His Perfect Love

Matt VanderVen: This is your life and your walk with Christ. What will you do with it? One day you will have to give an account. One day you will stand before Jesus. And you want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into your reward." Isn't that what you want to hear? You want to know that these things are true. I'm quoting King James, "needs be true," as it would say.

That these things have to be true. You need truth, I need truth today. There's nothing else like this. The word of God, holy, perfect, a God who's wise through Jesus Christ alone. And Paul makes sure everybody knows it's forever and ever and ever. Amen.

Guest (Male): We bring you a warning, a promise, and a prayer today on His Perfect Love. A warning of false teachers, a promise of deliverance, and a wonderful prayer of grace. That and so much more lies straight ahead. We'll be completing our study of Romans today with a stop in chapter 16. Find your place there now as we turn things over to our pastor and teacher, Matt VanderVen, for this message first delivered at Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.

Matt VanderVen: Don't ever think your life or what's going on in life is insignificant. You never know who's watching and what they're watching. You could go to work and you could do the same thing day in and day out not thinking you're making a— but something happens. There's a trial or a storm or something that goes on and you simply behave as Christ has called you to behave.

Not because you're strong, because you're weak, and on your knees, you cry out to Jesus. And they see the humility and the brokenness and the simplicity of that and they turn around and go, "That's different. That's original. That's unique." The baloney meters aren't going off. They turn around and they see this and then what happens? I want some of that. I need some of that.

And Rufus, his boy gets saved and now Rufus' kids, they're going to watch dad grow up. You know how many PK kids, how many pastors, their kids end up— That's why this is a hope for me. Because no matter if I blow it, if my teaching is a certain way, if I can live for Jesus, if I'm dead to myself, if I can live to Jesus, I believe even if my kids go wayward, they will come home.

That's my only hope. All my kids are walking with Christ. Praise God right now. One's going off to college. We're going to find out where his faith is. We're going to find out what he believes. Because without the tests, you don't really know where you are. Don't hate the pop quizzes. We all hated pop quizzes in school, didn't we?

Your stomach gets all anxious, you get the butterflies. Or some of you are just like, "I don't care." You just draw on it. I'm not going to tell you which one I was. But some people get nervous and they worry about the test, but I'll tell you what, it's during those tests you find out who you are. Because of that self-examination, you find out more about yourself.

When you think you've conquered anger and you think you've conquered sin in certain ways and then something happens and you're in a storm and you feel it come out or bubble— "Where did that come from? I didn't know that was in there." You learn more about yourself during those moments. My pastor told me that and I'm never going to forget it.

Nobody's arrived. Don't hate the tests. You want to pass the tests because unlike James, you don't want to do it over and over again, right? Well, back to our passage here. So clearly, Rufus is the man. Verse 14, we know nothing specifically about these five folks here: Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, and Hermes.

Verse 15, Philologus and Julia. Philologus was obviously with this feminine person, Julia. It suggests to most scholars that they were husband and wife. And because we see this connection in the Greek the way it's written, Nereus and his sister Olympas describes to us what we would believe to be their children. This is a ministry family.

So when you're looking for a ministry family, look at verse 15. When you're looking for a husband and wife, look at verse 3 and verse 15. But it's all through Scripture. Verse 16, now Paul, and I love Paul, he adds this catch-all phrase, right? "Greet one another." Just in case he forgot anybody, right? Just in case there was somebody it should have been 27 or 28, he just puts it in there.

And he says to greet them with a kiss. Now some of you know at the fellowship here, we don't do that. Leadership, elders, and pastors don't greet anybody because we don't hug, right? Why? We're against the appearance of evil. We don't want any possibility of that to even erode the church. And no matter what we do, I assure you, there will always be accusations.

There will always be things that will be brought, no matter what you do. Because even when you say, "I don't want to hug a woman that way," please don't any of you ever be offended. I love you all, I'm just not going to hug you, but I'm doing that for your protection and for mine. So that we can stand before Christ blameless.

And so that if there's a brother or sister in the flock that could stumble because of that, they're not stumbled. Beautiful, right? But for some of us, that's difficult, isn't it? I'm Italian, right? In my family growing up, we kissed everybody. Kissed them on the cheek, I kissed my dad on the cheek, my dad kissed me on the cheek on the way to school. This is just what we did.

Some of you don't have to be Italian. You're adopted Italian. You did the same thing in your German family or whatever you were. You just expressed your love. There's nothing wrong with that. At that time, it was very, very important. That was the cultural norm. And specifically, if you were a Jew as well, very affectionate when it came time for a shalom, for peace.

You would, in the first century like that, you would greet each other with a kiss. And it was always a kiss on the cheek, a brotherly or sisterly kiss. It was to be a kiss of affection. And he says you're to do that. There's nothing inappropriate here. It's a kiss of peace, and that's what it meant. And if you think back to Jesus, what was he betrayed with? A kiss. It's interesting.

Verse 17, "Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause division and offenses." Again, what just happened? Hang on. We just went through this list of names, you're just going, "Okay, we're closing, things look like it's coming to the end." You all are like, "Yes, Pastor Matt's finally done." But we're closing and then all of a sudden he goes, "Wait a minute, brothers and sisters. Hang on."

This is very unique and very important that he did this because I believe it was for you and I today. I believe this is very much for you and I today. He says, "Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause division and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned." What's he saying? Contrary to the Bible, contrary to what you have learned, contrary to your discipleship.

He says, "Watch them," and he says, "I want you to do something." He's very clear here and I know this is difficult. What's he say to do? You're to avoid them. For those who are such do not serve— he gives you two reasons here— he says they don't serve the Lord Jesus Christ first, but their own belly, with smooth words and flattering speech deceiving the hearts of the simple.

For your obedience has become known to all. Therefore I am glad on your behalf, but I want you to be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. And so what do we see here? Paul gives a warning, a promise, and a prayer. That's the three things we see in this one section.

Some of you may have this broken out in your Bibles. Some of you may have it all in one section in your Bibles. I break it out in mine because I see what the Holy Spirit's doing here. To me, it's like three different sections in one section. The first one is obviously he's warning of false teachers, verses 17 through 19. You see that?

The second one is he talks about this promise of deliverance that will come, and that's in verse 20 or has come already, really. And then the prayer of grace that we see in really verse 20, but the latter half of that passage. And it's interesting. Again, remember I mentioned in my introduction, Paul doesn't specifically name the pastor or the under-shepherd here or the heretic.

He doesn't specifically do that. Why? Paul was not shy. Paul was not afraid to go, "It's a Judaizer," or "it's this person," or "it's Peter," or "it's whoever," right? "Peter, why are you not eating? You're being hypocritical. How come all of a sudden when the church from Jerusalem comes to eat, you now won't sit with the Gentiles?" Paul was not shy that way. He was respectful but he was not shy.

What do we see here? Well, first, I don't think he uses specifics because he'd rather categorize them. That way you and I today can use these same categorizations to be Bereans, to be on guard, to be watching for these things. Again, very much applicable today. He gives two reasons as I mentioned already.

He says that they're not serving the Lord Jesus Christ, but they're serving their own belly. Gluttony and greed come to mind here. That's what I see. He uses the term "belly" in this idea. And he says that they deceive the hearts of the unwary, the unwitting, the simple. Not ignorant and stupid, but simple. Now if I asked you, and I hope you're all well-taught in this, what is an under-shepherd to do?

What is a pastor to do? He's to lead, feed, and protect. That's what a pastor does. He's to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Where do you get that? Ephesians chapter 4. It's not a man's opinion. Men don't deserve an opinion on these subjects. What does the word of God say? That's what matters. God is the authoritative in this, in all things.

So clearly what he's talking about is men that are doing things of their own guise or their own wisdom or their own reason. And it says that they deceive, but he says that false teachers— be careful because they can be clever. Do you see how he writes that there? They use smooth words or even convince using rational or logical arguments to individuals that may be pragmatic to do what?

To lower their common sense, to almost get them not to use common sense or common logic. It's one of the traps or snares of the devil. It's what he does. He'll use things that are half-truths to appear righteous. Deuteronomy, Jesus went back three different times in Matthew chapter 4 when Satan came against him to tempt him. And every single time he went back to Deuteronomy chapter 8 to be specific.

And what did he do as he went back? When Satan gave half of a truth, which is a full lie, what did he say? "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God." From the word of God, right? That's what he's saying here. That's what he's showing us. Being biblically illiterate is not acceptable.

Being biblically illiterate means you're going into a war and you don't have your sword. Not smart. I don't advise anybody here to enlist in the military and then they give you weapons and you lay them down and say, "You know what? I'm going to try this my way." It's not going to end well. It generally doesn't, right? They give you weapons for a reason. They train you as a soldier.

Don't forget you have training. You are soldiers of Christ. Don't you ever forget that. You're in the middle of a spiritual battle. I know we get caught up in our lives and I know there's a lot of things going on, but to not think you have an enemy or to be ignorant of the enemy's tactics only puts you at a deficit, a weakness.

Because that means you're not actively engaged in the warfare. You're a pawn, or as we used to say, cannon fodder. I'm sorry if I'm being overly transparent about it. But that's the reality. My job is to prepare you for that. My job is to make you aware of that. My job is to point you to Scripture. My calling is to do that.

For you to be Bereans, that's your walk with Christ. But I have a responsibility and a duty to make sure you understand the battle you're in and that I will stand before Christ one day and have to give an account for every one of you to be able to say, "Did I train them? Did I prepare them? Were they disciplined?" And if I failed mine, then I'm to hold the bloodshed on my head, doubly judged.

But if I stand in the gap and I present the word of God faithfully, the consequences are between you and Jesus. That's all I can do. That's all any of us can do. And why do I say that? It's not just me as the under-shepherd. It's all of you. Men, you're pastors of your homes. Young men, your friends in high school and college and all these people that are around you.

God has put you in people's lives to be invested in them, to be others-focused. Every one of you has a calling to ministry. You're all ministers. You're a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, a special people as the Bible says. We can't forget the truth here. So I've seen this. I've seen my fair share of this in ministry when people create division, it always is created in the heart first.

Verse 20. Some separate this verse while others see this again as a connection. I see this as really a cause and effect. If you're faithful to follow Christ, if you're faithful not to give into these false teachers and their sly words— in other words, if you're faithful to follow the Bible and you're faithful to do it this way, then you can trust what he says.

"And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly." You can trust that. It's a given, it's a promise. But if you are walking contrary to that and you're walking in your wisdom or some other wisdom or some other book or something else, is this promise available to you? If we're walking contrary to the Scripture or the commandments of God?

I'd ask you to answer that question in light of Israel and the 3,500 years of history that you have in your Old Testament Bible, in the book of Judges and other books, that when they walked contrary to the word of God, how did that end for them? And again as I mentioned earlier, I think it's a prophetic promise that Christians have victory over Satan, over warfare.

And it's by the word of God and the proclamation of the word of God. And we don't have to fear, and we don't have to be afraid. We stand in the gap with Jesus with the word. You and Jesus is a multitude. Look at verse 21. "Timothy, my fellow worker, and Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my countrymen, greet you. I, Tertius"— he finally gets his name in there.

This poor guy's been writing all 16 chapters as an amanuensis as Paul's been dictating this whole thing and Paul says, "Go ahead, put your name in there." He says, "I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, my host and the host of the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you, and Quartus, a brother. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."

Obviously verse 21 is pointing out Timothy. Paul's son in the faith is his closest ministry association. Remember he was a native of Lystra in South Galatia. Timothy joined Paul at the beginning of his second missionary journey, Acts chapter 16 verses 2 and 3. Lucius, some have tried to identify him, but we don't know who he is.

Some have said he's Lucius of Cyrene from the Syrian Antioch church, Acts chapter 13:1. Others think that he might be Luke and that Lucius, like Matthew-Matt, Luke-Lucius, thinking that it could be a short name for it. We're not sure. Jason, we do know Jason. We know a lot about Jason. Remember Jason in Thessalonica?

Jason, on the other hand, is the one that had given hospitality during that tumultuous stay in Thessalonica there when they wanted to stone them and kill them, Acts chapter 17 verse 5 through 9. Sosipater is most likely the Sosipater of Berea whom Luke tells us accompanied Paul when he left Greece towards the end of his third missionary journey, Acts chapter 20 verse 4.

Paul tells us all three of these men were Jews. Verse 22, Tertius, we know nothing other than he's Paul's amanuensis for the book of Romans. Verse 23, Gaius, one of three in Scripture. We have three different places: Gaius of Derbe, Acts chapter 20 verse 4. He could be Gaius from Corinth, 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 14.

Or he could have been Gaius, the church leader in Asia Minor that we read in 3 John chapter 1. We just don't know which one. How about Erastus? Paul sent him from Ephesus to Macedonia during the third missionary journey, Acts chapter 19 verses 21. And again, Quartus, he's not found anywhere else in the New Testament. We don't know any more about him.

And we conclude our letter here this morning with these three verses. This benediction. There was a lot in chapter 16, wasn't there? More than I think meets the eye. A lot of meat on this bone if we just take our time to go through it line by line, verse by verse, every jot and tittle.

"Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now been made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith— to God alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever and ever."

Just take this little last bit apart for a minute. I mean, what else do you do? Here's Paul. He's dictating this. He's sitting there. He's writing to a church he hasn't been to yet and he's just spilling his heart through the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And he says, "Now to Him who is able." He makes sure and points it always back to Jesus. I love Paul for that.

With all the dangers facing those in Rome, even in all the other churches, Paul concludes by entrusting them. Once again, he says, "I commend or I entrust you." Who else did he commend? Phoebe in the beginning of verse 1. But I entrust you again. But who's he entrusting them to? To Him who is able to establish you. Who's able to establish you there this morning if you haven't been established? Jesus.

Paul also knew that this is done according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. That it's all done according to the word of God, by the power of the word of God. That if you can persuade a man to believe, somebody else can persuade him to walk away. But when it's a true transformation of heart based on the word of God and the truths found in the word of God, he is God's forever.

And nothing will separate him from his hand as Jesus Christ promised. And he does "according to the revelation." This is important. "Of the mystery." Jesus talked about that mystery, didn't he? In the Gospel. John said, "Prepare the way for there comes one, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent." It's all pointing back to this mystery. And now Paul brings it back in.

What is this mystery? He's talking about the whole plan and the redemption through Jesus Christ. God announced much of this plan through prophecy as he's sort of alluded to some of this in Acts. The outworking wasn't evident until Jesus Christ came on the scene. The Old Testament prophets read about it.

We even read how it was prophesied Messiah would come and be even rejected by the Jewish people. We read that in Zechariah and other passages. But now this glorious mystery has been revealed through the preaching of the gospel. And he says that he calls all nations to obedience to the faith. And then he does what anyone man or anyone woman here could do this morning.

When you've just had the entire gospel poured out, when you've literally had the entire book of Romans over eight months, line by line, one of the greatest theological letters ever written— what's your response this morning? What was Paul's response? He could do only one thing. His eyes were on Jesus. He praised God and he began to glorify Him.

There's nothing else he could do. There was nothing else within his power to do. It wasn't, "Let me go do all these works." It wasn't, "Let me go do all this stuff." It was, "I just want to praise God." That's what he wanted to do. Again, it could have been anything. He just wanted to praise God. "To God alone wise, be the glory through Jesus Christ forever." He focuses on God's wisdom.

Remember, he had just given revelation through the whole book. Things that Paul maybe didn't know or didn't understand. Paul even had battles in it in chapter 8 and chapter 7 as he's like, "Why am I this wicked man? I do all these terrible things. I'm wrestling with myself and what's going on?" He's looking at himself and finally, he begins to look to God and he says, "To whom God can deliver me."

All of this came through— Paul has that moment here. He's done. He's undone. There's nothing more. There's nothing more he can take. Some of you are like, "I can't either." There's nothing more you can take. We're at an hour or a little less and we still have communion. But it's good to revel in the mysteries of God. It's good to rest in these things.

It's good to think about these things and meditate on these things. After all, this is your life and your walk with Christ. What will you do with it? One day you will have to give an account. One day you will stand before Jesus. And you want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into your reward." Isn't that what you want to hear?

You want to know that these things are true. I'm quoting King James, "needs be true," as it would say. That these things have to be true. You need truth, I need truth today. There's nothing else like this. The word of God, holy, perfect, a God who's wise through Jesus Christ alone. And Paul makes sure everybody knows it's forever and ever and ever. Amen.

Guest (Male): That is Pastor Matt VanderVen with our final message in Romans. We hope you enjoyed the journey and got a lot out of it here on His Perfect Love. If so, we'd like to know. Before the day is done, drop Pastor Matt an email. There is a place to contact us here at the website: hisperfectlove.org. And by the way, that's also the place to turn to catch up on what you may have missed in the series: hisperfectlove.org.

His Perfect Love is made possible through the support of listeners just like you. Together we can bring the truths of God's word to the radio every day. You can make a donation at hisperfectlove.org. And Pastor Matt would like to hear from you. Tell us the station you listen to and what you're getting out of this study in Romans. He would be so encouraged. Email us there at the website: hisperfectlove.org.

We hope you'll visit us at Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Sunday morning services begin at 8:30 and 10:30. We have a midweek service too, Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. We're located at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA. Go to ccharrisburg.org for more information. Thanks again for joining us today for our study in Romans. Come back next time when we'll again open and study the word with Pastor Matt on His Perfect Love.