FBC Morning Light – March 7, 2022

Well, good Monday morning to you. Hope you had a good weekend and were able to gather together with God's people yesterday to worship the Lord and to serve him. You know, he has redeemed us to be a people that praise his name and he's ordained that that praise not only happens in our individual everyday life, but that it happens on the Lord's Day when we gather together as God's people and we offer up those spiritual sacrifices of praise to his name.

So I hope you were able to do that yesterday. And today you begin a new week of service unto the Lord, whatever your occupation is. And that brings us to our Bible reading passage for today, if you're following along in the Bible reading schedule.

We're in Romans chapter 16. Three ideas I want to bring out from that chapter. One of them has to do with the number of names, the repetition of greetings that Paul offers in this closing of his letter.

Now, on the one hand, it might be expected that someone sending a letter to a group of people, he would single out individuals for special greeting or whatever. But, you know, this is more than just a letter.

It is a letter to the Church of Rome, the Church in Rome. But it's more than that. This is the inspired Word of God. So, you know, what Paul wrote in this letter is exactly what the Holy Spirit wanted for us in this day.

So you have to ask yourself the question, what did the Holy Spirit intend for us to learn by Paul's greeting all of these different individuals? You know, it begins in verse 8, and it goes through verse 16, or actually it begins in verse 5, which says, greet my beloved Eponidas, greet Mary, greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow countrymen, and so on, all the way down to verse 16.

It's just, you know, greetings of a bunch of different people. What does the Holy Spirit intend for us to learn in this? Well, I wouldn't suggest this is an exhaustive list, but you notice some of the people he emphasizes are blood status.

They're relatives of his. Other people are connected to him in some way in the ministry, and some are mentioned for their labor for Christ. Others, they have a special relationship to Paul. And then there are some whom he just mentions their names.

And so there's a variety of individuals, but I think one of the points is that Paul appreciates each of them respective of their, shall we say, status, quote-unquote, in the church. He greets some of them just because he knows them.

He knows them by name, and he knows that they're believers in Christ, and he appreciates them as brothers in Christ. There are some people who have participated with him in the work of the ministry, and he singles them out for a greeting, and we need to appreciate people that do works of ministry that are not necessarily public platform kind of ministries, you know, behind-a-podium ministries.

So, you know, we have to appreciate the people in the local church who serve in, you know, nondescript ways, sometimes behind-the-scenes ways. You know, we have one of the unsung heroes of the church is those who labor and work in the church nursery, for example.

It always seems difficult to find a fully staffed roster of nursery workers. But why is that? Because it's a hard work, and it's often an unsung hero work. But how helpful it is for, you know, small children who would be otherwise disruptive and distracting in the morning worship service to be able to have a place where they can go, and they can cry, and they can, you know, do what one and two-year-old babies do.

But how appreciative we ought to be of such people. And then there are people who are his relatives, and he just expresses appreciation for them. So I guess the thing to learn from this is to ask ourselves the question, you know, how grateful am I for those that God has brought into my life whom he uses in a variety of ways, not just the public platform type of ministry, but the small ways, and the behind-the-scenes ways.

How appreciative of them am I? That's a good question for us to ask, and I think it's a challenge for us. If we were writing such a letter, would we have the presence of mind, and the gratitude of heart, and the thought to itemize and pick out people specifically to greet and to express gratitude for?

So that's one thing I wanted to point out. Another thing, as Paul wraps up this letter, one of the things he emphasizes is the importance for unity in the church, but he stresses it in a different way, you know, in a sort of a backdoor way, because he says in verses 17 and 18, he says, I urge you, brethren.

I think this would be a good idea, but I urge you, brethren, to note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine that you've learned, and avoid them, and avoid them. So there is a legitimate place in the church, among God's people, for the pointing out of those who would introduce false doctrine into the congregation, and would end up causing division and strife in the congregation.

So anybody that would come into a congregation and start wanting to introduce spurious doctrines, they are to be noted, and they are to be avoided. There have been times in my 40-some years of ministry now, rarely, thankfully, but there have been some times when, you know, people have come in, and they've been into different churches I've served, and they've wanted to do that very thing.

I can remember, for example, years ago, I was serving in Vermont. There was a young family that came to the church. They were, and you know, a small church, you know, a family of five comes into the church, and you get excited, right?

And they attended for a few weeks, and then the guy started asking me some questions, you know. It was getting late into the fall, and the Christmas season is coming, and he says, do you guys celebrate Christmas?

Well, yeah, we do. We sing the Christmas carols. We have a candlelight service. We do. We recognize Christmas. We celebrate the birth of Christ. He says, why, I think that's pagan. I don't think you should be doing that, and he went on to explain how, you know, all the different traditions of Christmas, and so on and so forth, they're all idolatry.

They're all paganism, and you know, and I said, well, that, you know, we don't necessarily agree with that, with all of that, and that's the last we saw of him, which was good, which was good, because the last thing you really want is someone to come into the church, and you know, people are singing, you know, way in a manger, oh, come all you faithful, and to have some guy sitting there with his arms folded and a frown on his face saying, well, I don't think we should be singing these kind of songs, you know.

Now, that kind of strife and division is unnecessary, and it's harmful for the church, and needs to be avoided, and the last thing I wanted to point out is what he says in verse 19. In verse 19, he says, I want you to be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil, and as you well know, we're living in an age of information overload.

I mean, there is far more information available to us at our fingertips than we could ever begin to process, and not all of that information is worth knowing, is worth noting. It's worth even being aware of.

There's a bunch of information out there that would be harmful or distracting for us in our faith. It's evil. It's evil. We don't need to know all of that. We don't need to do all kinds of investigations to find out just how bad something is.

It's enough to know that it is. It's enough to know that it's there, and then to avoid it, and to stay away from it. How much better it is for us as God's people to be simple, to be simple, as Paul puts it, concerning the evil.

I don't need to be, I don't need to be an expert on all things wicked, and vile, and ungodly. They will simply rob me of joy. They will pervert my mind, and it's just better to stay away from it. Leave it alone.

So think about that. When you think about what your options of things you watch on television, and where you go, what you look at, and so forth on the internet, and even the stuff that you read. The material you get on Facebook.

There's a lot of stuff that is posted on Facebook that might titillate you, but it's better just keep on scrolling, or ignore it altogether. It's also probably a good idea to minimize, restrict, put boundaries around the use of social media, and things of that nature.

Why? Because we want to be simple concerning evil. We want to be wise concerning what is good. Let's fill our minds and our hearts with what is good. All right, let's have a word of prayer, and then may God bless you as you get going on this first day of your workweek.

Father, our Father and our God, I pray that you give us hearts of appreciation for people that are godly and helpful, instrumental in our lives, in even small ways. Father, give us a heart of discernment, where we're wise, and insightful, and ready and willing to avoid those who would lead us astray.

And then give us a heart that wants to be wise concerning what is good, and simple concerning evil. Bless these thoughts to our hearts today, we pray, and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your Monday, and may God bless you in it.

Good day.