Romans 16:17-23 No Room for Wolves

The podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series in the Book of Romans, A Righteousness from God. Let's listen in.

Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsack, I'm the lead pastor here and we can go ahead and get started if you could find your seats. That would be great. And a special welcome to those of you that are here for the first time.

I recognize that some of you have not been here before and so we're just really glad that you have gathered together with us. It is a privilege to gather together as a gathering of God's people here in Matawan.

I am so grateful for this people and each and every one of you, the relationship that I've been able to develop with you over the years. Every single Sunday for years, I have been able to joyfully serve this church.

I mean that sincerely. It would be completely dishonest to say that there have not been a couple of Sundays that have been difficult over the years. But I can honestly say that I have never once made it through a Sunday morning in this gathering without a boost to my faith or just some kind of joy infusing something that I get to see or some kind of love expressed or some kind of encouragement that I've been able to give or receive.

And so I'm really glad for that and I mean that sincerely. And so I hope that you experience Recast the same way. I hear regularly out in the community that we are a church of love and that people who even come here and visit here, they often regularly will tell me at the lunch with the pastor, hey I just experience this church as a very welcoming and loving church and so just I encourage you to keep that up and keep loving one another, keep encouraging one another, keep reaching out to those who maybe you don't even know that are here and welcoming people.

I can echo Paul's words of encouragement from the text that we're going to be looking at here this morning. He said this to the church in Rome but I say it to the church here in Meadow on to Recast, your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you.

I do, I rejoice over you Recast, I am grateful for you. And how many of you are glad to have this church together with? Are you glad for that?

Amen, amen to that.

I'm very glad for this gathering this morning. This morning our text of scripture takes on though a bit of a cautionary note to us as.

A church.

It's a cautionary tone, a warning from the text. The bulk of what we will read this morning is a warning and the words of warning are going to be simply this Recast, watch out, watch out, keep your eyes open says the Apostle Paul to the church and God inspiring the Apostle Paul to warn us to watch out for something.

And as good as things have been here at Recast, I find myself continuing in vigilance to watch out, to keep my eyes open, to encourage the elders and the leadership here in the church to watch out, to keep our eyes open and to encourage you through the text of scripture as scripture addresses it, to watch out and to keep your eyes open.

I've developed a cautious attitude in my role as a pastor over the years. Not because I've been hurt, not because I've been damaged, I just testified that I'm grateful and it's been a loving relationship between us and I love this, but really over the years of studying scripture is what has led me to be cautious.

After all the greetings, all those greetings that we saw from the start of chapter 16, it seems that Paul wants to walk back all that he said about welcoming others by issuing a warning to the church.

He has been over the top talking about unity, over the top talking about welcoming one another, over the top about expressing love and even compromising about gray area issues in our gathering. So is it ever legitimate to not welcome someone?

That's the question the text is going to ask and answer for us. Is it ever acceptable to not welcome someone and our American minds, I am confident that many of us in this room immediately, viscerally from our guts say no, we are to welcome everyone every time, all the time.

That's where our hearts want to go with this. We are supposed to welcome all, right? And I can sense some confusion. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands because I don't want to trick anybody in the room to raise your hand on which side you're on because at the end of the day I think it's a confusing issue for us and would we ever not welcome somebody?

So as we read this text, it may sound like Paul is going back on all that he wrote in the past couple of chapters about unity, but by the end of the message I hope you can all see we can be both a welcoming church and a watchful church, a welcoming church but also a watchful church.

Romans 16:17-18 — Watch Out for Divisive False Teachers

So let's open our Bibles if you're not already there, Romans chapter 16. We're almost done with this book that we started in January of 2019. We've been a little over a year in this book and we're getting ready to wrap it up.

There's a slide for the ESV Bible app up there. It's my, actually it's not up there, there it is, but that's my favorite app. It's the translation that I like, it's just the one that I study from, but if you don't have an app on your device, especially an Apple device, you can go to the App Store, grab that one.

It's free and it's my favorite one. The search function is worth downloading it. But recast, this is God's holy and precious word to us. The opportunity that we have in this gathering to hear God speak through his holy word.

And by the way, here's the beauty, this is not the only time you get an opportunity to hear from God. You can do this anytime. If you have access to the Bible, you can hear him all week long. But let's listen together.

I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause division and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them, for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites.

And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise as to what is good, and innocent as to what is evil.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 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, Cortus, greet you.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you that your word covers such a wide, diverse host of issues that we might face in our lives, and where the text has been over-the-top clear about unity, about connecting with one another, about loving one another, sacrificing for one another, being there in the hard times and the good times for each other.

And then the text says to avoid a certain type of person, and it's abrasive to us, Father. It's hard for us to discern and to understand, especially in a culture where love and love and love is beat into us, and a certain brand of love, a certain kind of love that's just accepting and embracing of all.

Father, there are wolves who would come in and devour us if we are not watchful. There are some who would divide and destroy in a moment's notice. So, Father, unite us. Unite us closely. Like bricks fitted so close that nothing can get between the cracks, that no one could come in and divide us because we love you, and we are loved by you, and we love your truth, and we love your word, and we study your word, and we know your word, and we know and live your word.

And that unity that we experience comes out of the knowledge of who you are. So, Father, I pray that that would be a reality in our midst. I've experienced a lot of that over the last 10 years.

Let it continue.

Let us continue to be watchful, continue to love you in such a way, and to live among one another in such a way that someone who comes in as a wolf would stand out in a heartbeat. We'd be able to identify him just because we're so unified together that it's obvious they're doing something different.

Give us clarity through your word, and an opportunity even now as we sing songs together to lift our voices in unity before you. Father, what a beautiful thing it is to gather on Sunday morning. We get a chance to sing songs all week long, but to sing them together with your people.

So, Father, please receive this as worship from those who love you and from hearts that are given to you this morning.

In Jesus' name, amen.

But please open your device or your Bible back up to Romans chapter 16. So, Romans 16, 17 through 23 are the verses so that you can see and we can all kind of keep our focus and attention on God's word during the remainder of our time.

I'm convinced that in light of the last couple of messages, I know some of you have been here over time. By the way, those are available online. You can go back and hear the whole series on the book of Romans if you want.

Those are available on our website, or if you podcast, you can look up Recast Church, and you can have those downloaded to your device regularly. But I'm convinced that you could take those messages that we've been looking at about unity and welcoming and bringing people in and all of that, and you could run with that and run with a welcoming love and a welcoming unity that Paul has been writing about.

And without this added caution here at the conclusion of the letter to the Romans, we would misapply that text. We would get it wrong to our detriment, it would be dangerous for us as a church, and we would find ourselves in trouble a few years down the line.

Even with this warning here, many churches still misapply the text. They still have a naivety about them that would allow just kind of anything to go at the church, and at the end of the day, that's a very dangerous direction and we're gonna see that here.

Paul starts off our text here in verse 17 with the word appeal. It's an appeal, an urging. He has a strong desire. He's emotionally engaged in what he's asking the church to do. Now, this isn't a church he planted.

This is not a church he's ever visited. But he loves that church so much that he's appealing and urging for them to do something. You see, I believe that Paul loved the church of God and he loved Jesus Christ and he loved the Bride of Christ, which is the metaphor for the church.

And he wants to convince them toward a specific action he's urging, he's appealing. And the course of action that he wants from the church, the course of action that God desires of this church.

Is to watch out. Watch out is the text.

Keep your eyes peeled. Keep a steady watch. This is a cautionary phrase. I think you can see it. I think you know it already. How many of you ever had somebody shout watch out to you? I mean, you could shout duck and you know what to do.

This is, if somebody, if you're sitting at Comerica Park and somebody in your area shouts in your direction watch out, what do you do?

What do you expect?

Hopefully you duck. Or at least hopefully you flinch, right? Somebody says watch out and you've been like down and you're like what, wait, what's happening? I have a friend, a close friend who got to visit the behind the scenes operation at the Chicago White Sox field.

Their medical crew got a chance to give him a good look over as he got to go down in to where the team doctors are and they gave him a good look over because he was hit square in the forehead by a foul ball down the first baseline.

He claims that a vendor obscured his view, one of those guys walking up and down selling hot dogs or whatever. I think he was probably taking a nap because it was a Chicago team, but I don't know. Now that I've offended at least a quarter of you, no.

But we all know that ignoring a caution shouted at us can be dangerous. We all know that. Somebody yells watch out and you're like whatever, bam. And in our text, Paul is warning the entire church to watch out and what he wants us to watch out for might be surprising to us because what he wants us to watch out for is the type of person.

He wants us to watch out for people, to be attentive and to keep our eyes peeled for a certain type of person, particularly false teachers. And he gives us, by grace, God is so good to us, he gives us four indications of who we should be watching out for.

What kind of person should we be keeping our eyes peeled for? Because God forbid that we would just be walking around in this church constantly going, I bet that's a wolf, I bet she's got poor intentions, I bet he's evil, really, in his heart, I bet he's a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Can you imagine walking around the church with that attitude? That's not gonna be helpful, that's not gonna,.

We're not gonna be able to apply.

What Paul has been asking us to do in the last two to three chapters.

If that's our attitude towards him.

How are we gonna sacrifice, how are we gonna love? And so we need to know what exactly is it that he wants us to watch out for. At Comerica, it's flying baseballs and bats and maybe the guy's beer behind you, I don't know.

But here, it's watch out for a certain type of person. So here's the first thing he identifies that we need to be watching out for in the church. We should be watching out for those who cause divisions.

Watch out for those who cause divisions. Watch out for those who have their own, they champion their own causes and try to win everybody over to their side and if you don't agree with me, then you're out, you're against me.

Paul doesn't give much detail, but what is obvious in this is that there are people who force others to take sides. I think you've experienced this in your life. Some of you live with people like that.

Some of you have had family with that. Some of you were raised by people like that. Some of you are people like that. You naturally recognize in your own heart your tendency to draw up lines very readily and very easily.

And by the way, in this, I wanna be careful for you, I want you to see this. He doesn't let us into the intentions behind the divisions. He doesn't tell us why the person wants to divide the church, what's really going on there.

He saves motivation for later as a separate point here, as our third one, but for this first point, I just wanna, I wanna be clear that it matters little, hear me carefully, church, it matters little whether a person intentionally or unintentionally causes division.

Do you hear what I'm saying? He's not saying, hey, look out for people who maliciously divide the church. Others are okay. I mean, if you're just dividing the church on accident, that's okay. That's not what he's saying.

He's saying, look for divisive people. Watch out for people who are ready to stand by their guns and level them at each other. He says, watch out for people who cause division, who like to draw up battle lines.

I watch for this, but over the years, I've identified individuals who are developing coalitions and I am the kind of person, I mean, my personality, I tend to address that head on and what I've been trying to do over the course of these 10 years is to be obedient to texts like this, to really keep a watch and keep an eye out.

For people who draw up coalitions.

And try to win people to their side and are constantly, constantly, constantly trying to this side and that side. Remember that Paul already gave us a significant teaching about grace and kindness in the gray area issues of our lives.

Now, how many of you know that we have a variety of opinions in this room? Not everybody's lockstep on everything. All different kinds of things, where we send our kids to school and what we drink and what we eat and what TV shows we feel comfortable to watch, what musical preferences we have, what we would like worship to look like.

We have all different kinds of preferences and ideas and on those things, Paul gave us some instructions earlier in chapter 14. We are not to be promoting divisions based on our preferences. The church is not a place to rally people behind your song style preferences,.

Your favorite staff member.

Or even your favorite version of the Bible. You can have your preferences, you just are not allowed to go around building your case and developing a coalition to your preferences.

Do you understand? Is that making sense?

But what he's referring to here is of a stronger concern than merely disagreeing and trying to compromise and trying to work. Because how many of you know,.

When it comes to gray area issues,.

We can compromise on those things. We can kind of give and take a little bit on those things. But he's talking about something that's even stronger than that. The solution to gray area issues of disagreement in the church he gave us in chapter 14 is to give up some of our freedoms for the cause of unity.

We can compromise. But here we see the solution to those who would cause division in the church is to avoid them.

This is a different category.

This is a different thing that we're dealing with here. Paul has a particular brand of person in mind here and he says avoid them. It's a person who is dividing people through false teaching, through bringing forward the wrong things.

And that false teaching, I want to be clear about this.

Because it gets a little confusing.

Well, on gray area issues, we're supposed to be.

Compromising and working through things.

But the issue is false. Teaching can arise from a gray area issue.

Do you realize that?

Somebody could just have a preference and elevate that to the level of salvation. If you don't use the new King James version of the Bible, you're condemned. Do you see how that suddenly, that takes it up a notch?

It's no longer my preference, it's no longer my thing, but I'm tying it to salvation. A hymns only or you're condemned. Well, okay, now do you see how we've suddenly gone from the realm of preference and an area where we can just disagree and now we've gone to like a salvation issue over this?

Do you see how that could be false teaching in the church? So it's really important to understand that this can center on all different kinds of things. Some people might say God can only be, preferences can be elevated to the level of command, like as if to say God can only be worshiped through hymns or the King James Bible is the only acceptable translation.

It could also be doctrinal issues, like you must tie to the church to be saved. Or it could be something like the denial of the Trinity or the denial of the virgin birth or the denial of the return of Christ or the denial of the authority of the word of God.

It could be all kinds of things that could creep in to the church to cause divisions. But the main point in this, this first point, is we are to be watchful for those who try to cause division. And in this sense, we all need to be careful in ourselves to consider how tightly we hold onto our preferences.

And we need to be watchful for those who would seek to gain us as an ally. And even more basic is the application that we need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves. If there is something you don't like, come and talk with me, come and talk to one of the elders.

Better yet, we sing a song that you don't like, go and talk to Dave about it. We have something that's going on in the kids area that you don't like, go talk to Ginger about that. But go to the right person who has the authority and is over that to deal with it.

Don't try to win a coalition first. Go to the person who's offending and seek to make that right. Don't build coalitions, because building coalitions and getting people to your side really amounts to causing division.

Don't do it.

Most importantly, be a humble student of the word. Be a humble student of the word. Know what the Bible says. If you find something here you disagree with, let's sit down and talk it through with the Bible open in front of us.

Let's see what scripture says. And let's be a people who really practice what we preach. Let's actually trust God's word. And what God's word says is binding on us, but what God's word doesn't say is not binding on us.

There's a lot of gray area issues of life where you and I might disagree, and that's okay. But let's not be a people who disagree about the clear teachings of what God is saying to us in his word. Is that making sense?

So the first thing is be wary of people who cause divisions. Be watchful. And the second thing we're to watch out for is closely related to that causing divisions, and that is be watchful. Watch out for people who create obstacles, hurdles, put up barriers to the doctrines that have already been taught in scripture.

So be careful. I mean, there's some who will divide, but this is a little bit more specific. This is that there are those out there, there are those who would seek to come in here who at the end of the day, they have doctrines they would like to put up barriers to your understanding of who God is.

Barriers to you getting to God. The word obstacle in the text of the English Standard Version is a word that Paul and even Jesus himself used regularly. It's the stone of stumbling that's set in the middle of the road that trips people up.

That's the image of it. But it usually has really dire results according to those who use that phrase in scripture. You know, when you think about a stumbling stone in the middle of the road, what do you think of?

Well, you think of a stubbed toe or kind of trip and fall and catch yourself, and then you're back up again walking along the way. But often in scripture, when that word is used, the idea is the result of tripping over that stone is its journey ending.

It's like tripping over a stone off the side of a cliff. Like, it's over. Like, it's a dangerous thing. It's not just a stubbed toe that's at risk here. It's that your journey ceases at that stone, and you don't go around it, you don't make it through.

This word is used for the very thing that kept some of the religious leaders from getting to God. Jesus said, this is the thing that happens to the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They've come up to me, and I have been to them, a stumbling stone, and they can't get around me, they can't get over me, they can't get under me, they can't get through me, and they stop running.

They stop trying to get to God because they're offended by me, and I am the stumbling stone for them. They trip over me, and they stop their journey. So there are some that we need to watch out for that will put up roadblocks and obstacles that keep you and me, and are seeking to keep you and me, from getting to God.

Why in the world would they do that? Well, we'll get there here in a second, but in this sense, we need to be watching out for anything that would compromise the main message of this letter to the Romans, the heart of the gospel that Paul proclaimed, the heart of the gospel that we believe unto salvation, the thing that unites us.

The things like this, we cannot be good enough.

There are people who would put hurdles.

In the way of understanding and would seek to make you think that you can be good enough, but Scripture has been clear. Romans has been clear. The law can't save us. We can't save us. We are unrighteous and deserving of the wrath of a holy God, but he sent his son to die for us, to forgive us, to bring us the very righteousness of God himself, a righteousness we can't earn, so that through faith in Jesus, we can be declared, declared, declared righteous in his eyes.

Anybody glad for that? Anybody that, even as I talk about that, I hope there's some rejoicing in your hearts as you hear the truth and that there's something in you that resonates with that. Any teaching that adds to that truth, anything that adds or takes away from that gospel, central doctrine of the faith is an obstacle.

And further, I would suggest that any teaching that is in direct contradiction to any of the other clear teachings of Scripture is an obstacle in the way of you understanding God, understanding yourself, or understanding the way that he moves and works in this world.

And the command here, the command here is stark.

It's very un-American.

Avoid them, avoid them.

After teaching about unity, after teaching about welcoming, after greeting 27 people by name in the church in Rome, after teaching all about how to live in unity with those with various opinions about diet, food, drink, song, other preference, he tells us to avoid those who cause divisions and avoid those who create obstacles to sound doctrine.

But now in verse 18, Paul goes on to the third point to describe them, and he reveals a little of their motivations, the motivations of those that we are to avoid. He describes them as people who do not serve our Lord Christ.

But instead, they do serve someone because how many of you know that everybody serves somebody?

Did you guys already know that?

Everybody's serving somebody. In this case, he tells us who they serve. It's an interesting word in Greek. It's actually their belly. The ESV translates to appetite,.

But it's literally the stomach.

Like they serve their own stomachs. They're trying to fill their belly. That's why they're preaching what they're preaching. So we get a little bit of their motivation in this. They're not serving Christ.

That's not, he's kind of far from their mind. They can talk about him, they can mention him from time to time, but at the end of the day, here's what you need to get, because what's their belly got to do with it?

A paycheck. A paycheck, that's what they're shooting for. It's very difficult, by the way, to see into someone's heart, isn't it? Why is a person doing what they're doing? I cannot tell with any certainty whether a person volunteers in the church or serves from a desire to serve Christ, or really, at the end of the day, what they're doing is trying to serve themselves.

But knowing that this is a distinction of those we ought to be watchful for is indeed helpful. Paul is telling us to watch for people like this, people who don't serve Christ, but serve themselves. Well, I think there's some ways that we could understand and begin to discern that that's actually what's going on in our midst.

And I think thinking of an extreme example might help. It might sound judgmental, but I think it helps. I realize that it might not be as self-evident to you as it is to me, but we have televangelists who appear to serve their own appetites.

Do you guys know what I'm talking about? They appear, certainly, externally, to blow their own horns, to boast in their ministries, to boast in that, and to ask you to feed their bellies, to ask you to give them a paycheck.

And they're very, very pronounced.

In their request for a paycheck. I don't want to encourage you guys toward an attitude of judgmentalism, and I don't think Paul is either. I don't think he, at the end of the day, his goal is that you go around judging and weighing everybody's motives, especially among those who are trying to serve us and trying to work here.

Well, what's your motive? What are you doing this for? Oh, it's just about your attention or whatever. That's not the goal in this. But I want to point out, Paul wasn't ashamed to say that some people will teach with the end goal to fill their bellies.

I do believe that it is helpful that he turns our attention to their motivations, that we can see that there is a person who would come in and appear to be a servant of the church, and at the end, what they're really gunning for is something other than the glory of Christ.

Now, the problem, by the way, isn't that they get a paycheck. The problem isn't that they fill their bellies. The problem, really, ultimately, is that they preach falsehood for that gain. They're willing to teach whatever sells.

Do you get it?

They're willing to say whatever it is that's gonna build a crowd, whatever it is that's gonna draw people, well, that's what I'll do so that I can feed my family and I can feed my face. And that, unfortunately, gets kind of close to home for our current American church climate, doesn't it?

I am kind of convinced, and I don't know, I think some of you, this metaphor and this illustration might be lost on some of you because some of you would be the first out the door. To the glory of God, you'd be the first out the door, and we'd shrink a little, and then we'd grow again if I just tailored my teaching with the purpose of growing this church.

If the sole goal of my heart was to grow this church and to fill every seat, I could tailor my teaching to that. I could refuse to mention hell ever again. I could refuse to stand and preach where scripture stands regarding sexuality or women pastors.

I could pick and choose passages that only make it look like God is always for your health. All he ever wants is you to be prosperous and wealthy and healthy. I could scratch the word sin from my vocabulary, and I could turn Sunday mornings into a 20-minute pep talk pretending that the purpose of our gathering is just a pep rally for the start of your week, and our number one goal is to leave here encouraged and just feeling good about ourselves.

Could we do that? We could do it. I think some of you would leave, and like I said, for the glory of God,.

Many of you would leave,.

But others would come to fill your seats. I'm convinced that we could pack it out. Well, and some of you are going, no, you couldn't, because you know that I couldn't preach for 20 minutes. That's a little bit of a,.

You're like, no, you couldn't do that, Don. And then some of you afterwards are gonna challenge me to it, right?

Prove it, show me that you can do that. No, I'm not gonna do it.

But I'm convinced that false teaching has often and is often very subtle.

It's smooth.

False teachers need not get up and say, Jesus isn't God. They only need to teach the parts of Scripture that they like and refuse to preach the parts they don't. You see, false teachers, false teaching is, they're more concerned with followers because followers equal revenue, and revenue equals.

A full stomach, and maybe a new Gulfstream private jet to boot. Steve got a kick out of that one, thank you. I'm not in line for a new Gulfstream,.

Just so that you know.

Romans 16:18-19 — Smooth Talk, Flattery, and Naivety

The fourth point. So we're to be watchful for people who divide, for people who set up obstacles, for people whose motivation is their own attention, their own glory, their own fame, not the glory of Christ, not his attention, not his fame, but their own, their own gain.

But the last thing is that we're to be, the people that we're to avoid. They're smooth-talking flatterers. Beware, be watchful, watch out for smooth-talking flatterers. At this point, I want to make sure that we are all getting this.

Paul is telling us to keep our eyes open for people like this. And I mentioned earlier, it kind of seems weird. How can I be, how can we be a welcoming church who seeks to really deeply love one another, that really sacrifices for one another?

And always is expecting each other to take off their sheep mask and devour us because they're a wolf and we knew it all along. Like, how can those two be compatible? How can we be constantly holding everybody else suspect and loving and sacrificing at the same time?

And I don't think it's healthy for us to walk around gauging each other for flattery and smooth-talk. But know this, recast, wolves in sheep's clothing are smooth. They identify the weak and the naive and they divide and they separate, just like lions.

Have you ever seen, any of you ever watch.

The Discovery Channel or some of those, anybody else besides me like nature documentaries? And you watch the lions and they're chasing the wildebeest and they find one that's a little bit lame or younger and then they begin to circle around that one and separate it from the pack and kind of win that one for dinner.

False teachers are masters at dividing and then devouring. And they have people skills. They're good at rhetoric, according to the text. Good at crafting arguments. So we need to be on the watch because a false teacher is the kind of person who will make you feel really good about dividing the church.