the Holy Spirit from the Word and God. Wherever one shows up, the others are present. They are one. In the church today, one of the things we are wrestling with is this divorcing one from the other. We choose which part of the Godhead will be most convenient and we value the most, and we engage that part of the Godhead and we divorce it from the rest, and you cannot do that, and it is the duty of every good scholar to understand that, whether we talk about prayer, whether we talk about the Word, the Bible, whether we talk about whatever we talk about in the life of the church, that we should keep all of them in mind and understand that they work in harmony with one another. Notice here that although the church in Rome, those believers in Christ, have been filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit doesn't give them a word through the Holy Spirit by itself. Are you with me today? This is the trigger-inducing part, don't go to Crazy town, just stay with me. I'm not making a statement about what the Holy Spirit can, what he can and cannot do, that's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying here he doesn't, stay with me, don't let me lose you, stay with me. How does the church in Rome get the word? The apostle sends a letter, which today is the word we have. Are you with me today? Some of you would like to divorce this Word from the word you get from the Holy Spirit. That doesn't exist. If the Word, who is the Word, says, "I don't even say anything and I don't do anything unless God tells me to say it and tells me to do it," you mean even the Word doesn't have the authority to say a word that isn't, he's the Word. Are you with me today? Are you still tracking with me? Are you too mad yet? Are we good? And then as the Holy Spirit, we know the Holy Spirit illuminates truth in the Word, because there are non-believers who can have knowledge of this, but not revelatory knowledge of this, because this is the Word which the Spirit illuminates, and if you got a word, this is the one. This is the Word illuminated by the Holy Spirit, that is 100 percent proof infallible.
You want to be certain that you hear God speak? Read this.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:26
You want to be certain you hear him speak out loud? Read it out loud. Anything else, I'm not making a statement about what God can do, God can do whatever he wants, anything else risks fallibility. Why is it that we champion an argument to substitute what is infallible for what is fallible? Many of us walk around today and we say, "I've got a word." That's all right. Have you substituted your word for this word? I'm going to say this too. So then Paul, and they had the Holy Spirit, are you with me today? So if they had the Holy Spirit, and the way that God has designed it is for each of you to have the Holy Spirit, you don't even need to open that, because the Holy Spirit will tell you what you need to know. If that's his course for life, if that's his plan, then why did Paul even send the letter and why do we have that?
Well, we talk about prayer, we say, well, Shawn, I get a word in prayer. That's all right. How did Jesus teach us to pray? "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread." Are you with me today? And you know the rest of it, you know the rest of it. Where in there, as he's teaching us to pray, does he say, now wait at the very end and listen for a word?
Are you with me? Can God through the Holy Spirit prompt us, nudge us, direct us? Yes. Why have we divorced the Holy Spirit and the work of the Spirit from the Word of God and the way that God designed that Word to come to us? I'm afraid today that we find little value in this and more value in esoteric promptings that we're not certain is God or not. Why? The enemy wants us to not value this, and he has since the garden. All right, moving on. I think it's interesting that he gives a word, and not only that, he tells the people he gives a word to by letter, which Phoebe brings to them. All right, not by the Holy Spirit doing it but by the word that comes in a letter by Phoebe, and then in that word, in the closing, what he says to them is, hope, by the way, give a word to these people and encourage them and let them know how thankful I am to them. Why not the Holy Spirit, why didn't the Holy Spirit just give them that? Are you with me? Okay, moving on, that's trigger-inducing enough. Shawn, why are you doing this? Because community, the type of community and friendships that are here in here, is based on the
Point 4Greater the accolade, the greater the accountability
Word. It's based on the Word, not esoteric promptings. Okay, number three: greater the accolade, greater the accountability. Greater the accolade, greater the accountability. Be careful in the church about chasing accolades and desiring notoriety.
It may seem really awesome to be in a letter and have your name dropped down and be commended there, but really what that does, in the world in which you live where Christians aren't so, it's not necessarily such a positive thing to be a Christian, because you might die. This is evidence and a target for you, with your name marked as being a part of a movement where people are coming to kill you. Are you with me today? Notoriety thrusts you into the type of spotlight that brings heat into your life.
Everybody wants to be noticed, but know this: if you're noticed in the kingdom, you're a target in the kingdom.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:07
Everybody wants to be on the front line of God's ministry. Give me a role in the church that's worth something, put me on the front line of God's ministry. Then you get on the front line of God's ministry and you realize that's where all the people die, because they have 80 holes in them in three seconds. They're the first line of defense, that means you're the dead person, you're the person who gets shot at first. Everybody wants a bigger role. Want a bigger role at work, you know that a bigger role at work comes with more pain.
They pay you for pain. It ain't a raise because you're awesome, it's a raise because you're going to suffer more.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:47
I'm preaching.
So be careful you don't be praying that you may, I just wish I could make 100,000 a year. You just wish you could suffer more, because that's what you're asking for. They pay you that because it costs you that. Well, I just want to have a more valuable role. Be thankful just to mop the floor if that's the role you've been assigned. Do it with all joy, because he's naming people with a pretty big role in the church and notice the things that come along with it: prison, people getting their necks lopped off. Are you with me today? "Yay, I am named in a book." Who cares?
Greater the accolade, greater the accountability.
Be mindful of that as you pursue to be great in the kingdom, because greatness is death.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:58
All right, that's good, I like that.
Point 5Value comes from faithfulness in your assigned role
That's what we see here, anyway, in this letter. Number four: value is not assigned here by Paul, nor by God, to the role. It's assigned to the way that people carry themselves in whatever role they've been assigned. Today we fight for titles. Give me a role or a title worthy of honor. What is honorable is how you function in whatever role you've been given. Here's how the Bible says it: those who are faithful with little will be charged with much.
He assigns, notice, he assigns value not to the role, he assigns value to how you function in it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:52
Okay, all right, where do we get our assignment from? An esoteric prompting of the Holy Spirit? No, from a prompting of the Holy Spirit by his Word. Okay, and this month, let me just go ahead and say this: women are women. That's a role that people been assigned at birth, the Bible says it, "I created male and female, I created them in my image." That is a role assigned by God. Husbands, you shall love your wife as Christ loves the church. That is a role. Husbands, you are the spiritual leader of your home. That is the role. Don't you dare, men, punt on your role. In case you don't know what I mean by punt, that is when you want to get rid of the ball and you punt it away to the other person. The reality is we have men punting their role to the ladies of the house, because I mean, if she's going to do it, that's one less I have to do. It's your role. How do you know it's your role? There is a war on this today in the greater evangelical church. There is a war on this. Why? Because we've exchanged this for esoteric leadings and promptings divorced of this, and we call it godliness. It's a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem. You get your assignment from here. Women, submission, submit to your husbands, that's a role. First of all, if you're a woman, you have to be a woman, that's the first thing. Second thing is, if you're a woman because you were assigned the role to be a woman, your value is not in the role. That's why people change their role, because they think that if I'm a man people will value me more and I'll value me more. See, we've perverted this idea that the role is where value's assigned. No, it is your ability and willingness to do the best in the role you've been assigned, whether you like it or not, and this gets to determine it. Okay, that's good, moving on, that's trigger-inducing. I'm just all kinds of trigger- inducing today. Amen. Yay. Oh, it's so much fun. Number five: tenure has no determining value regarding assignments. That's good. Well, when I've served the Lord 60 years, I mean, I should really be used by God. Then you were used by God when you were serving one year. The problem is you're trying to change your role and you don't like the one you've been assigned. Where do you get that, Shawn? Where do you get that from this text? I'm glad you asked. Paul says in his letter that Epaenetus was the first convert, Paul wasn't. You with me? Okay, here's another one, here's one, first convert in Asia, right? Here's the better one: Andronicus and Junia is how they say it, Junia. Andronicus and Junia were in the Lord before Paul. Why wasn't, why wasn't Andronicus, I'm confused, why weren't one of them an apostle? I mean, hadn't they been there longer? I mean, these are people who've been commended because they've been faithful. Why would God choose some Christian killer, knock him off a mule and choose him? Why? I mean, come on, track with me, who would you choose? Let's get somebody that just got out of prison who had murdered a few people, came to church, and then God chose him. He'd been there a couple years, God chose him and passed over the pastor.
Tenure has no determining value regarding assignments. You know why? Because God assigns it and it ain't none of your business.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:33
Notice here too, notice here, God don't ask for your opinion. He don't care.
My goodness gracious, I can't believe it. In a world where everybody should value my opinion, he don't care about my opinion. Does he not love me?
No, he loves you enough to die for you, but that don't mean he loves your opinion.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:58
If he loved your opinion, he'd have had you write the Bible. He didn't, and as a matter of fact you'd probably be sitting in a corner pouting because nobody ever valued the thing you wrote enough to pick it up.
You'll lose friends, but you'll gain many more that are many more valuable when you come to Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 34:34
Notice how the word comes to the people, notice the word he has for those he's in community with. Notice how the greater the accolade, the greater the accountability. Notice that value is not assigned to the role of the people serving alongside of him, and notice that tenure has no determining value regarding the assignment. There's a lot to learn from this. Take a moment over this next week, look at every name, research them in the Bible and see how they served the Lord, and notice that the friendship with Paul in the community and of faithful believers is not based on some community hobby club that you mutually like together. That's not what he values the friendship based on, but mutual service in the Lord. That's why he values the community. That is much different than, hey, you know, I mean, we went and played a scramble golf scramble. I'm not against going to do a golf scramble, I'm just saying that when we talk about our church family, we might talk about all of those fun excursions. In our letter, it's suffering in prison and sticking our necks out for people and risking our lives as we serve Christ, as we reminisce and reflect on those we are in community with here today. There are three types of people you can be, and I'm going to close with this. You could be somebody who hardly knows the name of anyone in here because you just come to sing a few songs, hear a sermon, check off your responsibility list for the week so that you can say you did something for God, and you go home and you know no one here. That could be you. Or you could be somebody who values this community because you have somebody in this community who's like you and makes you feel better about you. Or you can be somebody who you are mutually serving the Lord alongside of. Which are you? I'm afraid that a vast majority of us will not fall in the third description, the description that is listed in this letter, and we should consider and answer the question why. And if we're going to cherish people like Paul cherished the church,
The only way we're going to do it is by engaging in service for Christ the way he did.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 37:19
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