April 22, 2018 AM A Testament To Gospel Pioneers by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Turn please to Romans 16 Romans 16.

Let me read to you verses 1 through 16. I Commend to you our sister

Phoebe a servant of the church at Cantrea 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 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 Epianetus Who was first who was the first convert to Christ in Asia greet

Mary who has worked hard for you Greet Andronicus and Junia my kinsmen and my 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 Apellas who was approved in Christ greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus Greet my kinsmen

Herodian Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus greet those workers in the

Lord Trophaena and Trophosa Greet the beloved Persis who has worked hard in the

Lord greet Rufus chosen in the Lord Also his mother who has been a mother to me as well

Greet Asencritus Phlegian Hermes Petrobus Hermas and the brothers who are with them greet

Philologus Julia Nereus and his sister and Olympus and all the

Saints who are with them Greet one another with a holy kiss all the churches of Christ greet you

And what I just read to you we find the word greet repeated some 17 times for some 27 names

Now I don't know really what good account does here because among the 17 greetings. We have two families.

That's in verses 10 and 11 an unnamed mother in verse 13 and some number of brothers who are named with five named people in verse 14 and Then a bunch of say the

Saints associated with the verse for people who are named him later

So amongst the 27 names that we have are also groups

Greet this house greet these Saints greet the brothers who are with these people who I went and named

So we can count 27 named, but we can only say 27 who are named it seems quite a larger crowd that Paul is including here

There's a reference to one Aristobulus Whose household is to be greeted?

Historically he may have been a servant of the Emperor Claudius who a man who was very rich very powerful

And many scholars think that the greeting is to his actually actually to his former slaves

Whether our stables himself was a Christian or not is uncertain Paul names

Prisca and Aquila well known from Acts chapter 18 as Jewish believers Paul met them in Corinth Where they plied their tent making trade together

This couple is the one who showed Apollos the way of God more accurately From 2nd

Timothy 419 we know that this couple was sent by Paul to help Timothy there in Ephesus So we know something about these names or some of them, but most of them are obscure Known only to us by this list and to God by their apparently vibrant and their

Undeniable faith in Christ Jesus all that to present to you a question

What are we to make of these verses? What are we to make of this list of names? What is a preacher to do with this inventory of people?

Who might be able to be linked to some historic character might not? with this passage which has all the excitement of a genealogy and He begat who begat and then that son begat and his mother was who begat and begotten begotten

Well, actually there is an answer to that question What's a preacher to make out of this list of names and these greetings that Paul would have done and the answer is?

Something we said back in October of 2016 when we started this series in the book of Romans And we said more than a few times as we've gone through it for this almost two years

Back then we noted This is not innovative. This is innovative. This is in line with traditional conservative scholarship

That the theme of this whole book of Romans is to be found in chapter 1 and verses 16 and 17

For I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation To everyone who believes to the

Jew first and also to the Greek For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as is it as it is written

The righteous shall live by faith. I said then in October of 2016

I think we've done a pretty fair job of staying true to this that wherever we are in this epistle

That this is the point The Apostle Paul is driving home to us the righteousness of God Imputed to sinners by means of faith in his son

Jesus a righteousness unearned Undeserved granted by God because of his mercy a righteousness that is

Christ's own And we have to understand that Christ did not earn righteousness.

He is righteousness. He didn't achieve it He proved it He came as man and as man lived perfectly before God So that what is imputed from him and to us is altogether a perfect righteousness his total obedience to God by faith

Credited to sinful men and women like ourselves There's some small question here, which has not to do with really this list of names

Which we're going to delve into in a moment But I want to make clear to you that this idea of righteousness this theme of the whole book of Romans and God Imputing to us

Christ's righteousness. It does not mean that we are objectively as righteous as Christ Because that would mean we are literally that righteous that every thought every deed every action was perfect In accord with God's holiness and his righteous standards, and of course that is not the case

It's a subjective righteousness imputed a reckoned Righteousness that God has chosen to see you as righteous as having fulfilled the laws having fulfilled his holiness because of Christ Jesus Subjective Because even right now you are thinking thoughts and I am having thoughts that are not as perfect as God's therefore it cannot be objective a subjective righteousness imputed to sinners

So that God sees us through the lens of Christ as we like to say. That's what this whole books been about and Wherever we've been in it

In order to find ourselves a footing in order to be sure that we're on track that we are preaching that we are hearing that we

Are living what God's Word has to say? We come back to this theme

Could almost have been the title of the book Verses 1 16 and 17 and that must be the point of this list of names

What has all that to do With verses 1 through 16

Why don't you think of it this way Where Hebrews chapter 11 is sometimes called the

Hall of Faith if you heard that term All the big sports basketball baseball football have their

Hall of Fame Chapter 11 of Hebrews is called the Hall of Faith, and if that's the case and I like that term we might then term

Romans 16 1 through 16 a testament to gospel pioneers a

Testament to gospel pioneers where Hebrews 11 speaks of faithful believers before the cross

Might call them Old Testament Saints That's Hebrews 11. That's the Hall of Faith. What do we have here in Romans 16?

Well, we have those who were gathered early around Christ's cross the first believers if you will

Just a few decades following Christ's death and his resurrection and ascension pioneers gospel pioneers

The theme verse 1 16 and 17 the theme verse speaks of the gospel's power to save sinful men and women

First the Jew and then the Greek What do these stand for?

Well the Jew and the Greek are polar opposites in the one case Paul was talking about literal

Jews and Greeks There's some need for him to tell that church not to let those differences

Cause differences that were all one in Christ and Jew and Greek couldn't be more different You had the

Greek pork -eating sexually free idol -worshiping pagans versus the Jews elect members of God's treasured possession

Knowing God's law knowing how to obey its detailed demands in a word a

Jew So in one sense, they were literally Jews and Greeks And Paul speaking them to be together.

There is no chasm between and Then we could expand that to the whole world

That wherever we are in this scale on one end or the other and all in between the gospel is powerful to save The gospel of God's mercies to us in Christ can save Jews first then also the

Greek and all in between This list we have of this 20 -plus names if it tells us anything

It tells us that this is true that these aren't just words It's not just a marketing technique or some platitude.

The gospel is powerful to save them all in this list of names There are

Jews and there are Greeks It's a wonderful study and we're not going to do it this morning But I commend to you the study of those names and see where they came from which ones were

Romans which ones were Greek which ones were transliterations of Jewish names and the cultural background behind these names

It's just it's a phenomenally good study. I commend that to you but the point here is all of them

Saved by Christ's cross all of them Jew Gentile and all between Saved by faith in what

God did for them through Christ Jesus We find here that individuals are important Identity when you are joined to Jesus Christ Your identity is not lost.

It is certainly changed. We are now identified with Christ We are now identified as Christ's children.

We're now identified with each other, but individuality is not lost We're not some version of Star Trek's Borg where we all come together and we're one and we're thinking each other's thoughts together and all

That kind of that's science fiction. That's not what happens here Brought together as one as a single body together in Christ and Yet individually still who we were not what we were

Because the gospel changes everything from the inside out but who we were Individuality though, it's not the same thing as independence

We need to understand that as we look at this list of names Individuality and there's the individuals in there and we could see just from the short

Descriptions we have of who they were and the short things that Paul says about what they did

They're all different. It's not the same as being independent

Not the same as independent and here in this Western world where independence is so worshipped. We need to be careful of this

That we are truly not independent of each other any more than we're independent of Christ In heaven,

I believe there's going to be recognition individual recognition even memory of our lives together

We're intertwined with each other in this body together now, and we will be then

I believe Paul himself was not Independent and we could see just how much he needed these people these individuals and what they did for him in Helping him in the gospel work and missionary work that he was doing

You remember last week as we finished chapter 15 How dependent the

Apostle Paul was on prayer? He practically begged for the prayers of the

Saints. He said here's my needs pray with me for this I beseech you to pray with me for these things not independent

So let's look at this Testament of gospel pioneers that we have here These people intertwined together and individually using the gifts that God gave them for the good of the gospel

The first one we have is Phoebe and she seems to have proven her grit in having been a patron and a hostess for the church in Cantrea Which is a suburb of Corinth and was the portal the commercial portal to Asia And we might think of her as matron

Lee and many do the description of her as a patron suggests that she had great wealth But take note

She was the one entrusted to deliver this letter And to be entrusted with that sort of responsibility

Suggests something more than wealth. This was a woman of substance. This was a woman that you wouldn't want to tangle with too easily

She had a bearing she has stature They would say okay. I'm not going to approach lightly and whatever she has in her hands

Which would be this letter these 16 chapters written down though not in chapter and verse back then but you take my point

You wouldn't just walk up lightly to her one might think of a

Catherine Hepburn Who could steal a scene with the from the best of them like a Spencer Tracy or a

Humphrey Bogart? I think she was that kind of woman not someone to take lightly And she must have really proven her mettle to the

Apostle Paul To have been entrusted to deliver this letter Think of Prisca and Aquila Fellow workers who risked their necks for Paul we don't know the circumstances of this how they risked them, but it sounds like they put at risk their own heads and Some in some incident where they defended the

Apostle Paul. They came to his defense. They spoke for him something like that and Had they been condemned as the

Apostle apparently was at risk for having happened to himself They would have lost their heads

You know the gospel is really the only thing worth dying for When Paul says that they did that for him it's clear that it was for Christ's sake

He was the bearer of Jesus name at that time, but the investment. They were willing to make was a benefit to Paul But not in that sense for Paul.

It was for Jesus But still when someone saves your life even it was really for a reason other than your life

But for the one that you represent. I mean a thanks would be appropriate would it not

It's interesting To note that all the churches of the

Gentiles join in thanking those two for having saved the Apostle They knew that the gospel came to them because someone had saved the

Herald's life How did you get here Paul well because those two stood up for me?

Those two risked their own heads in order that I should be alive to bring this to you

May I think of unintended consequences are usually negative aren't they Here they're positive

Aquiline Prisca they they could only have guessed how far their commitment would have its effect

We need to keep in mind that a good deed here or a gospel offer over there can have eternal consequences beyond anything that we imagined that cup of cold water in Jesus name and And how many decades later might a person come to Christ and remember the kindness of a

Christian Unintended consequences we usually think of them as something we have to deal with in the negative sense

But in God's providence in God's sovereignty in God's wonderful and wise plan

We never know Could Prisca and Aquila have known for sure

That they're risking their own heads on behalf of the Apostle would have resulted in all those churches after that being founded by him

Epianetus is in there his name means praiseworthy He was sort of like Asia's Abram the first to answer the call of Christ to leave mother and father and brother and sister and Go to a land that God had showed him a good land a large land the land of knowing

God By faith in Christ he was the first in Asia we have

Mary the hard worker We have Andronicus and Junia these they were fellow

Jews these are a couple of those names you can trace back to Jewish roots They were Paul's kinsmen and seems they shared some prison time with him

Back then the gospel was not a defanged and safe religion Rome wasn't a land where whatever works for you is good for you

And whatever works for me is just as good, and we're just gonna get along and be happy about it. Not then not there

That first couple we're talking about Prisca and Aquila. They risked execution Because of the gospel and now these two

Andronicus and Junia they're in prison for it Many men whose finger is on the pulse and are better informed than myself

Think that we're not far behind this sort of treatment in our own nation We need to understand just as Joseph prayed that this is a letter to us today

Not just some dusty old relic Verses 8 and 9 there are two who are called beloved

Ampliatus and Saccas Sandwiching between them a man named

Urbanus a fellow worker Now if I could send a quick text to Paul I would have asked him so I could tell you just what the fellow worker did

Did he hand out tracts did he arrange for interviews was he was he the teamster for the travel cart

Or did he preach? What did this guy do this fellow worker? We don't know

Only that he put his shoulder to the plow and he worked for the gospel Under it seems

Paul's direction Appellas in verse 10.

He's an interesting case. He's the one who was approved in Christ And I look at that and I say aren't we all

If you believe in Jesus Christ, aren't you approved by God because you're in him?

Doesn't Romans chapter 14 verse 18 say whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men

What makes him so special Well Hendrickson helps us out here.

He says and I quote Approved in Christ meaning that amid difficult circumstances he had remained true to the faith.

I Know that helps that makes some sense here These are people these greetings to these people who have proven their determination

To stay true to the faith that they have in Christ Jesus Let's move on.

We already discussed Aristobulus in verse 11 says of Herodian that he is

Paul's kinsman a Jewish convert We know nothing of the family of Narcissus except what we have here, which is very very little

Verse 12 lists out some workers and another beloved one this Persis verse 13 singles out

Rufus and his mother Who was that a mother to Paul as well?

It makes me wonder maybe she cared for Paul in some serious illness

Or maybe after one of his beatings or stonings or floggings she nursed him through the injuries

Says chosen in the Lord It's just a general way of saying he was saved

No more or less chosen than anyone who has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ if you've repented of your sins as you must

If your faith is in Christ Jesus as it must be If you are one of those whose faith and hope and trust is in Christ and the word that he has given us

Then as much as anybody You're chosen in the Lord There's what

Paul means here chosen the Lord a true believer verses 14 and 15

Has a list of even more names it gives us nothing more than the names Other than that there are brothers with the group of verse 14 and there are saints with the group of verse 15

There's a couple of more greetings here, and we're really going to move very quickly and see if we can apply this

Greet one another with a holy kiss All the churches of Christ greet you that's verse 16

So what do we have here? Well greet these people Greet each other and you are greeted by the churches

You know as many places where names are recorded one might think of first Chronicles 11 and the listing by name and by deed of King David's mighty men or think of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah where it was crucial for them to know who was allowed to do what and then what they were doing and The point there especially in Ezra was to make sure that only the

Levitical priests Would enter into the temple and perform the duties of priests so they had these long genealogies these lists of names

The names of Romans 16 1 through 16 are this sort of vanguard of the early church

We stand on the shoulders of Giants men like Martin Luther and John Calvin men like Augustine and Athanasius or like John Owen Men and women who suffered for the gospel people with brilliant minds who worked through the issues for us

But those are the extraordinary ones We stand on other shoulders as well

Not just the Martin Luther's the Augustine's the John Calvin's we stand on other shoulders

And they're far more of these kinds of shoulders Shoulders of regular everyday

Christians who held nothing back for the gospel shoulders of everyday mundane average people like you and me who gave it all to Christ and What do we say they had skin in the game all the cards were on the table

Whatever expression you want These were those people Just common everyday regular folk

Completely given over to the expansion of the gospel of the

Lord Jesus Christ There certainly were more

Who could have been named? This was just for this letter in Rome how many others who names

Whose names are never recorded stood against beasts and persecutors and judges yet never wavered from their faith

Never denied the Lord Jesus Christ God knows them all Paul doesn't have to list them in Romans 16 for us to know that they are there that they did that and that God knows of them and We we today we here in the 21st century when we stand firm

When we refuse to join the jokes that blaspheme our Lord's name When taking his name in vain is clearly an offense to us when families refuse us because of Christ When husbands refuse to appreciate a wife's godly submission or a wife her husband's

Christlike love. How do we keep going? How do we push through it? By remembering that God knows

God knows this list in chapter 16 of Romans No more or no less than he knows the list of all those others whose names are never recorded in any epistle or book or letter ever

How do we keep going? By knowing that God knows By name

God knows by deed by remembering that God simply knows You may not be at the end of an earth -moving letter like this a

Letter that when Martin Luther looked at it and finally understood it changed the course of history

Now your name my name we're not at the end of something as dramatic as that but God has a book

Recorded all over Scripture God has a book and his eyes are on it And if you are in Christ if you have repented of your sins if you have come to him by faith

God is looking at your name consider also the power of the gospel to bind us together in Rome Jew and Greek labored for the gospel with their livelihoods putting even their lives at hazard former slaves and their former owners together

Repudiated earthly things and gave their all for Christ and this powerful gospel The mix of man and woman

Greek Roman and Jews slave free rich poor all derived just by studying the names themselves

Some of which can be pegged to historical figures within and without the Bible most cannot

But it is a testament to the diversity and the unity that God uses to make up his church

Look around at us. We're such a small church and look around see how different we really are all of us

Economically financially education the work we do how many kids we have

Were we brought up where we came from our ethnicity this gospel

This righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ It's a cement

Binding together these diverse groups then and now

And brethren if we're not unified in love Together because of our unity and love for the

Lord Jesus Christ We have to ask ourselves. Do we really even understand this gospel? We're not a cult.

No true church is But we're bound together as a body

Responsible for each other interested in each other caring for one another Weeping and rejoicing together because this is a brother.

This is a sister. This is a part of my body That is weeping and rejoicing and all these differences that we have

The more we let them be barriers To true vibrant loving fellowship with each other

That mimics no more than mimics that is the same as that true and loving a vibrant relationship that we have with Christ himself

The more we let differences impede that I Would suggest the less we really understand this gospel and What it has done what it must do in God's people

It's the very righteousness of God We're just going through this list of names if all

I did was read those names ago boy another list begat begot begat begot know Greeks and Romans and rich and poor and slave and free all bound together all commended by Paul also greet these people

All of them not just Phoebe because she seems to have been wealthy Prisca and Aquila seemed to have been very well -off

Aristobulus that man who was a servant of Claudius the Emperor Claudius his household was great in Rome Not respecters of persons here the great leveler is this gospel and let nothing come between us dear ones as We seek to have me with you and you with that person behind you and you with that person to your right or to your

Left that same relationship with each other because it is Christ Jesus who brought us together here

Just as in this list of diverse names from all over the map ethnically religiously economically

Let's be sure That we're really understanding this gospel That this righteousness of God The scene in this list of names and what this righteousness of God what this faith in Christ did with all these people

That Paul is a group says commit greet these people well finally

I Want to assume with you that the letter -bearer

Phoebe That she was welcomed the way Paul would have wanted her to be welcomed It's somewhat the same as we do here when people transfer to us we call their church and we ask for a letter of transfer we ask for a recommendation and So we get something like we the elders of this church commend to you our brother

Aquila or a sister Phoebe or whoever it is And we ask you to welcome them to yourselves in the name of the

Lord or words to that effect. I wondered a long time about this list of names

Maybe I was just being stubborn I said well We've gone through every verse in this book And I'm gonna find a way to preach every verse in this book including this list of 27 names

And as I pondered it as I prayed about this Passage as I meditated upon as I went to God and said okay

Lord You don't have words in here that are superfluous is all for our good is

For my good to study it is for their good to hear it. I Wondered a long time about this list of names

And Commentators have as well the general consensus is that Paul knew a lot of people at that church

Now I try hard. I really do try hard to not be innovative. I Want to find myself when

I come to my own conclusions in the scripture And I double -check them against the scholarship that we have available to us, which is tremendous

You've heard this from me before If I'm out of line with them I question me first We don't say well

John Calvin got it wrong. I wish he had figured this out the way I did we don't do that. I try hard to stay in line with them

I do my work, and I double -check myself against them The minds that have worked on this list of names are better than mine

I respect them greatly, but I wonder I wonder if the people mentioned were even at the church in Rome The descriptions of what they had done it sounds more like introductions to me

If Phoebe who brought the letter clearly was unknown to that church But think with me for a moment about Prisca and Aquila Greet the neck riskers he says

Should they have turned to this couple if the couple was there this couple that they knew well

Would they say something like well Paul greets you and say when did that neck risking thing happen?

You didn't tell us about that Now I hold this a little bit loosely But I wonder if those 27 names were the contingent said along with Phoebe to deliver this letter

I Mean it would make sense that Paul wouldn't send a woman even one who

I think was in as impressive as Impressive as she must have been all the way from Corinth to Rome by herself

Travel then even under efficient Roman policing was a dangerous thing As I was wondering maybe this is the group

Maybe these names here in these 16 verses of the group that went with her to Rome that accompanied her that Gave her some safety on the road however.

She got there, and if this is correct if this is even credible Then the unity that we have in Christ Jesus is all the more clear

Once the legitimacy of the letter was established and the messengers credit credentials were confirmed all barriers to fellowship are erased

Paul saying here are these people here is what they have done here is their credo in the gospel of Jesus Christ The impaired the idea might even be consistent with the imperative to show hospitality to strangers because you might actually entertain an angel

I just throw that out as an idea But I think it makes sense that Those weren't members at the church in Rome the people who came with the letter and were there by in the letter introduced and Again if that is the case

Consider again the power of the gospel to unite us into a powerful force with a singular aim

Not one of those in the chapter 16 of Romans was introduced for anything other than Their commitment to this gospel.

There's one who's worked hard on your behalf perhaps working hard to get the Apostle there perhaps working hard in prayer

We don't know but consider the force that the gospel has

To bring us as a body as diverse as we are as diverse as they were together into a sharp arrow with a singular aim a laser point a laser like Aim at a single target, which is the expansion of this gospel

Paul says greet them and here are their credentials now greet each other. You're all the same You're all one in Christ now know the greeting of all the churches

Perhaps even represented by these 27 names all One in Christ Jesus all bound together in this righteousness of God, which is the gospel of Christ chapter 1 verses 16 and 17

Now that's the power of the gospel for salvation for the Jew first and also for the Greek That's the power of the gospel that makes a brother of a

Roman Jew with an Asian Gentile That's the power of the gospel that exchanges holy kisses between strangers who now by their common faith in one

Lord are Bound as a family in ties stronger than birth Because it's the blood of the

Savior Jesus Christ and he alone who can do this I think this is the vanguard of the gospel

This list who must have been amongst the earliest of believers This man who was the first in Asia the

Abram of Asia to leave his country in his home So we have these pioneers coming together

All of them from all these backgrounds Different statuses in society and yet all one in Christ I Think that's one way that the righteousness of God in the gospel of Christ shows forth

Just even in this list of names and the greetings that Paul would have them receive When they finally got to Rome it may be that way for us again

Let us be that people that allows nothing to impede Between us no artificial barrier

That would slow down our love and the vibrant relationship that were to have with each other because as you love

Christ Jesus as You are committed to him So the scripture would say you're committed to each other we must be if that's the righteousness of God that is brought us to salvation and Founded this church, which

God willing all that it is. Amen Heavenly Father.

Thank you again for the day that you've given us for the time that we have together for Christ Jesus our Lord who binds us together in perfect unity.

I Thank you father for this list of names and for the reminder that we do stand on the shoulders of these

Ordinary people who gave their all for the gospel of Christ Jesus. I pray father you by your spirit