Romans 16:17-23 No Room for Wolves

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 Matawan 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 to gather 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'm a damage,

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 in 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.

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, and 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.

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 go to 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 going to 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. 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 down there, you're like, 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 going to be helpful. We're not going to 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 going to sacrifice? How are we going to 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 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 want to 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'm 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.

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 a salvation issue over this?

Do you see how that could be false teaching in the church? 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, 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 tithe 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 on to 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, if 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. 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? The first thing is be wary of people who cause divisions.

Be watchful. 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.

Be careful. 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.

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. It's over. 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. 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. 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 going to build a crowd, whatever it is that's going to 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. 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 going to challenge me to it, right?

Prove it. Show me that you can do that. No, I'm not going to 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

Gulf Stream private jet to boot. Steve got a kick out of that one.

Thank you. I'm not in line for a new Gulf Stream, just so that you know.

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 are 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.

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?

How could those two be compatible? How can we be constantly holding everybody else suspect, and loving, and sacrificing at the same time?

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 ...

Have any of you ever watched the Discovery Channel, or some of those ... Anybody else besides me like nature documentaries? 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 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. 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.

You're on the right side, after all, because you're on my side. We've got reasonably crafted arguments for our version of the

Bible, reasonably crafted arguments for our style of worship, reasonably crafted arguments for why this leader is better than this leader.

Do you see what I'm saying? And they'll win. They'll win hearts over with smooth -talk, and with flattery.

So, a good point to this is just beware of flattery in general. Whenever anyone compliments you about something that you yourself know to be untrue, yeah, that's me and Linda, right, sweetie?

When somebody compliments you about something that you know isn't true, take a step back and evaluate.

Now, raise your hand, I want you to genuinely engage on this one, I want you to raise your hand if you like to be complimented. Those of you that aren't raising your hand are lying, or you're just like,

I'm not doing that today. We like to be complimented, don't we? Even to such a degree, and the irony is, it betrays our foolishness that we don't even mind being complimented about things that we're not really good at.

And further, we're willing to receive accolades for stuff we didn't even do.

You know what I'm talking about. And how often are you eager to pass the credit, I didn't really do that, that was so -and -so, that was so -and -so.

But at the end of the day, it still makes us feel good, and we know we didn't do it. So foolish.

So really what we've done here is we've looked at two verses, two verses down, but the bulk of the message is in the identification of these false teachers, because we need to know what we are to be keeping an eye out for.

What is he saying, watch out for? What are we to watch out for? Well, we're to watch out for people who divide, we're to watch out for people who place obstacles in the way of truth, we are to watch out for people who seem to be more concerned with gain than serving

Christ and His message, and we are to be watchful for people who flatter with smooth talk and deception.

And verse 19 serves as a caution about being naive. It's a little bit worded weird in the

English Standard Version, so it can be a little hard to figure out what he's getting at, but the Roman church, he says here, you have a reputation for being obedient, it's cute.

You're very obedient, it's glorious, it's beautiful, it's a nice thing, you guys are obedient, you're willing to come under authoritative teaching, you've just got a heart to soak up the word of God, you're just kind, you're gracious to one another, you're welcoming to those who come into your midst,

I just love your obedience, and it's known widely, and I give thanks for that. He's glad for their obedience, he's rejoicing in the great reputation of his church, of this church, not his church.

But he also knows that in that obedience comes a bit of naivety.

They are set up for false teachers to come in and ravage the church in Rome.

And without this warning that he gives here at the end, they may be tempted to welcome false teachers in and think it's obedience to the call to be a loving and welcoming church just to let others in, just let them all in, let them all in, come on, open doors, we're just, everybody in, everybody has got an equal voice in.

He ends verse 19 with these instructions, be wise as to what is good, and innocent as to what is evil.

He wants the church to keep that obedient leaning, to keep kindness, to keep love, to keep sacrificing for one another.

But stay away from evil and season your goodness, your obedience, with wisdom.

Don't check your brain at the door, keep your brain engaged, church.

Keep wisdom and life experience and knowledge flavored with the love that you have for one another.

There's a wise obedience and there's a foolish obedience.

Foolish obedience is the frog giving the scorpion a ride across the river. Some of you know the fable, but in the old fable, the scorpion talks the frog into giving it a ride across the river, come on, it's just a little ways across there, you got flippers,

I don't, I need to get over there, my family's over there, I gotta get over to the other side, can you give me a hand, come on, brother, just help.

So once they get to the other side, what does the scorpion do? It stings the frog. And the frog with its very last breath says, why'd you go do that?

I gave you a ride across the river, why in the world would you sting me? And what does a scorpion say in a casual tone?

Why did I do it? I'm a scorpion, that's what scorpions do, didn't you know that that's what scorpions do?

Scorpions sting, that's what we do. It would be foolish for us to believe in everything that this letter has said to us about human nature and then to go and let the scorpions ride on our back.

This very letter says this about human nature. This very letter where he's cautioning us, he's telling us to love one another, to care for one another in Christ, to embrace one another, to sacrifice for one another, but also to be watchful because of this.

Listen, Romans 3, 13 through 18, identifying human nature.

Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

In their paths are ruin and misery. And the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. That's what we're like without Christ.

That's what we're like without Jesus. So wait a second, where is there any hope in this?

Some of us already have enough difficulty in trusting others. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand. I already know a lot of you already struggle with trusting others.

You've been through a history. You've been through a past. You've been hurt by churches in the past. And so just the idea of Paul giving you an out is like, whoo, that means

I just can watch out for everybody and go do my thing. Maybe I'll just slide in the back and slide out and ignore chapter 14 and 15 and just take this little part of chapter 16 here as my own.

Seems like Paul is giving us a way out of entering into loving and trusting and sacrificial community. Maybe we should just be walking around distrusting one another, right?

But without looking carefully, I would assume that this text was all about being wary and watchful. Should a church be on constant alert, unwelcoming and leery of everyone who walks through the door?

Should we give the greeting team out at the door the opportunity to just blazingly ask very direct questions?

Are you a scorpion? Are you a wolf? What's your agenda here? What are you doing here? What is your plan with this church?

What are you hoping to accomplish by walking through this door? Can you imagine that? Of course not.

That's not what we're going for. But the way to be wary, the way to be watchful is to remain ...

Here it is, church. To remain committed to the truth. Here are four applications to help us live with this caution, to live watchfully while keeping intention, growing in community and trust together.

Let's take these on. The first is stay committed to biblical unity together.

Stay committed to biblical unity. When we all stay committed to going to our brother or sister who has wronged us, when we refuse to gossip, when we refuse to allow others to win us over to an argument against others, when we follow what scripture tells us about the way that we're supposed to look different from the world.

How many of you know that the office gossip about he said, she said that you guys go through all week long is not the way it's supposed to work in the church?

Somebody wrongs you. Do you know what it says in the scripture? Go talk with them about it. It doesn't say go gather your friends and tell your best friend what he said or what she said.

Oh, can you believe that? And then you build your little coalition over here. That's not what it says.

If we follow this, if we do what scripture tells us, sure it's tough, but in my personal experience, it usually goes pretty well.

A lot of times, I would say at least 50 % of the time that I've gone to somebody, there's been some level of misunderstanding in our communication.

They didn't mean to offend me. They didn't mean to make that harsh comment. There's something else going on there.

But when we do things the biblical way, we make the one who is trying to cause divisions in our midst stand out like a scorpion among frogs.

You can see them. They stand out because we don't have room for that. We don't do that.

We don't cause divisions here. We go to the source. We go to the one who can make it right. We go to the one who is in charge of a certain area where we disagree with what's going on there.

We try to work it out together. Do you understand what I'm saying? The one who's trying to build coalitions has no grip here, recast.

When it comes to avoiding them, they're just not going to like to be here. They'll be like, I can't divide here.

There's no place for me to get a wedge in between these bricks because we're so tightly bound together.

We love one another. We sacrifice for one another. We look out for each other. When somebody comes and tries to win me to their side,

I say, wow, I don't have any room for that. Go talk with them. I don't need to hear about your disagreement with so -and -so.

Go handle that with them. I'm not saying that as a pastor. I don't need to hear your grievances that you haven't addressed with somebody yet.

Occasionally somebody will come to me over 10 years. You can imagine that that's happened a few times. Sorry, this is a short meeting.

This is going to be a short meeting because ... Have you gone and talked with that individual yet? No? Okay. Well, that's all

I've got to say about it. Go talk with them. By the way,

I've been the recipient of that. I've been the beneficiary of some people in the church saying, well, you've got a problem with Don? Go talk with him about it.

He's got an open -door policy. I'm not willing to talk with any of you. At the end of the day, I pray for you.

I love you. Certainly, if you've got a problem with something that's being said, I'm open to that.

Let's not allow room for ourselves to develop into scorpions, let alone let a scorpion into divide and to sting and to break us down.

The closer we stand to biblical instruction for our community, the harder it will be to break our fellowship.

The one who seeks to divide this church, I pray will find nothing to hold on to to pull us apart.

The second thing is, first, to stay committed to biblical unity and doing things the way that God says.

The second is to know the doctrines that have been taught so that you can see the falsehoods. You can see the false teachers.

They stand out. They kind of glow in the dark. There's no way around it. You're going to have to study and read a little bit to get to this one.

You're going to have to do a little bit of work, a little bit of study, but fortunately, what you need to read and study are the very words of God.

There's some benefit in that, too. When you run into confusions as you're reading, let me or Spencer know, again, we'd just love to talk with you.

If you encounter something, just this week, I had two different individuals email me or message me with a question about scripture that they were reading.

First of all, let me tell you what that does in a pastor's heart, boom. You tell me you're reading the Bible, I'm like, yes, encouragement.

Not only that, I love. I think God has designed me to want to help with those kinds of questions.

I'm never more alive than when somebody asks me a question about scripture. It's like, yes.

It happened to me twice this week where somebody just said, hey, I'm just reading this and I really don't know what's going on here.

It seems kind of controversial. What's the scoop here? We'll walk through that together. Know the doctrines that have been taught, be a student of the word, stay committed to biblical unity, serve the

Lord, the third thing, serve the Lord so it becomes apparent when someone joins us who doesn't.

Serve the Lord. Be engaged and involved in service. People who serve for their own profit, really, at the end of the day, are never really serving.

They're serving only themselves and that's going to stand out in a culture where the rest of us are genuinely serving our king.

We might not see it right away, but someone serving for their own gain will begin to, in subtle and increasingly overt ways, try to call attention to what they're doing.

Do you know what I'm talking about? They're going to increasingly say, hey, pay attention to me. Look at what I'm doing.

I'm awesome. I'm awesome. I'm awesome. The rest of us have our nose to the ground, so I'm serving our Lord with the main thing that we're serving for is the smile on the face of our savior on that day.

Those services, over time, look very different. In practice, they change.

The last thing, don't be afraid to be thankful, but do be careful to only speak the truth without flattery or rhetoric so that we can identify the flatterers and the smooth talkers.

Don't be one of them. Certainly thank people for the way that they've blessed you, but don't invent compliments to win people's hearts.

The text ends with a promise of hope and some various greetings. The promise here goes right hand in hand with the warning, with the watchfulness.

He says, hey, by the way, here's the hope. The God of peace will crush

Satan. Think about that. Think about the structure of that sentence. The God of peace will crush.

In the same way, the welcoming church will avoid.

The welcoming church will avoid. The God of peace will crush. There's a parallel there.

The God of peace crushing the evil one. Evil and falsehood must be and will be ultimately dealt with.

We serve a God of love who is also equally a

God of justice. The original hope given in Genesis was that one born of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

That is the hope of the church. We need the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to be with us so that we can be both a welcoming and a watchful church.

Verse 21 -23 closes our text with the greetings of eight people who are sending their greetings to the church in Rome.

It includes Tertius, who might be confusing to you. It's worth mentioning he was Paul's writing assistant who took down his dictation and helped him to work through this letter.

It may seem like a strange way to land the plane this morning, but it was Paul's idea, not mine, in the middle of all of these greetings.

Greetings from him to the church, now greetings from the others. In the middle of that, he reminds the church to not greet everyone.

We are to be wise in our goodness, not stingy with our trust, but committed to deep community so that there is room for the one who will seek to divide us.

Rather, there is no room for the one who would seek to divide us, because he will soon be crushed by the

God of peace. Father, I thank you for this message, and even as Spencer comes to lead us into communion,

I ask that you would help us to be a church that is protected, that is watchful. I thank you for your word that guides us and directs us and changes us, even different than the way that we would think, the way that our hearts naturally go.