It was three years ago that we began our study of the book of Romans. I remember it was the day of the bunny run, and I was so excited. I had this flyer, and I remember inviting someone to church. And then I looked at this flyer that we were handing out, and it said, if you came to church that day, that Saturday night or Sunday morning, that we would start the book of Romans, and we were opening an indoor playground for the kids. And there was a picture of the kids going down the slide that's there in the playground room. And I was like, we will never hand out a cooler flyer than this right here, the beginning of Romans. The kids have a playground inside; well, I don't know if you know this, but they're not done in that Kids’ Ministry building. They're actually doing construction over there to build a whole new room for the fifth and sixth graders. Anybody heard of club 56 before? So, right now, club 56, our fifth and sixth graders, they meet on the second floor in that building. Well, they're redoing one of the ground floor rooms, so the fifth and sixth graders will now have this awesome room. They've literally raised the roof of the room. They're putting in all new walls, all new floors, and the fifth and sixth graders are going to have, like, this awesome environment to be taught the Word of God. And the reason they're doing this is because they want every single fifth and sixth grader, if anybody comes in with special needs, they can't go upstairs, they want them all to be able to come in and hear the Word of the Lord. And so, there's a bunch of men – can we give those men a round of applause – who are doing all the work over there to redo this room, and they're telling me it's going to be done by the bunny run. So, we might have a new greatest flyer of all time, like, hey, come and do the gospel of Mark with us, and the kids have a brand new room to learn about Jesus.
But what an epic three years it's been going through Romans, and I want you to see how Paul finishes this letter. So, I invite everybody to turn with me to Romans 16, verses 21 to 27. We've come now to the end, and Paul ends the same way he begins. He's very intentional in the way that he began and the way that he ends. He clearly puts book ends on the Book of Romans; he clearly wants us to see something about how he started and how he finishes. And so, I hope you can really get what Paul is saying in these verses. I think it could really encourage you today and strengthen you. And so, I'm going to read Romans 16:21-27, and out of respect, I am going to ask everybody to stand up once again for the public reading of Scripture. And I encourage you to give this your full and undivided attention, because this is the Word of God.
Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen. I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you. Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and have your seat. And I want you to zoom in on verse 25, “Now to him who is able to” what? “Strengthen you.” We have a God of strength, and God has the ability, he has the power to give his strength to you. Okay, and so I want you to be strengthened here today. Maybe you know some of these beautiful phrases in the Scripture. “Now to him who is able”; maybe you know Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we could ask or think”; or maybe you know Jude 24, “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before his presence.”
We have these precious statements about what God is able to do. Well, here it says that God is able to strengthen you. And I think that here Paul is kind of letting us in on his secret. Paul comes across as a very strong character. If you go along on the missionary journeys in the book of Acts, if you read through his teaching his master class on the gospel here in Romans, we get this idea that Paul is a very strong man of faith in the Lord Jesus. Well, the secret of Paul being strong is that Paul knows that he's weak, and then Paul believes that God is able to strengthen him. So, even though we've been studying Paul for three years, I think a lot of people here at our church still don't really understand how Paul himself thinks. He doesn't think that he is strong. He thinks that God is able to strengthen us.
And so, I would like for you to take out the handout there in your bulletin. And because we learn two ways that the weak becomes strong. Hear from Paul in these verses, and I want you to see these two ways, because you might feel tired, you might feel like you're growing weary, you might feel like you're weak and it's hard to keep going. And I want you to know that God is able to strengthen you. Remember Paul told us something that Jesus said to him in 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So, what did Paul say? “Therefore, I will gladly boast in my” infirmities, in my weaknesses, I will gladly boast in my need, because his power is made perfect when I am weak. So, Paul didn't think of himself as a strong person. He thought that it was the grace of Christ that would be sufficient for him, that it would be God's power working in him. And so, if you ever study grace in the Greek New Testament and how the word grace is used, grace is often associated with strength, like God in his goodness, in his undeserved favor, gives his people strength, like be strong in the grace that is in Christ. Jesus is the idea like, if I'm giving grace to you, may the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. That's what's going to enable you to be strong. It reminds me of the song that we love to sing. “I hear the Savior say, thy strength indeed is small child of weakness. Watch and pray, find in me thine all in all.” If you go try to be strong, you will be brought down. But if you believe that God is able to strengthen you, even the weak can become strong.
And so, I want to show you two different things about Paul that made him strong. In these same two things, God is able to strengthen you. And the first one is in these verses, starting in Romans 16:21-23 where we get greetings. Because, apparently, Paul didn't write Romans. He didn't write it by himself, and he didn't even really write it at all. This guy, Tertius, wrote the letter we find out here in verse 22. So, if you picture the apostle Paul in prison somewhere, writing Romans, or by himself somewhere writing Romans, you should actually picture him in a room full of brothers in Christ. I mean, let's look at this. We’ve got Timothy. He's probably the most famous coworker on the team with Paul. Timothy's there, he recruits Timothy to be his disciple in Acts 16. “Timothy greets you.” Then we got three of his kinsmen, which is in Romans, means fellow Jews. We’ve got Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, who might also be referred to in the book of Acts as well. Some people even speculate about some of these names. We don't exactly know who some of these guys are, so there's some speculation. Could Lucius actually be Luke? I've heard people throw that out, but there are at least four guys in that verse. Then Tertius is the guy who's actually scribing down this letter. Then there's Gaius, who's the host, and he's got the whole church. And then it seems like somebody important, Erastus, the city treasurer, and then “brother Quartus, greet you.” So that's at least eight different people that are there with Paul when he's writing Romans that want to send their greetings.
Now, greetings has been a theme of chapter 16, if you go back to chapter 16, verse 1, he commended Phoebe. Do you remember Phoebe, this patron, this Deaconess, lady who maybe brought the letter to the Romans? Well, then he had them greet one another, and he shouted out all these people that would be there among the church in Rome. And he said, greet this person. They're my beloved. They're my coworker. Greet this person over here. So, from verses 3 to 16, it was all a bunch of greetings. Well, now, not only does he want the people reading the letter to greet one another, but there are people where the letter is being written that want to send their greetings. And so, that's what we get a glimpse of in verse 20. 1 to 23 we get a glimpse into where Paul is writing the letter. And it turns out he's writing the letter in a room with eight other men. He's writing the letter in fellowship. He's writing the letter as a team. In fact, when you start to think about it, out of the thirteen letters that we usually say Paul wrote. Well, some of them, it says Paul and Timothy wrote them. Some of it says Paul Silas and Timothy wrote them. And so, often, when you start to get behind the scenes of what Paul is doing, you find out that Paul didn't do it by himself. Paul didn't think ministry was a DIY project. Paul worked to build up a team of people. That's what Paul thought.
In fact, if you read any story where Paul is by himself, that was never intentional. That was not Paul's plan to isolate himself from other believers. Paul always wants to go out with other people, even when he and Barnabas don't agree about what to do. Paul creates a whole new team to go. He recruits Timothy to go. So, you’ve got to see this now. I only try to preach the things here at our church that are sure from the Scripture and who some of these people are in these three verses here, there's some speculation. And so, when I'm preaching, I just want to tell you what, clearly, the Scripture says, I don't want to speculate about what it possibly could say, but there's some fascinating speculation about these people that I would like to share with you right now. Okay, because one of the theories that gets developed, like, who are all these people? We're trying to figure it out. For example, the guy, Gaius here in verse 23, there's a Gauss of Derby that's mentioned multiple times in Acts. There's a Gaius that gets baptized in Corinth in 1 Corinthians, and there's a Gaius that 3 John is written to. And so, are they all the same guy? Are they three different people? People don't really know. So, you kind of end up like, well, we're not sure if it's the same guy. It could be the same guy. Could be a common name at that time, but this guy, Erastus, who's here with him, they literally found an archeological discovery of an inscription to Erastus in the city of Corinth. And a lot of people think that Paul was in Corinth with these other people when he wrote Romans. And maybe part of the reason they think that is because they speculate that the Erastus of this inscription that was found in Corinth is the same Erastus that is mentioned here. And although archeology is very interesting, that's not the fascinating speculation I want to share with you. The idea here is this guy, Gaius. He might be an important person. Erastus might be there with him. He might be the head of a household. At least in 3 John, Gaius has like a whole church in his house. So, when you hear the word household in this context, it's different than how we use the word household in our context. In our context, household means usually just our family living in a place, but in this context, household means not just the family, but a whole bunch of servants. Like the whole business is done through the family. And so, these kinds of households, they would have had servants, and there would have been someone who was the head of the servants, and then there would have been some kind of ranking among the servants. In fact, it would be like, here's the head person, and then the second person, the third person, the fourth person. And it's possible, this is where the speculation is. It's possible that the first person could have been the Primus, the number one person, the second person could have been Secundus, the third person could have been Tertius, and the fourth person could have been Quartus. And so, if that's true, what just happened is the third man, the third man who's the slave there, Tertius, he's the guy who's actually writing Romans down. And then we've got maybe a Gaius, the head of the household, and Erastus, the city treasurer, and then Quartus, the fourth level servant. He's there to greet you, too. And if that's really how these names work, like Tertius and Quartus are the names of slaves there in the household of Gaius, then what a social statement that is that the leaders of the city, the head of the household, and the third and fourth level slaves, they're all there together in Jesus Christ. That could be a powerful statement. Like people of all different social orders, we're all there together to greet you in the name of the Lord. But that's just speculation. I can't prove any of that. It's true, what I can say is that Paul clearly has a crew. Paul has a squad. And if you were to be able to go with Paul, you would see that he wasn't going by himself. He was always doing it in a team.
What is your idea about following Jesus? Are you just following Jesus yourself, or are you investing in other people and building a team to follow Jesus? See, I want you to really think about this with me. Go to Acts, chapter 20, and we'll see another example of this. Maybe some of these same people, because the book of Romans was written somewhere between Acts 19, 20, and then Acts 21 when he gets to Jerusalem. So, this is right around the time Romans was written, and we get a glimpse here, if you look at it in Acts, chapter 20, starting with me in verse 3. Here's Paul on his journey, and here's how Paul traveled. He traveled with his traveling companions. It says he spent three months there in Greece. This is Acts 20:3. We went over this in a sermon called “The Apostle Paul's Encouragement Tour.” It was November 2021, so maybe you weren't around back then, maybe you forgot about it. Let me show it to you again here. Okay, as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. And so, Peter the Berean, the son of Purus, accompanied him. Now, could Peter be the same as Sosipater? And that we met there in Romans 16, could they be the same guy? And of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus, and Secundus is second right there, with Tertius and Quartus and Gaius of Derby. Could that be Gaius? Could that be the same guy right there? And Timothy. Well, we think it's the same Timothy and the Asians Tychicus and Trochus, these went on ahead and were waiting. Notice how it says it us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi. Who is the “us,” who is the “we”? Well, it's Dr Luke, the guy who wrote Luke, the guy who wrote Acts. He's actually going with Paul. That's how he can write all these things in such great detail. And so, wow, look at all these men that Paul has with him, just like Jesus, who surrounded himself with twelve disciples to teach them, to show them the way. Guess what Paul is always doing? He's training up others. He's surrounding himself with brothers. Paul doesn't do it by himself. Okay? Paul thinks he needs a team.
Go to Romans, chapter 1. Look at what he said to the Romans at the beginning of our study three years ago. We looked at this that Paul really wanted to go to Rome, but he hadn't been able to get there. That's why he sent them this teaching. That's why he put his master class on the gospel together, because he wasn't able to go teach it in person, but he wanted them to have it. So he wrote Romans for them. And he says in Romans 1:11 “for I long to see you that I may impart to use some spiritual gift to strengthen you.” Same word in Romans 16:25, God is able to strengthen us. Well, guess what Paul thinks? Paul thinks, if he goes to Rome, he'll strengthen them, not just because he's strong, not because he's the Apostle Paul, no. Look at what it says in verse 12. This is one of the main things I’ll remember from Romans is how Paul said this, that is that we may be “mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.” Even the apostle Paul didn't just think he could strengthen people. He thought those people could also encourage him. He thought it would be mutual upbuilding. I’ve got to get to Rome because I’ve got to see you, because God can use me to strengthen you, and God can use you to encourage me. We can build each other up. That's what Paul believed. When we get together, when we work as a team, iron can sharpen iron. It's better to have two than one there. There is strength in our numbers as we come together to build each other up. So, if you want to not be weak and you want to become strong, then here's how God is able to do it.
Number one here, two ways the weak becomes strong. Well, number one: “Through being with his team.” God is able to make you strong when you are being with his team. When you are among the people of God, you will experience the grace and the strength of God. And so, this is the contradiction that I want us to understand. How people today think about Paul. People today put Paul in this category where he's so strong in his faith that we could never be like him. So, Paul's way up here, I can't be like him. And yet those same people who think they'll never be strong like Paul, isolate themselves from other Christians, and they treat Christianity like a DIY that they're just going to go and figure it out for themselves. Well, yes, you will never be strong like Paul if you think you're trying to do it by yourself, because Paul didn't think that way. Paul didn't think he was strong enough to do it by himself. He thought he needed the brothers. He thought he wanted to be in the fellowship. And so that's what made Paul strong.
So, you could say, well, Paul's in a category I could never be like; I could never be strong like him. Well, yes, if you isolate yourself from other people, you will not be made strong. But if you see what Paul saw, the value of always having other believers around you, then that will help build you up in strength. Are you isolating yourself? Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire and breaks out against all sound judgment. The Bible does not encourage you to make Christianity a DIY. This is not something you can go and figure out how to do on YouTube. This is not something you can ChatGPT about. You need people to teach you. You need people to give you wisdom. You need older and mature examples in the faith that you can learn from and follow. You need one another to surround you, encouraging one another, bearing with one another, building each other up in our faith. You need to do this as a team. Don't go solo. If you go solo, you will be weak. If you get here with the people, you will become strong. I mean, how many times has it played out in your life where you were supposed to go meet with somebody, or you're supposed to go to a fellowship group some evening, some kind of gathering of Christian people, and before the time comes to go, you're exhausted, you're spent, you're like, stick a fork in me. I am done. I’ve got nothing left in the tank, and now I'm supposed to go over here. I told so and so I’d meet with them. Oh, what night is it? Oh, it's the night of my fellowship group. Well, I'm so weak, I think I'll just stay home. I don't even think I can go. Anybody here ever felt like that before? And then guess what? You realize, no, I told them I would be there. I would be there. No, I want to see so and so. I want to see how they're doing. I want to go encourage them. No, I love these people. I'm going to go anyways. And then you go, and you hear them say the Word, and you speak the Word, and you pray for one another, you encourage one another. And guess what, you leave there with more energy than you went in with. That's how it works. And every time you're like, oh, I don't need that, you're choosing weakness when there's strength with being together. That's what he said. If I can get there, I can strengthen you. And it won't just be me strengthening you. You will mutually encourage me. This is how Paul thought.
Go with me to 1 Thessalonians 3. I want to give you a glimpse into his mindset about this, 1 Thessalonians, chapter three. If you know the story of the Thessalonians, it's in Acts 17, and this is where it says, “The word of the Lord sounded forth, the Gospel rang out.” This has been a theme for our church here in Huntington Beach is what happened here in 1 Thessalonians, where, when Paul preached the gospel, there was power, there was conviction, there was the Holy Spirit, and a whole lot of people responded to the Gospel in repentance and faith; and it was exciting there. But then the Jews came in, and they chased Paul out of town.
So, this church gets off to a profound, phenomenal start of faith in the gospel. But then the Jews, because they're going to persecute Paul, he has to flee for his life. And so now Paul, who just started teaching these people, now he's separated from them, and he knows they're being persecuted by those Jews, and he's had to go on. He ends up going all the way to Athens to get away from the Jews who are coming after him. But now he knows the Jews are still there in Thessalonica, persecuting those new believers. And he says that when he was torn apart from them here in 1 Thessalonians, he says “Satan hindered us from getting back to you.” He doesn't just say all those Jews separated us. He says Satan separated us. Satan is the one who wants you to try to do Christianity on YouTube. Satan is the one who thinks, yeah, you should figure it out for yourself. You can do it by yourself. You don't need all those other people at church. Satan loves it when people think that, because then they're isolated, separated, alone, and easy for him to come around like a prowling lion and devour their souls. That's what the lions want to do. They don't want to go mess with the whole pack. Let's just take this weak one over here by themselves. Satan loves to separate God's people, and it weighs so heavy. It's such a burden on Paul to be separated from the Thessalonians because he didn't get to finish all of his discipleship and all of his teaching with them, and so he's wondering how they're doing, and the burden of how they're doing is growing heavier and heavier on Paul. And so he says this in 1 Thessalonians 3:1-2, he says, “Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish, or you could translate it strengthen. It's the Greek word sterizo. It's the same word in Romans 16:25, the same word in Romans 1:11. It has this idea, when you're strong, it's like you're established, you're able to stand firm in your faith. And so, he sent “Timothy, our brother and God's coworker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and exhort you in your faith.” So, do you feel how Paul's thinking about this man? Okay, I'm over here in Athens. I'm on the run for my life away from the Jews, but the Jews are still there with the Thessalonians, and they're persecuted them, and I don't know how their faith is going. So, I've got Timothy here with me, and I want Timothy here with me. I don't want to be alone. I want my brother here with me, but I also don't know how they're going, and so maybe I should send Timothy to go and strengthen them and make sure they're doing okay, and then maybe I'll have to be alone. Do you see how Paul's wrestling about this? He doesn't want to be alone, but he doesn't want the Thessalonians to be alone. And so finally, when it's such a weight upon him, he sends Timothy, not because he thinks he's fine by himself, but he sends Timothy because he wants to know how the Thessalonians are, because he cares so much about them. So then, when you read that story where you find Paul alone in Athens, here's why, because he sent his whole crew out to go help other people that he was torn away from, not because he thought he could do it himself.
So, if Paul is the example of a strong man of God, and Paul is desperate to have brothers around him, then we should all learn from his example of how to be strong. And look at what happens here, that he has such a heavy burden, and then he has so much joy when Timothy comes back. Pick it up in verse 5 of 1 Thessalonians 3, “For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.” Did they fall away? Were they no longer following Jesus? He's so worried, he sends Timothy. 1 Thessalonians 3:6-8, “But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. Like, wow, I feel alive. I'm really living. I'm so blessed. You want to know why? Because I know that you still have strength in your faith. See, is that how your life works? Like Paul, he's really living when the Thessalonians are standing firm in their faith. See, he's not just doing it for himself. He's in it for the team. In fact, look at what he says in verse 9. He says, “What Thanksgiving can we return to God for you?” He's so thankful for their continued faith, for this good report from Timothy, that he doesn't even know how to thank God for all of it, “for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, as we pray most earnestly night and day, that we may see you face to face.” He still wants to get there and supply what is lacking in your faith. He thinks it happens when we get together now. And look at his prayer right here, 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13, “Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” He gets the good report that they're strong in their faith, they're standing firm in their faith. And then what does he pray? I still want to get there to strengthen your faith, and I'm going to pray that God is able to establish and strengthen you so that you'll still be standing on the day Jesus comes back.
So do you have this team mentality, or do you kind of think about it like you've got to figure it out for yourself? How do you think? Because if you really get with the brothers and sisters, you will be strengthened, but if you try to do it DIY, you will be weak. Everybody I know that's fallen away. What Paul's worried about could have happened with the Thessalonians. I've seen happen with people that I loved and cared about, that I considered my brother in Christ, all the bros that I know that fell away. They got isolated. They started doing things out there by themselves. And so please don't, don't, don't try to do it yourself. A lot of the YouTube Christians, I know they ain't following Jesus anymore. We're here to be here together with one another, and there is strength as we come together. Now that's something we can see from Paul.
Go back to Romans 16 and look what he says in his Doxology. He ends Romans giving God the glory. But I want you to see how he gets there. Okay, now I would imagine if I said, hey, come to church, we're going to tell you how to be strong. Does everybody want to be strong? Well, let's think, well, we'd rather be weak, or would we rather be strong? Well, I think strong sounds better. Okay, and I’ve got two ways that God can strengthen you, okay? And. So now here's the thing, do you just want to be strong, or are you willing to see the ways? Because maybe you don't like the ways. Well, if you want to experience the God of strength, if you want to see how he has the power to strengthen you, one, you’ve got to be in with his people. But two, look what he goes on to say here, “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ.” So, notice we've got these according to so the first thing we see here is we're going to be strengthened. God is able to give us his strength by the gospel. What is the gospel? Well, it's the preaching of Jesus Christ, and in fact, Paul here calls it my gospel, like this is what Romans 16:25, this is what he's been teaching for 16 chapters. He now personalizes it. Hey, it's my gospel that I've been teaching to you. God is able to strengthen you through all that I've just been teaching you. That's how he's able to strengthen you. And it's according to the revelation of the mystery, there was something that was a secret that now has been made manifest. Now we can see it. In fact, we should have seen it. We should have seen it coming because the prophets, they were already declaring it to all the nations. And it's “according to the command of the eternal God.” That's a statement about God's sovereign authority over all things. So, according to the Gospel, some kind of mystery that's been revealed because God said so, God has had this plan to reveal this mystery through the gospel, and it's in the Gospel, Paul's gospel, the gospel of Jesus, that's how God is able to strengthen you. God is able to strengthen you through the gospel.
Go back to Romans 1, and you'll see this is how he began the book. So, these are intentional bookends that Paul is giving us. He began with the gospel. He wants to finish with the gospel. The whole theme throughout has been his master class on the gospel and so you could see what we started three years ago. Maybe you weren't here, maybe you forgot. So, let's go back Romans, chapter 1, verse 1, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God.” So, he started by calling it the gospel of God in chapter 1, verse 1. Now towards the end of 16, now it's “my gospel.” He's personalized it. He's taken it to heart. He's taught it to us. But it's the gospel of God. And look what he says about this gospel, the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. The Gospel didn't start with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Gospel didn't start when Jesus appeared. No, the gospel is something God's been telling us way before it ever happened, hundreds and even over thousand years before it happened. God's already telling us his plan. He's already revealing to us what he's going to do through the prophets. In fact, concerning his son, who was descended from David, according to the flesh, the fact that Jesus is the Son of David was a major theme in apostolic preaching. If you heard Peter in the book of Acts, if you heard Paul in the book of Acts, they would have said though Son of David has come, and that meant a lot to the Jews, because David, he's the High King of Israel. David's the king of their nation at their golden age, back in the day that you wanted to be a part of, when David handed it off to Solomon, when the temple was built. That's when the Queen of Sheba was coming to see what was going on; all the nations wanted to behold the beauty of what God was doing with Israel. They were the center of the earth when David was king, and what he passed on to his son, Solomon. And so now, the son of David has come. This would have spoken to every Jew. The kingdom is going to be restored. All the nations are going to come to us once again, the son of David is here. In fact, verse 4, “He was declared not just to be the Son of David, but the Son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ. He's the name above all names. He is the Lord.” And there were many eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. He's prophesied about. There are eyewitnesses of his resurrection. This is the gospel of God through verse 5, “through whom we have received grace and apostleship.” And then it's going to mention two things here that it gets to in Romans 16, the obedience of faith. This is the response the gospel is meant to bring, not just a declaration of trust in the good news that Jesus died and rose again, but a willingness to obey Jesus as Lord and Savior, the obedience of faith. And who's it for? For the sake of his name, among all the nations, spreading, not just to the Jews, but to all the Gentiles.
So now, if you go back to chapter 16, and we look at how he ends, we see so many similarities. He began with the gospel, he ends with the gospel, and he says that God is able to strengthen you according to this gospel that he's been teaching us for 16 chapters, the gospel is the preaching of Jesus. That's the content of it. It's the mystery of God revealed. It's all the prophets to all the nations that bring about the obedience of faith. The gospel is exactly what God said was going to happen by his eternal command. And wow. When he thinks about the gospel, even though he's been talking to us for 16 chapters that took us three years to go through, he says the gospel God is so wise. God's plan in the Gospel is so marvelous. It's so wonderful. It's so mind bending to me to the only wise God be glory forever. He's still in awe and worshiping God for the gospel on the last line of the book.
So, see, when I say, hey, do you want to be strong? Everybody's like, yeah. Well, here's how you can be strong. You can be strong through the gospel. People are like, I don't know about this gospel. Gospel already saved me. I've already been there, done that with the gospel. I already know. I thought you were going to give me some of Paul's secret sauce to strength, and now you're just going to tell me, the gospel. This is how a lot of people in Southern California think. They have this very casual attitude about the gospel. Oh, gospel that's like, been there, done that, that already happened. I already believe that. I've already been saved. I need something more than that. What else have you got for me? Well, Paul, he's gone from chapter 1 to chapter 16; he's got the gospel. And he's actually saying that if you really could understand the gospel, that you can't understand because God is so wise in his perfect plan. If you're really thinking about what I've taught you about the gospel, you will see that God is able to strengthen you through the gospel.
And so, let's get that down for number two, the second way the weak becomes strong is: “Through believing in his gospel.” And I don't mean believing the way we say it today, where I agree with the facts, I intellectually assent to the information. I think Jesus really is the Son of God. He really did die on the cross, and he really did rise on the third day. Just saying, that's true. That's not what Paul's talking about. You want to be strong? Well, he's able to strengthen you when you really try to comprehend the mystery that has been revealed, the eternal command of God that has been decreed. In fact, when you're really thinking about what God has done in the Gospel, your only response will be, to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ, amen. The Gospel that Paul has taught us in his master class is not something that anybody in this room can say, I've been there, done that. No, because the gospel happened in a mysterious way that is hard for us to even fully comprehend.
Go back to Romans 11:25. Let me show you what he means by mystery. Paul loves to use this idea of mystery when he talks about the progressive revelation of God. That God started out with the Jews, but now it's going out to all the Gentiles. And that was something people didn't see coming, that even though it was there in the prophets, it was mysterious, and now the mystery has been made known. Now the mystery is revealed that it wasn't just one nation that was chosen, but now all the nations can be saved. And so, when he says this here in Romans 11:25, he says, hey, you Gentiles, “lest you be wise in your own sight.” Hey, make sure that you don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to. Stay humble, lest you be wise in your own sight. I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers. Hey, let me just remind you about this mystery that a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. See, Paul's like we didn't see this coming. And if anybody is a perfect example of this, it could be Paul, formerly known as Saul, himself a Jew, a Pharisee of Pharisees. I knew what I thought God said, and anybody who taught anything else, I was ready to kill them. I was very zealous for the law of God. And then he met Jesus, and then he was blinded by the glory of Jesus. And then Jesus commanded him a whole different way. And then he became one of the most zealous people for the Gospel who has ever lived, because he thought it was all just about God's chosen people, of the Jews. And then Jesus told him, it's not just for the Jews, it's for everyone, and I'm going to send you out, and you're going to be my witness. You're going to be my apostle to all the nations, to the Gentiles. And, in the end, he's going to end up dying, because he wanted to say that it wasn't just for the Jews. It was for everybody to believe. It was a mystery. But now everybody can see it, that the people that Jesus came to his own people, the Jewish people, they rejected him as the Messiah, and through their rejection, the door is now open that it doesn't matter what nation you came from, what language you grew up speaking on all the earth can now believe in Jesus and be saved. And it was always there, but it was like a mystery now made known. Paul, personally, is so moved by this church age that you and I are living in. This is the day of salvation. This is the time where we can go anywhere on the planet, and we can tell people about Jesus, and everyone who repents and believes in Jesus, they will all be saved. They will all enter the kingdom. They will all be there with Jesus forevermore. It's available to everyone.
And it's so amazing to Paul. He went from such a limited view of what God could do to such a worldwide view of what God could do that he breaks forth in verse 33, “Oh, the depth of the riches in wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.” We did a whole sermon about how God is inscrutable. His wisdom is so beyond our comprehension, we can't even fully figure God out. We can't even fully understand his epic plan of the gospel. So, this is how Paul's thinking about it. How could you have been there, done that attitude when the gospel is something that is actively happening now, where people of every nation, tribe and tongue, are hearing this Good News of Jesus. They're believing in being saved and, someday, which hasn't happened yet, we're all going to be gathered together in the presence of the Lord, and we're all going to shout together with one voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,” and Jesus will get all praise, honor and glory forevermore. That's the gospel. That's what he's saying. And if you thought about that Tuesday morning, when you're having a hard time waking up, and you picture yourself in a robe of white and his glorious presence shouting at the top of your lungs, only to be drowned out by all the other voices praising Jesus that might give you some strength through the gospel. If you really believe that, if you really thought about that, if you really considered all the implications that you can't even consider them all, it says, in the ages to come, we will still be having our minds blown by the riches of the kindness that God has given to us in Christ Jesus. You’ve already been there, done that with the gospel. We haven't even fully experienced the end of it yet. And I mean in these chapters, what a lot of people say is like a side quest, chapters 9,10, and 11, the profundity of what Paul taught us in these chapters about the gospel, like remember that moment that you believed in Jesus? If you have believed in Jesus, do you remember when you trusted that you needed him on that cross to die for your sins, and you saw yourself as a sinner and you saw Jesus as the Savior?
God opened your eyes, and you believed in Jesus. You turned from your sin to Jesus. Remember how awesome that moment was, that God saved you? And then, one day, you realized, oh, before I even believed, God already had chosen me to be one of his people. In fact, God already chose me before I even knew what was ever going on, before my eyes were even open to see Jesus. God already chose me before I even did anything. Before I was born, God picked me to be on his team. God wanted to adopt me. In fact, when did God even choose to save a wretched sinner like me? Well, not only did he do it before I was born, he did it before anyone was born. He did it before he said, “Let there be light,” before the foundation of the world, before space and time, when it's just Father Son and Holy Spirit. For some reason, they think of me, and they choose me to set their love on me for all of eternity, that I would be chosen to be a son of the Most High God based on nothing that I did, but simply because that's what he wanted to do. And Paul taught that in Romans 9, that outside of space and time, God had you on his mind, and he elected you. He gave you this irrevocable call. Does anybody remember when I kept saying irrevocable? I don't even know how to pronounce the word, because it's like something that can't be revoked. So, I'm calling it irrevocable, but really it's irrevocable. It's like this call that once God has decided to save you, once God has written your name in the Lamb's book of life, there is nothing that can separate you from the love that God has for you in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you will always be one of his people. You want to know why? Because you always have been; he already chose you. You've already been there, done that, thinking about God choosing you in eternity past. And then what's amazing to me is not just that God would think of me outside of space and time, but what's amazing to me is that inside of space and time, God had me be born exactly to the parents that he wanted me to be born to, to live exactly where he wanted me to live, so that at that specific moment, at that specific place, I would hear the gospel preached to me. We learned this in Romans, chapter 10, that faith comes from hearing and hearing from the what? The word of Christ. So even though God has this plan where he's already chosen me still by his sovereign, eternal decree, at some moment, I have to actually hear someone tell me this Good News of Jesus, to reveal to me God's plan, that God sent his one and only Son, and that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
And here's who Jesus is, and here's how he died for you, and here's what he did on the third day, how he rose from the grave. And everyone who believes in him, he promises a life, even after death, an eternal life. And I heard that people taught me that, and God, I didn't just happen to be born to those people. I didn't just happen to be at that church. I didn't just happen to know that person who shared it with me by the eternal command of God, there was no other possibility than I would be there. We have to get so random. I just went to church one day, and I just happened to hear this. No. God commanded that you would be there that day because he wanted you to hear it. And when you heard it, he opened your eyes to see. He opened your ears to really hear. And there was a response of faith, where you saw Jesus was your only hope and you trusted in him. Who did God save, so they would come tell you the gospel, who did God save, so that person would hear the Gospel? Who did God save so that person would hear the Gospel? Many people have gotten saved through the preaching of the gospel here at this church. Well, I've been here from the beginning. I know how complicated it was and how much had to happen, just so we would have this one little church here in Huntington Beach. God is doing all of that. People don't randomly walk into church on a Sunday and hear the Gospel. No, God has them there. See this inevitable hearing that takes place, like there can't be a call without the person hearing the good news. And so, if God's chosen them, it is inevitable that they will hear it, and that means God will literally move heaven and earth. He'll take his people, and he'll have them go all over the world to make sure that that person hears the good news. And it's amazing when I think about God choosing me, when I think about the parents I was born to, the upbringing I have, where I got taught about Jesus at an early age, and I think, wow, look how God is to save me. Look at how he saved my dad, so my dad would pass it on to me. Look at how the guys who brought the Gospel to my dad, how he saved them. And to me, that's like an amazing story, and that's just me. Then there's this whole room of us. Then there's actually this happening with people all over the world right now, like there are so many churches all over the world, we've gotten to know a few of them in Tokyo and Uganda and India, but they are all gathering together. They're all preaching the gospel and the Word is really going out all over the world to every nation, tribe, and tongue, and God is commanding it all to happen, and people are right where they're supposed to be at the exact moment that they're going to hear the Word of Christ and respond in faith.
You've already been there, done that. Usually, the people that are becoming ambivalent about the gospel, the people that think they've moved on from the gospel are the same people who are sharing the gospel with no one, because the gospel is still happening right now. It's not some story from long ago. It's not even just the way that God saves us. The gospel is echoing. It's resounding across the earth, and even on this very day, even in this very room, there are people right now who desperately need to be saved by Jesus Christ.
We are living in the time of the gospel, and you think it's already happened. No, it's happening. The most important thing happening on the planet at this present moment is that people need to hear the good news that Jesus is the Christ who died and rose again. And as they hear that and believe. That is the purpose of why we are here right now, is there are more souls yet to be saved. And so, right now, it's happening. This is why we ended up with olive trees in our courtyard, because we studied Romans 11 and how the olive tree of the Jews. The Jews hardened their heart when they rejected the Messiah. Some of those branches were broken off, and other branches were grafted into this olive tree, this inscrutable in-grafting that Paul is just blowing his mind, that it wasn't just about the Jews, even though they're God's chosen people, even though we have saved Jews here at our church, it's not just about one nation. Look at what God is doing. Could you have seen this coming? He says, this mystery has now been revealed, that through one nation, he would reach all nations through the line of Abraham, all the families of the earth would be blessed through the line of King David. Now everyone can be in the kingdom to come. Wow. It's happening on a massive level. Some of you know, I just got to go to Africa. I never thought I would end up in Africa. Just one little trip to Africa can convince you the world is so much bigger than I can possibly comprehend. And God has his people all over this planet spreading his message exactly how he commands. And wait till you see how many people will be there shouting, “Worthy is the Lamb.” That's happening right now. Man, if you just woke up on Tuesday when you're feeling weak and you're feeling tired and you're like, how am I going to do Tuesday, and you started thinking about how God chose you outside of space and time. You start remembering to yourself the moment in space and time when you started to really understand who Jesus was. And then you start thinking to yourself, how, even now, people in other nations and other lands are going to hear the good news of Jesus and be saved. Maybe even some of the people that come and hear the Gospel of Mark, maybe even somebody hearing this sermon here today, they will be saved. If you really think about the gospel, how could you not be strengthened by what God is able to do?
See, I wonder. Some of us say, oh, yeah, I know the gospel. But people who really know the gospel, I don't think they think I've already experienced everything there is with the gospel. I mean, I, as the guy who went through the master class on the gospel the book of Romans, studied it for eighty-seven weeks of my life. I could run it back with Romans right now, there's so much more to keep learning. There's so much clarity to keep coming to like this was an epic book of Scripture, and I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of what God is really doing when he's saving the souls of men. And the more I think about it, the stronger I become, because God is able to strengthen you according to the Gospel.
Go to 1 Peter, chapter 5, verse 10. I just want you to see how Peter ends his letter in a very similar way to how Paul's ends his in these letters. We’ve got commands, especially over the last year, we were all told to do things, things we were told not to do. And I know some people feel like, well, how can I possibly do all that there is to do? Well, they always end with this encouragement, God is the one who's able to make you do it. God is the one who has grace. God is the one who can strengthen you. God's telling you what to do, but he's not leaving it up to you to do it. And here's how Peter says it in 1 Peter 5:10, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, he will himself, restore, confirm,” here's our word, “strengthen and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Oh yeah. Are you having a hard time? Are you feeling weak? Are you feeling tired? Are you suffering? Well, guess who our God is. He is the God of how much grace? All grace. Has God been good to you? Guess what? He's been good to you. He saved you. He's grown you. He's blessed you. All the goodness of the grace of God that you've experienced in your life, his grace has gone down zero percent. He has endless, unlimited grace for all of his people. He is the God of all grace, even in the age to come, will still be like I can't believe how much goodness God has, how much kindness he has for us. And the God of all grace, he will himself strengthen you. That's how Peter wants it to end. That's how Paul wants it to end. And look at this phrase that Peter gave us here. Maybe you could write this down under point number two. He says, “Who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ?” That, I think, is a great summary of what Paul has been teaching us in Romans. I mean, how can you see you've been there, done that when he has called us to eternal glory in Christ.
Think about his irrevocable call. Think about the day that he placed you into Christ, when you heard the Word and believed. Think about the eternal glory that all of us are being grafted into the olive tree to be a part of the glorious kingdom of our Lord. Find strength in what God is doing through the gospel. When we began Romans three years ago, just to show you how God is able to strengthen us when how many people went to service across the courtyard in what's now the kids’ auditorium, that's where we started the book of Romans three years ago; this place didn't exist. Three years ago, when we started the book of Romans, there was no church meeting in Long Beach at this same time right now. Three years ago, when we began Romans, and we saw that God had people who denied God's glory, he gave them over to sin. And we saw, all of us who went through Romans 1 together, we saw that's what's happening in America. We're being given over to sin because we're denying God his glory. And we’ve got to Romans, chapter 3, and we saw Paul quote these scriptures about how there's no such thing as a good person. Not one of us is a good person. No one here will be justified by our works, by what we do. There is no way anyone here is righteous. And there were people here at this church for the first time when they heard that, it clicked with them. I'm not a good person. I haven't always been a Christian. I need Jesus to save me. I need the righteousness of Jesus. I need him to die for my sins. And we've seen people get saved through the book of Romans. When we got to chapter 6, and we talked about how you could be dead to your sin, and you could be alive to God because of Jesus Christ, you don't have to keep living in your sin. “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” What's the answer? “By no means.” We learned that, and I saw people just accelerate in their spiritual growth, like people who thought they were Christians, but they weren't thinking right about it, and when they saw that they didn't have to continue in their sin, and they could step away from that, and they could step into a new way in Christ, I saw people grow like I had never seen people grow before. We got to Romans, chapter 12, where it said, because of what Jesus has done for us, here's how we should live. And we talked about how to live, and we talked about coming together as a church. We talked about, if people are evil to you, don't be evil back. We actually got to Romans 13, submitting to the governing authorities. It happened to be right before the election when we studied that, very timely. And then when Paul said, I want you guys to help me go to Spain, we said, what if we paid it forward to people that we've never even met on the other side of the world. And, wow, we helped the church in Tokyo, Uganda, and India.
And so, look what God has taught us through the book of Romans, look what God is able to do to strengthen his people through his gospel. We have a God of great strength. And if we stay together and if we keep reminding ourselves of what we have learned from the gospel, he is able to strengthen us, and he is able to do more than all we could ask or think, and he is able to get us there, blameless before the presence of his glory, with all of the saints forevermore. This is the power, and “I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and even to the Gentile,” as well. Let's pray.
Father in heaven. We thank you so much, God. When we started this three years ago, there's no possible way we could have pictured this room. There's no possible way we could have pictured a whole church in Long Beach. We had ideas. But God, it was something you were doing the whole time. And so, God, we thank you for the Gospel that Paul taught to the saints in Rome. Paul there, in a room full of brothers, someone writing down everything he says. We thank you for Paul's master class. Thank you for what we've learned. And Father, I ask that now you would make all of us strong, that you would give us your strength by your grace, that you would unite us together. Give us a team mentality. Let no one here think they can do it by themselves. Let no one here think that strength comes from within. But let us strengthen one another here. And then, God, please don't let us ever get over this glorious gospel that has saved us, that is sanctifying us, that we're going to experience eternal glory in Christ because of this gospel. God, this attitude that's so prevalent today where you say, let's talk about the gospel and the Christian people act like I already know about that. I don't need to hear about that. No wonder we are so weak. Father, please strengthen us by your gospel. Let the fact that you called us, and you have decided to love us, and you have adopted us to be your kids, let that strengthen us. Let the memory of the first time that we realized who Jesus really was, and how we heard that, and how we believed in that, let that strengthen us. Let the hope that we have of your glory, of your presence, of seeing you, of worshiping you, of all the people in all the white robes from all the nations shouting out, “Worthy is the lamb.” Let that strengthen us, Father. Let us believe that you are working all things together for your glory and our good, for everyone who loves you, for everyone who is called according to your purpose that you are right now commanding all things to work for your people, to conform us to the image of your son, that every single one of us you justify, you will sanctify, you will glorify, and we will be there giving you the glory. And it will be so good for us to see Jesus and to worship him. And so, God, please strengthen us by this good news, this gospel. Please let us see that you're the one who's doing it, and you're doing the work in us. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.