April 29, 2018 AM The Final Appeal – Vigilance by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Now some say that there's a discontinuity here, that there's a seeming sudden change from what came just before the verses that were read to you a moment ago and the rest of the letter, and particularly the part of the letter that we preached from last week, verses one through 16 of this chapter 16.

There are those who say that this sudden change of subject without any transitions, as Paul is characteristic of, such as accordingly, or therefore, or we then see that here's a conclusion or anything like that.

He just sort of stops and we have this. And so without a consequently, without a therefore, some people see it as evidence that these verses don't even really belong in this letter to the

Romans. There's one man even has a theory that these words that were just read to you from Romans 16 verses 17 through 20 actually were originally intended for the book of Ephesians and they somehow got mixed up and put in here in Romans.

I don't know how that would have happened then. Now I do that quite often because I copy and paste and I forget where I've copied from and what

I'm pasting to so that could easily happen. But back then I'm not so sure. In any case, it seems to some so abrupt and so without transition that there's this idea that they don't really even belong here.

Now it seems to me that there really is no reason to wonder why the subject changes so abruptly from the greetings that Paul tells the church to give to this contingent that's listed and described in verses one through 16 to what we have here in verses 17 through 20 and this call to the church for vigilance.

Why did he make this change of tone? Well, it seems to me he was done.

He was done saying what he had to say so he stopped. Now when I was in seminary, my preaching professor in the homiletics class, he told me that the one thing a preacher needs to know, and there's a lot you need to know before you go into the preaching class, you need to know church history and theology and Greek and Hebrew and exegesis and all these things, you need to know those.

He said, here's what you really need to know when you preach. He says, are you ready? We're all with bated breath.

Yes, professor, we're ready. He says, you need to know when you're done. And when you're done, you need to stop.

He said, stop circling that airport, land that plane, turn off the engine, say amen, and let the poor folk go.

But I've read this letter through, usually once a week during all the time we've been preaching on it, at least every other week, chapters one through 16 in a sitting.

I'm no Pauline expert, but it occurs to me that that's the only reason he stopped there at chapter 16, verse 16, and made this sudden change.

He stopped preaching because he had made his point. The entire letter, all of Romans, exudes this apostolic authority.

And it's interesting understanding that, and that this man who had never yet been to Rome, and we don't know if he ever even got to that church, gives commands, he gives imperatives.

He says, therefore, this is what you must do. This is the apostolic authority speaking to the church and saying, behave this way because of what

Christ has done for you, what God has done for you, we should say, in Christ Jesus. And with apostolic authority then, it's interesting that this, in chapter 16, verse 17, is the third and last of three appeals that he makes.

This man, under direct inspiration of God by his

Holy Spirit, writing scripture, and there's much evidence that the church knew and that Paul knew and Peter and other apostles knew that they were writing scripture when they wrote it, that he appeals.

I want to go through these with you just really quickly, because the first appeal comes in chapter 12, in verse one, where we were several weeks ago.

Chapter 12 begins what we call the practical side of the book. And Paul, characteristically, will give you the indicatives in one part of the book.

Ephesians is the most clear example because there's three chapters of indicative. What has

God done for you in Christ Jesus? Indicative, who are you in Christ? Indicative, stating the facts, and then three chapters of therefore.

Therefore, here is your reasonable response. So in just the same way, in Romans, we had 11 chapters of clear theology, doctrine, the righteousness of God revealed in this gospel, the need for repentance, the sole solace that we have that is in Christ Jesus and none other, those sorts of things, and he comes to chapter 12 and he says,

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship, the beginning of the day -to -day implications, imperatives, commands, as a result of this gospel.

Chapter 15, verse 30, I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the

Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf. Why so?

Because the apostle would not step foot out the door. He would never have gone on these missionary journeys without knowing the direction of Christ's Spirit and the prayers of the church.

The prayers of the church meeting and coordinating with Christ's Spirit, telling him directly where to go and how, and finally, chapter 16, verse 17.

I appeal to you, brothers, did you hear it in all three of these appeals in this book of Romans?

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers. I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and now

I appeal to you, brothers, and this means brothers and sisters. This means men and women, Greek, Jew, slave, free, rich, poor.

I appeal to you, who with me know God by faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ. I appeal to you, church, he says, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.

Avoid them. The third of these three appeals, an appeal could be

I beseech in some translations. This word appeal could be I encourage you, but I think it's more

I beg you. I plead with you of utmost urgency and priority and importance.

This appeal to watch out for divisive people, those who put obstacles in your way is as important as these others.

These three appeals, present yourselves as a living sacrifice to God.

How important is that? I appeal to you, brothers, pray with me. How important is that?

Crucially important. Top of the list kind of importance. And then finally, I appeal to you, watch out.

And after that, watch out. After that, I appeal to you, brothers, this command to avoid them.

It follows in verse 18, a description of these peace disturbers. What are they like?

What are we to look for? What characteristics are we going to see? And then in verse 19, his confidence that weariness amongst the church will not devolve into mistrust of each other.

And verse 20, a promise of Christ's final disposition of them.

You see, among the worst things that can come into a church is a divisive spirit, is people who bring dissension, divisiveness to a church.

Now it's on the negative side. On the positive side then, if that be the case, then how important is unity to God, and therefore to us?

One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 133, three verses. I'll just read you the first two.

Let us understand then, as we look at what Paul says about divisive people, and we look at what he says about those who put obstacles before you, let's see how much

God loves the other side of that coin. Unity. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity.

It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes.

In other words, in other words, unity is to God as precious as the anointing of Israel's first high priest.

How important is that? Aaron, Moses' brother, the first official high priest of Israel, the first one who would stand officially in the holy place before God and intercede for the sins of the people.

One of the clearest pictures we have of what? Of who? The final and eternal high priesthood of our great high priest,

Jesus Christ. Now in the heavenlies, our high priest, our great high priest, now in the heavenlies, having entered the holy place by the sacrifice of himself, he, that is what is pictured there in Psalm 133.

How important is that to God? Ask derivatively, how important then is unity to God?

It's that precious. That's pretty important.

That, church, is pretty precious. These four verses are just packed.

They are dense with these final instructions. Their value to the church today is every bit as strong and as relevant to us as it was to them 2 ,000 years ago.

Now, we're told to watch out. Watch out, the original word behind that means look at something carefully, critically, examine it closely.

That's gonna make some of us uncomfortable, isn't it? Because we like to say something like, well, I'm not a busybody.

What people do is their own business. I'm not some nosy fruit inspector. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Because too often, we take that form of thinking, which is a very

Western kind of form of thinking, a very independent, very Lone Ranger type, and it sounds very holy, and there's a pious sound to it, and it's kind of sanctimonious.

It's like, I don't butt into other people's lives. I'm busy, but not a busybody. Wrong. We're not told to be paranoid.

We're not told to be nosy. We're not told to be untrusting. But everywhere in this letter, beginning right there in chapter 12, where we're weeping and rejoicing together, we have this concern for each other.

And we have a concern for the influences that come into the church. And so, as Jesus said, by their fruits you shall know them.

No, we're not told to become an untrusting, a paranoid type of people.

We're not told to suspect people, brothers and sisters with whom we've lived at peace, and start wondering what they're doing behind closed doors.

What we're told is to look out, to be aware, to be alert, to avoid.

First, those causing divisions, and second, those creating obstacles. There are few things that alarmed the apostle more than Christians breaking into camps.

Just glance through the first few chapters of the first letter to the Corinthians to see what Paul says about it.

Now, Corinthians is admittedly a fairly hard letter to understand. And if you don't have a good grasp on 1

Corinthians and what Paul's trying to say and what that means to us today, well, shame on you, because our faithful Wednesday night leader, our faithful deacon has done a wonderful job explaining some very difficult doctrines and making them practical and understandable.

So shame on you if you don't have a good grip on 1 Corinthians. But read through that book and see how alarmed the apostle is at what?

At the beginning. Some said, I am of Cephas. Some say, I follow Apollos. I follow Barnabas. Well, I follow the apostle.

And some said, sort of like this, I follow Jesus. And Paul says, you're all wrong.

So alarmed at disunity, perhaps only the potential return to the law of the

Galatians caused him more anxiety than disunity of the

Corinthians. Think of Israel. 12 tribes delivered to the promised land as a single nation under the one true living

God. And they remained that, a nation, 12 tribes bound together by a common faith in the

God who delivered them from Egypt. They remained 12 until what? Until under Solomon's son,

Rehoboam, there was a civil war and the nation split. 10 tribes in the north, that's

Israel. Ephraim often called that in the scripture. Judah, Levi, and then

Benjamin stayed in the south and they were called the nation of Judah. Why would God do that?

This God who loves unity the way our God loves unity. And yet in his decree, the nation split and never came back together because of Solomon's idolatry, because of the

Asherah poles and the high places that he allowed or himself erected. That's what it took to incite

God's anger so much that he would split his people like that. Think of Israel during their desert wanderings and Korah and his contingent who rebelled against Moses' authority.

Do you remember how God reacted to that? Opening the ground and swallowing them and their whole family and their livestock and their tents and everything that was about them were destroyed that way.

If the psalmist says how good and how pleasant it is, it's like the oil running down the beard, the beard of Aaron.

These other examples that we find many more say how much God hates the opposite. These ones that Paul tells us to be alert towards, to avoid, those who cause divisions, those who create obstacles.

The Lord called to himself a people to be bonded together by a common interest in Christ Jesus.

And seeing that bond broken is a grievous thing to the Lord. Let me read to you

Ephesians 4, 4 -6. There's one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

And hear all the preachers stop and say, and I did this two years ago when I preached this, well this doesn't mean we're in lockstep, this means we're unified.

It doesn't mean we all have to think the same, it means that we're bound together under one Lord, one baptism and so forth and we make all these apologies for it.

And yet if you read it with the emphasis I just gave you and put the emphasis on the ones, one body, one spirit, then

I could regret, I could even repent that all those years ago, maybe 12 years ago now,

I softened it that way. That's not what it says, that softer reading, that softer explanation is not what this says.

He's telling the church that God would have us be one, a family, is there diversity among us?

Of course there is. First Corinthians 12 would totally support that as would Romans 12.

The call to unity is everywhere in the scripture and it's incredibly important to God and we can't minimize that, we can't play that down in order to maintain some vestige of our own independent spirit because that's what it is, independent spirit.

And I would suggest not from God. We watch out for those who would bring this kind of dissension, this kind of disunity amongst us, divisions, we watch out for them.

Paul gives us one characteristic, particularly here. He says they create obstacles.

Obstacles is a word we had and we studied a bit back in chapters nine and 11, there's been some time, but the word is skandalon.

Skandalon, and of course we get scandal from it in chapters nine and 11.

What was the skandalon? Well, it was much what Paul says here about such persons who put obstacles in our way.

Obstacle in nine and 11, the scandal was the stumbling stone of Christ.

That stone that was put in the path and what was that path that the stone was laid on, that path that was trying to make them divert from was the path of self -generated righteousness.

And there's the scandal, the scandal of faith in Christ in him alone to drive you off of that path.

Well, here when Paul speaks of this obstacle that people put in your path, the stumbling stone, this scandal, it's the same idea of trying to get you off the path, but here

Paul's saying not to get you off the path of self -generated righteousness, that's chapters nine and 11.

That's Christ the stumbling stone. Here they're getting you off the path that you should be on. The path of faith and obedience to Christ.

And what he's saying is watch out. Avoid those who put that obstacle, that stumbling stone in your way because if you're on the path that Christ would lay out in obedience to his word and submission to his spirit, you're on the right path.

And these ones who bring division, the ones we're told to watch out for, be wary of, look at closely, all those things

I mentioned a moment ago are to drive you off that right and correct path.

This is an egregious thing. Deuteronomy chapter 27 and verses 17 and 18.

It pronounces curse on anyone who moves a landmark or misleads a blind man. Jesus says that anyone who misleads his children will be better off if what?

You all know this. He'd be better off, said our Lord, if a millstone was hung around his neck and it was cast into the sea and drowned.

You'd be better off that than to face Jesus Christ on that great day of judgment, having been a catalyst for divisions, for dissension, for disunity, for breaking up the oneness of Christ's church.

This is serious stuff. This is important. Paul's coming to the end of this letter, this magisterial letter to the

Romans, this letter which of few verses here and there changed the entire course of history.

And he's not just adding afterthoughts here. He's summing it up for us.

He tells us to be alert to those whose doctrines make the gospel harder to understand, harder to live out, that the doctrines and the things that they say are actually this obstacle, this scandal, this stumbling stone that gets us off this path of gospel obedience.

It's like the Gnostics who were gaining prominence back in that world. They made

God's word baffling. It made it complex. They made sense when they spoke, but only by skill of oratory, not by faithfulness to the word.

We've all been there, haven't we? Where someone says something that makes sense, we go, I never heard that before.

I get that. We have this aha moment. But as soon as you walk out the door and breathe the fresh air, you go, how did that work?

What am I supposed to do? And it all goes away like a mist on a hot morning.

No, they made sense, but only for that moment. What they actually did was made the gospel inaccessible.

The way the Catholic Church centuries later would do the same by insisting that the scriptures only be read and taught in a language that few of them actually knew.

When someone asked, as Schaeffer did, how shall I then live? The answer, as Tevye said in Fiddler on the

Roof, the answer would make a rabbi's head spin. And that is an obstacle.

Because the gospel shouldn't make your head spin except if it spins because of the mercies of God showered down upon undeserving sinners.

That can make our head spin trying to figure that one out. But Paul answers it, it's the mercies of God.

But then what do we do? How do we live this out? How do we know when people are coming and bringing disunity and putting obstacles in our way?

I ask you, is your head spinning? Do you come away from the talk?

Do you come away from this place under my ministry of preaching to you confused?

I don't have the clarity of some of the great men of the church, but I try to make the scriptures clear. Do you leave here more or less close to understanding

Christ Jesus and his word? Do you know what to do? Is it an obstacle?

Or is it a clearing of the path? Can we protect ourselves in this way?

What are we to do as we're watching out? He says, watch out for them. Avoid them. Be alert, be on the lookout for this.

Dale talked about it quite a bit in his opening comment. Doctrine. The balm of protection is the doctrine that we've been taught, and for too many churches, this very word, doctrine, has fallen on hard times.

See, we don't want all those rules and regulations. We just want to let go and let God. We just want to love each other.

We just want you to understand that God loves you. No matter what, and however you are, and whatever you believe,

God loves you, and he wants you to say something like, okay, I believe in Jesus, hey, hallelujah, and they give this free, cheap gospel out.

Doctrine. Doctrine is what protects us from cheap, easy, unbiblical grace.

So we want to let go and let God. We just all want to be happy together. We just love each other the way

God loves you, no matter what you've done, no matter how you are, no matter what you say, no matter what you believe. No, that's not even close to right.

Doctrine protects us. Doctrine simply means the teaching, the summary by subject of what the scriptures say.

Most of our preaching in this place is what we call biblical theology, and all that means is whatever place we are in in the scripture, whatever that book is, wherever that chapter is, that paragraph, that verse that we're preaching, we locate it in the flow of redemptive history, which is from Genesis to Revelation.

From the beginning of the gospel in Genesis 3 .15 to the summary of it at the end of Revelation. Biblical theology only tells you here's where it was then, and what it means to us today.

Systematic theology takes a subject, marriage, children, money, sex, and sums it up and finds all the points of that subject from Genesis to Revelation.

It's what we do when we preach topically, though normally we preach expositionally, which is why it's biblical theology mostly.

It's a protection there. The doctrines are presented to you.

Thus saith the Lord. Paul says, avoid them.

Avoid those who are divisive, those who are throwing these confusing things at you so that you don't know which way to turn.

You can't even locate the gospel anymore. You're not even sure if Christ died for you anymore. He says, avoid them.

Again, too often gets softened. Okay, avoid what they say, but not them.

Show them their error, but have them over for dinner and have fellowship with them. These sorts of things. That's not what Paul says.

He says, avoid them. That's all it means.

The word is interesting. It's only used three times in the New Testament, twice by Paul, once by Peter.

It's used 122 times in the Old. The Greek translation of the

Old Masoretic Text. And it's used often of a turning aside, a turning away, an avoiding of God, avoiding

God and turning to idols. And so it's a word of conviction. In the

Psalms, it's often of this definitive action, turning one way or the other, away from God, towards idols, or more hopefully, away from the idols and to the true and living

God. In Psalm 139, 19, Paul tells men of blood, in other words, murderers, to depart from him, to avoid him.

And we can say parenthetically, avoid me, depart from me, because I'm going to avoid you. I'm going to depart from you.

What do we have to do first? If unity is this important to God, this important to Paul, that he's ending his letter with this, his final note, if you will, what do we do?

Well, first, you have to recognize what divisiveness is. First, you have to see it for what it is.

There's a wonderful illustration that obviously I didn't come up with. It's been around for a long time.

I don't know where it started, but how do bank tellers know counterfeit money? How do they train them to be able to tell?

Now, these days, we have, is it a $20 bill that has a little bead going through it, that little string, and they can hold it up and they can tell if it's there, and that's something that can't be duplicated by counterfeiters?

Well, bank tellers don't really do that, do they? Because they've been trained this other way, this old -fashioned way,

I think, still. They handle lots and lots of real money. So when you hand them a $100 bill or a $1 bill or any bill that's not right, they can immediately say, that doesn't feel right.

They know immediately. You give them a quarter, ask for two dimes in nickel, they take that quarter, go, the weight's wrong.

They don't have to look twice. How do we know divisiveness?

Can you tell? I would suggest you know what's divisive.

You know when you're being given an obstacle to gospel obedience by handling the real thing, by being part of the unity of the church, by knowing what it means to be with brothers and sisters who love you because Christ loves us, because he's given us faith to believe in him.

All those things, for example, from Ephesians 4 that I read, the one body, the one hope, the one faith, the one

Lord, the one baptism. How do you know divisiveness? By being part of the opposite, by handling it constantly, by being involved with it so that every time something that is not that comes up, you recognize it immediately for what it is.

Handle the real thing. It's hard to detect sometimes because Paul says their talk is smooth and they flatter and it's going to trick you if you haven't much handled the real thing.

You'll be able to immediately say, there's something wrong here and I don't have to hear the whole thing, I don't have to wait until it's over and walk out the door and go, wait a second, what was that, how did that work, what did he say, how did he put that together?

You don't have to wait that long, you will immediately know. By being part of the unity and the fellowship and the love of the brethren, by handling it constantly so that like a good bank teller, as soon as that phony bill's in the hand, she says, nope, you sir are under arrest,

I just pushed that button, they're coming for you. We know right away. Paul says such persons do not serve our

Lord Christ but their own appetites. Like Philippians 3, 18, 19, they serve their own bellies.

Doesn't mean this anatomical part, it means your own ego, your own agenda, your own pride.

They serve their own appetites and by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.

Who are the naive? Well, the naive I would suggest, just from the simple illustration

I had a moment ago, they would say, well, we don't need doctrines, doctrines are so restrictive. Doctrines are so separating of one church from another.

No, we need doctrines. That's how we become something other than naive.

Naive simply means someone who falls easily into error, someone who can't discern the real thing from the counterfeit.

Notice the difference, what's flattery? Flattery, you know the difference between a genuine compliment, something appreciated, and someone's just over the top.

The honest expression of appreciation is like maybe a mighty ocean -going ship while by flattery, by comparison, is just a leaky little rowboat.

Every preacher I know has had that flatterer come up to them. Have you ever seen this yourself?

That guy, that gal in the back who's come to the church for the first time, and as it's coming to a close at the service, as that amen's getting ready to burst out of the pastor's mouth, you can just see them shaking with excitement.

They just can't wait to jump up and be the first to run up to the pulpit and shake their hand. They grab it with both hands.

They pump it up and down. I tell you what a wonderful message that was. I never heard such convicting words come.

I never understood that pastor. I have to be at this church, and every pastor I know who's had this, and we've all had it at least once.

You know right away, you won't be here for lunch, much less next week.

But that's the difference between flattery, which is almost insulting, and a brother or sister with just a shake of the hand saying thank you for that.

You made something more clear. Or Lord spoke through that scripture and convicted my heart on something.

You're welcome, praise God. That's the difference. And the one makes your soul sore, and the other makes you say, let go of my hand.

You're gonna break my elbow, and this isn't worth anything. It's all fluff. This was a grave concern for Paul when he left

Ephesus back in Acts chapter 20, telling the Ephesian elders that the savage wolves would come in amongst them trying to disturb the flock.

The apostle John was so concerned about this, and 2 John, a very short letter, five verses devoted to this.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves so that you may not lose what you've worked for, but may win a full reward.

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the

Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

You see what I said before when Paul says avoid them, we dare not weaken that command. Smooth, plausible speech.

You know what flattery actually meant in the original word there? It meant to pronounce a blessing. So it reminds me of the false prophets in Jeremiah's day, the ones who he says in chapter six, verse 14, they have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, peace, peace, where there is no peace, because peace sounds wonderful.

It's smooth, it flatters, makes me feel good. Only problem,

God's word was warning of quite the opposite. It's the 400 false prophets who told

Ahab and Jehoshaphat to go ahead with their campaign against Syria, enjoy the certain victory that was to come.

All of them unified in their prediction. The only problem is, of course, it's not quite what

God was saying. They were flattering. They were respecters of persons. Men fears, we call them.

And all these, people of a character different than the ones who are just listed in this book of Romans.

Verses one through 16, our subject last week, this contingent of people coming with Phoebe to bring this letter to that church.

The smooth talkers who, when the lair is peeled back, there's no gospel commitment to be seen as there was in those persons just before this verse.

The seeming disconnected set of subjects. And I think one reason that it flows the way it does in Paul's end of this letter here, is because he's saying, here are the people who suffered for Christ.

Here are people who put their neck on the line, their goods, their dreams, their homes, their very lives.

These are the ones who've worked hard for you. By comparison, they're deceivers.

They're people who are divisive. They're people who put obstacles in the way. No, these ones who come, they may profit.

They may work quite hard, but what do they satisfy? It's their own belly, their own greed, their own desire.

John, again, puts it this way in 3 John, just two verses this time. I've written something to the church, but Diotrephes, he puts a name to it.

These very people come in with the divisiveness. These people who put the obstacles in the way. Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.

So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers and also stops those who would want to and puts them out of the church.

On the one hand, these smooth talkers can make the gospel so complicated that Albert Einstein couldn't unravel it.

But then there are those who preach that cheap gospel we talked about a moment ago, our forgiveness of God that has nothing to do with sin or repentance or sacrifice or Christ's blood or faith given as a gift of God or the righteousness of God imputed to believers because of a gracious God and out of regard for his son's sacrifice.

They tell you God loves you because he is love and you're you and that's all it takes. They give you a heaven, you enter on your own merits.

There's no ugly cross on which an innocent man suffered and died. No God who took on the form of sinful flesh so that as man, he might stand in for us before an offended

God. They butter you up with a gospel that avoids any mention of sin or guilt and so they offer you a gospel completely denuded of any truth, completely stripped of any power to change you, to bring you closer to the image of Christ, to make you, dear ones, into a

Christian. The old expression rings true. If it's too good, if it sounds too good to be true, it must be.

So as Paul say, don't listen to them. Dale said it in his opening comments.

We're on a hard path. The way is not easy. Jesus says narrow is difficult.

There's few who find it. Pilgrim's progress is a wonderful allegory. There's few who stay on it.

It ain't easy. It wasn't meant to be. Your salvation didn't come easily.

It came by the death of the only innocent man who ever lived. It's a hard path, but it's a possible path.

It's a difficult path, but it can be done. As hard, as difficult, in fact, it's gonna sound like I'm gonna contradict everything

I just said on this other side. It's an impossible path, made possible by the grace of God, by his spirit working in you.

Not making it an easy path, but by his power, by his might, by his mercy, making you able to stay on the path and to do that which pleases him, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Now, if it sounds too good to be true, avoid them, because they're putting an obstacle, and they're driving you off the harder, more narrow path and onto a smooth, broad, and easy one.

It just goes the wrong place, the wrong direction. There is something that is too good to be true.

I just said a moment ago, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, but there is something that really is too good to be true.

And that's that Christ Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am the chief.

And every one of us could say that together. We could respond with that, yes, of whom

I am the chief. Christ Jesus came because his father sent him, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

That is too good to be true. That is unbelievable, but that is the gospel truth.

Paul says, your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is innocent, excuse me, with what is good and innocent as to what is evil.

It's interesting there too, because it's the third of three commendations that he makes.

Chapter one, verse eight, he says, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

Chapter 15, verse 14, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another.

And now 16, 19, your obedience is known to all, which is to say that there's something worth protecting.

First is a reputation for faithfulness to God and his word, and then there's a responsibility that comes when other churches, knowing their maturity and their faithfulness, look to them as an example for themselves.

You know, in difficulties, when controversies arise, our 1689 confession tells us that other churches are a

God -given resource. Without sacrificing our independence from them, we benefit from the consensus of many counselors, and so it was with Rome for many centuries.

And if you follow the history of the church, you'll find that there in Rome they became prominent because they always seemed to land on the right side of the controversy.

That city always seemed to produce men whose opinions held sway because they understood the issues at hand, and much more importantly, they knew how the

Bible spoke to it. And they knew how to make it plain and sensible to the church.

That's one of the reasons Rome rose to prominence in God's providence. They just had the guys who understood the times and were able to explain biblically what to do about them.

They always seemed to land on the right side of things. So it's something worth protecting.

And secondly, just protecting the purity and the simplicity of the gospel within the local fellowship is a sacred trust.

Your obedience is known to also guard it. This is why Paul told Timothy, guard the deposit that had been entrusted to him.

So where do we go from here? Well, let's be well -versed in this gospel.

Let's be those who understand God's word and help each other to apply it to everything in life. We can be innocent of evil by avoiding it.

It's that simple. Avoid evil and those who propagate it, which is different than being naive.

Naive means you don't understand, you don't know. You don't know how to apply. It's different.

Naivety is gullibility. Paul's telling us to exclude evil and its heralds and to know when it is here.

When to avoid it. When to run to your pastor and say, pastor, there's something divisive happening here.

And how will you know? Because you're a part of things. You're part of the love and the unity and the fellowship that we have together and you've handled it.

And so as soon as something different comes in here, you can smell it right away. You can squeeze that bill and say, this is not real.

Counterfeit. Be well -versed in the gospel and how it plays out in our lives.

Finally, verse 20 says that the God of peace is going to be decidedly violent against our enemy.

Did you notice that? The God of peace is going to crush. He will soon crush Satan under your feet.

Satan was crushed at the cross just as Genesis 3 .15 prophesied and promised.

His final fate, his execution, awaits Christ's return. In the meantime, he's the prince of the air.

That's Ephesians 2 .2. How do we crush him and how do we do that in short order? By watching out for intrusions that are not in accord with what has been taught to us by God's word and the working of his spirit.

And the way he sums up these four short verses, who is being represented by those who bring in division and obstacles?

That's right, Satan, our enemy, our adversary. Watch out for the intrusions.

This is why we have such respect for the great works of great men that has stood the test of time. Things like the

London Confession of Faith of 1689. Not scripture, but an excellent work. Not something that we take no exception to, but something that has stood us well.

The doctrines that we can point to and say, you are not this, and therefore we avoid.

John Calvin's commentaries, the works of men today that have stand in that same tradition. These are protections for us.

And it's by our adherence to those that here in this place, in that small way, derivatively like what

Christ will do, Satan is crushed. He called the

God of peace. The God of peace will speak peace to his people. Psalm 85, verse eight, let me hear what

God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints, but let them not turn back to folly.

Peace to those for whom his son bled and died, but quite the opposite for those who would rise up to disquiet them.

Brethren, we take responsibility to resist the devil and his wiles. We put on the armor of Ephesians chapter six, verses 10 through 20, because we know that the enemy is active, he's malicious.

He's malevolent beyond any horror movie you can imagine. Peter tells us to be aware because the devil is aware himself, and he prowls around.

He's looking for whom he may devour. That lone sheep who's wandered away from the shepherd.

That weak antelope with the sprained leg who can't keep up with the rest of the herd. The young calf whose mother's lost sight of it for just a moment.

Paul here uses the devil's formal name, accuser. And here's the device,

I think, so often makes the inroads to accuse the tender conscience. He finds the faithful Christian whose interest is to obey the

Lord and follow him completely, and he resurrects the law and somehow makes it not a guide for sanctification, but a master over the conscience, a producer of guilt, and never a glance away from it, and to Jesus Christ who fulfilled it for us that we might be able to obey it ourselves because we have been imputed to have that righteousness that he achieved or proved.

He finds that believer who feels inadequate to even state an opinion. Some of you might be like that.

We're having discussions, we're talking together informally or maybe in Sunday school or other gatherings, and you say, oh,

I can't speak up in this group. I don't have his theological insight. I don't have her brains.

I'm not as educated as that one, and the enemy of your soul.

This one represented who, this one who the divisive obstacle erectors represent.

He whispers in your ear, and you know what he says when you feel that way? He says, you're right. Who wants to hear what you have to say anyway?

Nobody wants you even around, much less talking. Do you ever feel like that? That's not from the

Lord. It's certainly not from us. It's from people who serve themselves, who feed on their own belly, a belly of self, a belly of pride, a belly of wanting to have preeminence.

By that preeminence putting you down and pushing you away and making you feel less than, and that's part of that counterfeit.

That's part of that non -gospel thing that we've been talking about, that divisiveness, because it's put you and divided you over here and made you a camp of one.

Satan uses them to whisper in your ear, but we shout into the other ear. We do want to hear you. We do want to weep and rejoice with you.

We do want to know how you feel and what you think. We want to help you stay on this path of Jesus Christ, and we want you to help us.

Are you off there, staying in the sidelines, intentionally covering yourself up, because you don't feel adequate, you don't feel able?

Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you have faith in him? Is his spirit working in you? Then none of that can be true, and you're integral, and you're a part of this body, and we want to help you, and we want you to help us.

And anything else is a lie from the enemy, and it comes from this divisiveness that he would bring into the church and that we're to watch out for and avoid.

Don't let the defeated enemy of your soul have a victory, not after his demise on the cross. Trust us that our love for you has to do with not your value, your abilities, your money, none of that.

Our love for you comes from our love for Christ. It is his value, his abilities, his accomplishment.

Trust that, and not that backroom whisper. Trust Christ's spirit as the enlivening agent among us all, including you.

This letter to Rome is coming to a close, and we'll be done with it in a couple of more messages. This third and final appeal from the apostle, from God, is to turn away from divisions in the church and obstacles to our crystal clear view of Christ.

I think the importance of it is seen in exactly his placement here in the canon at the end of this letter.

I think the last things that Paul has to say are the things he really wants us to come away with.

I appeal to you, brothers, watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles, contrary to the doctrine that you've 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. And finally this, the grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ be with us, amen? Heavenly Father, thank you for this day that you've given us.

Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you, Lord, for this letter to the Romans with so much wonderful truth about God and what you have done for us in the

Lord Jesus Christ. I pray, Lord, that we would know this grace of God well, that we would know the unity of the brethren and the love of Christ amongst us in a way that we'll always be able to tell the counterfeit and the false.