Sermon Tone Analysis

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message.

The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

Back when I was a member of the school board in the Amphitheater School District, the district constructed a new elementary school as well as some other new buildings at existing campuses.

And their practice was to place a permanent plaque on the front of those buildings that contained, among other things, the name of the school board members.

So at least as long as those buildings remain, my name will be preserved.

And, I’m not going to lie, I think that’s kind of cool.

But this morning we’re going to look at a group of people who had their names preserved in a much more important and significant place - the pages of Scripture.

While a couple of these names might be familiar to you because they are included elsewhere in the Bible, these people are just ordinary people who played an important roles in the churches in Rome.

Tension

It is easy for any of us to think that we don’t really matter to God’s kingdom our that our part in the church is so small that it doesn’t make a difference.

But this morning we’re going to discover that just isn’t true.

Truth

Over the next two weeks, we’re finally going to wrap up our study of the book of Romans that began back in the fall of 2014.

In this last section of Paul’s letter, Paul is no longer teaching, but rather sending personal greetings to a number of individuals there in the churches in Rome and sending greetings from another group of friends who are with him in Corinth.

This is one of those passages that we could be tempted to just skim over or even ignore, but these final words have much to teach us about what our church ought to be and to encourage us to do our part.

Romans 16:1-16

If I counted correctly, Paul addresses 25 people by name here, along with two households and an unnamed mother and sister.

We don’t know much about most of these people except what is mentioned here, but just from what we read in these 16 verses, we see that the churches there in Rome were made up of a very diverse group of people.

Among the names listed we find both Jews and Gentiles.

We find slaves, blue collar workers and the very wealthy.

And we find both men and women.

It is particularly notable that Paul mentions either 8 or 9 women by name, depending on whether the name Junia is a male or female, plus the mother of Rufus and the sister of Nereus.

There was nothing really notable about these people.

Had Paul not mentioned them by name here in his letter, we probably would have never run across their names.

Yet they were important enough to Paul and to the church for him to mention them by name here.

But these ordinary people were indispensable to the work the church was doing there in Rome.

So what was it that drew then together and united them in their mission?

What was it that empowered these ordinary people to do such extraordinary things for the kingdom of God?

We find the answer to that question in the phrase that Paul repeated 10 times in this passage - “in the Lord” or “in Christ”.

So here is the main idea I want us to take away from this passage this morning:

The church consists of ordinary people doing extraordinary work in Christ

Application

HOW TO LET JESUS DO EXTRAORDINARY WORK HERE AT TFC

Welcome and receive others like Jesus welcomes us

Paul uses the command “greet” 15 times in this passage culminating with the command to “greet one another with a holy kiss” in verse 16.

I noticed that when I read that verse earlier some of you looked a little uncomfortable, perhaps thinking that I might ask you to do that this morning.

Would it make you even more uncomfortable if I told you that same command is found three other times in the Bible - in 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians - and Peter also gives a similar command in 1 Peter 5 when he commands his readers to “greet one another with the kiss of love”.

I’ll let you think about that some more for a few moments while we go back and look at the other 14 times that Paul uses the command “greet”.

In Greek, that is a compound word that literally means “to draw to oneself” or “to enfold in the arms”.

Figuratively it means to embrace, welcome or even to give honor to.

In many ways, the way we welcome and receive each other reveals a lot about what we believe about how Jesus welcomes us.

A tender, genuine greeting demonstrates that we receive each other just as Jesus receives us, warts and all.

It conveys the idea that we accept each other unconditionally, without preconditions.

It reminds us that we are all part of the family and that we all have a home here.

Unfortunately today it seems like we often try to substitute technology for the kind of personal contact that Paul is advocating here.

It is possible to send birthday greetings halfway across the globe to someone who I’ve never even met personally and I’ve done that on occasion.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

But it’s not a substitute for the kind of one on one contact that should be present in the church.

That’s why even though we stream our services for those who can’t be here in person for some reason, that should never be a permanent substitute for gathering together in person.

So how about the holy kiss?

The practice of embracing and kissing friends on the cheek was common in Paul’s day and even today that is a common practice in some places around the world.

It was a physical expression of deep friendship and often a demonstration of honor and respect.

So the church adopted that custom as an expression of genuine love within the body of Christ.

The fact that the kiss was to be holy indicated that it should be free of anything that would have been unworthy of their calling as saints.

It was also to be free from any kind of partiality or prejudice that might have arisen because of differences in race, social position, or wealth.

In today’s culture, unfortunately the threat of accusations and lawsuits has often led us to avoid even appropriate forms of physical contact.

So I can totally understand why so many of us, and I include myself, would be reluctant to literally engage in a holy kiss.

However, there are some appropriate applications of that command for us.

It’s really hard for us to greet someone else warmly and genuinely when there is unresolved conflict with that other person.

So that means that we need to handle those grievances in a timely Biblical manner so that we can receive others like Jesus has received us.

Determine my role

We can’t determine from the text the exact role of every person mentioned within the Roman churches, but we do have enough information to see that there were a wide variety of gifts being exercised.

Phoebe, who is likely the one who was entrusted with the task of delivering Paul’s letter to the churches in Rome, is described as being a patron.

She was likely a wealthy woman who contributed financial resources to the church.

Prisca and Aquila hosted one of the Roman churches in their home.

Rufus’ mother had been like a mother to Paul.

And, as we’ll talk more about in a moment, many of the others were described as working hard, even though the specific nature of their work is not identified.

It’s important to note that Paul doesn’t prioritize or rank what each of these people did or differentiate between the importance of their different roles.

Each person was equally valuable to the church.

The same is true today here at TFC.

We need people who can fulfill a wide variety of different roles.

As we saw earlier in in our study of Romans, God has gifted each one of us with unique gifts for the purpose of building up the body and advancing His kingdom.

Some of those gifts, like preaching or singing, are very public.

and others, like giving or cleaning up after refreshments, might be more behind the scenes, but all are equally valuable and important.

I know many of you here this morning are already serving here at TFC and I want to thank you for that service.

But there are also some who aren’t serving right now and we need you to fulfill your role here at TFC so that we can fulfill the mission that God has given to us.

Work hard

Paul identifies many of the people he lists here as his “fellow workers” and for others, he writes that they have “worked hard”.

Paul acknowledges here that kingdom work is not always easy.

And I think that most of us would personally testify that is true.

It’s not easy to read the Bible and pray consistently.

It’s not always easy to serve others.

It’s not always easy to share the gospel with others.

No doubt there is a balance that is needed here.

The Bible, particularly in the book of Proverbs, reveals that there is great value in hard work and that we are not to be lazy or idle.

And I think those passages certainly apply to our service within the body of Christ.

But we also need to guard against the extreme of working hard in our strength and power like everything depends on us.

We need to learn to rely upon God’s guidance, gifting and power.

We’re going to address that part of the equation in our next point.

Trust the results to Jesus

In a world of social media, it is easy to judge our “success” based on how many “likes” we get.

And I think that it is easy to let this carry over into our service within the body of Christ.

Far too often we tend to judge the effectiveness of our service based on how many people notice what we’re doing or give us a compliment.

And even as a church, it is easy to fall into the trap of measuring our effectiveness based on attendance or giving numbers.

While I think it is important to track those kind of objective measurements and they can help us evaluate our effectiveness, we need to be careful not to be driven only by what we can see and measure.

That’s why the phrases “in Christ” and “in the Lord” in this passage are so important.

Although Paul and all of the people he mentions in this passage worked hard, they did not do that in their own strength and power.