Romans Chapter 16:1-4

I think if we're all honest in this place today, we'll say, you know what, I can do a better job. I can do a better job loving people.

I can do a better job loving my family members, loving my friends, and that is what God desires. The church is not a building. Biblically, it's called ecclesia in the Greek, or called out ones, is what it means. The people who've been called out from the world to dwell with one another, to love God and love one another.

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. As we grow in Christ, we should want to treat other people better than we do right now. Pastor David continues with this thought from his teaching in Romans 16, Honor.

Here's Pastor David. According to you, Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the church in Cintria. Verse two, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and assist her in whatever business she has need of, for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also.

She's saying, hey, this Phoebe, she's awesome. She's a great help. And actually, it's believed that Phoebe was the one who was carrying this actual letter or this epistle to the Romans from Paul in Corinth to Rome, that she actually carried it to Rome. Obviously, through this, you can look at these verses. She's been proven in ministry. She has a good track record of being in ministry. New Living Translation in this second verse says, Receive her in the Lord as one who is worthy of high honor.

Help her in every way you can, for she has helped many in their needs, including me. It mentions honor. And we need to understand honor is a biblical concept. And what is honor?

Well, the loose definition here is honor is a recognition, a respect or distinction for position, office or achievement. And the Bible indicates that we are to honor certain people, certain offices in our lives, if you will. One of them that comes out probably regularly if you have kids, Ephesians 6, 1 and 3, leading back to the Ten Commandments. It says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. So we're supposed to honor our mother and father, not just obey, but to honor our mother and our father. Now, when does this honoring relationship, honoring your mother and father, when does that end? Does it end when you move out of the house?

No. It continues your whole life. You're to honor your mother and your father. Now granted, again, if you've got kids, you know that children always have a reason why they shouldn't honor their mother and father. They come up with reasons.

They're not really reasons. The Bible doesn't say honor your mother and father unless you just think they're a jerk and you don't understand what they're saying. It's not what it says. It says honor your mother and father, period, and that God will bless you for it. Honoring your mother and your father, that's one of those relationships of honor. What's another relationship of honor? 1 Timothy 5, 17, Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. So honoring elders are official positions in the church. And then 1 Peter 2, 17 tells us, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the king. It's a great verse. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

That verse would keep you out of so much trouble if we just could do those four things, wouldn't it? Now, when we talk about elder, it's actually from the Greek word presotir, where we get our word presotirian, and that's borrowed from the Jewish word of zachen which means bearded ones. In other words, those who are experienced in ministry, experienced in the faith, those were the ones who were the leaders of the synagogue. And when Paul was developing through the Holy Spirit the model for the church, he put in the office these pastors, elders, and deacons.

And these are the words that he's using. What is our responsibility towards these people who are leaders in the church? Well, you know what?

I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to read the Bible to you and see what the Bible says about these relationships. 1 Peter 5.1 says, the leaders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed. A couple of verses down. It says, likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. He's not talking about submitting yourself to older people if you look at 1 Peter 5.

He's talking about that office specific of elder. So this elder, we're to submit to elders. 1 Thessalonians 5.12. Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord's work. They work hard among you and warn you against all that is wrong.

Think highly of them and give them your wholehearted love because of their work. And remember to live peaceably with each other. So respect, honor, think highly. And again, that verse, 1 Timothy 5.17. Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. Hebrews 13.7. Remember your leaders who first taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives and trust the Lord as they do.

He's talking about kind of imitating them, trust God as they do. Hebrews 13.17. Give this to him, two versions, New King James. It says, Obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. So this verse says it's for your benefit to submit to them.

Or Hebrews 13.17, new living translation. Obey your spiritual leaders and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls and they know they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this joyfully and not with sorrow.

That would certainly not be for your benefit. So they are accountable to God. Who's accountable to God? Deacons, elders, pastors. And I understand this as pastor, now maybe you're sitting there going, what happens when a deacon goes haywire or an elder goes haywire or a pastor goes haywire? Then God is going to lead me to speak to them. I have set, at different times, I've set all three of those offices down. I've set people down from those offices. Why? Because God spoke to me that I was supposed to do that.

So I've done that. I didn't like doing it, but not everything I do as senior pastor here is enjoyable. Some things are difficult. So understand, I'm going to pray. I'm going to ask God if I see something in somebody's life, maybe they need to focus on their family for a little while or whatever.

I'll deal with it. And so be in prayer for me as I lead this flock. And according to this, it's to your benefit to submit to the leadership of the church. Now certainly there's been disaster stories and, you know, weird stuff and, you know, people making the people of the congregation come and sign their mortgages over weird stuff like, we don't do stuff like that here anymore.

No, we've never done anything like that. But there's, again, there's a biblical authority now, but here's the life lesson. And here's straight from the Bible, we should honor, obey, respect and submit to our elders or our spiritual leaders. We should honor, obey, respect and submit to our elders or our spiritual leaders.

Again, we have this concept. We have pastors, elders, deacons broken down real simply. Deacons are responsible for physical oversight for waiting on the people of the church and the physical aspect of the church. Elders more so of a spiritual nature. And pastors are really, biblically, there's not a big difference between pastor and elder. Really the distinctive that we use as pastors, I mean elders should be pastoring, pastors should be eldering, if you will. Pastors are generally those who are in full time ministry. So we have some elders that continue to work jobs that, you know, sometimes I'll have them up here to teach because it says the elders are supposed to be apt to teach. So, and again, according to the Bible, I'm the one that's supposed to be appointing the elders, supposed to be appointing the deacons.

I don't do that lightly. We are what we call a spirit led, pastor led church. You don't see biblically where the deacons get together and vote whether a pastor gets to keep his job for the next year. You don't see the elders getting together voting to see if the pastor gets to keep his job.

And let's go ahead. Can a pastor led church go off the rails? Absolutely. Can a deacon led church go off the rails? Absolutely. Can an elder ran church go off the rails? Absolutely. Why?

People are involved. But as long as I understand, the elders understand, and the deacons understand that we are accountable to God, it's going to be good. See, because you may get upset with me about some decision I make, and I don't like that, but you know, I'll be okay with it. But I do not want to displease the true and the living God, the eternal God, and the one who died that I could be forgiven and be here at this church. Amen. So, you know, I wanted to, since it mentioned the deacon and that servant, I wanted to bring this out. Some of you are like, well, and maybe some of you are going, you know, I could really care less.

Well, you need to understand about these things and understand your responsibility as far as leadership and understand also the accountability of the leadership. So let's go on to verse three. It says, greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. What we're going to see as we go through this chapter that Paul is talking about a lot of his friends. And Paul wasn't just a soul winner. Paul was also making friends as he was in ministry. And that's important that, yes, speak the truth, speak the truth in love. You need to be proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and also be in relationship with other people. We're going to get into small groups here probably next week in verse 16.

But, you know, that's what we're supposed to be doing in relationship with one another. And Paul's listening to a bunch of friends that he was in ministry with. And again, Priscilla and Aquila, a gifted couple. And, you know, it mentions them in Acts 18, verse one through three. It says, after these things, Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth and he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome and he came to them.

In other words, they were Jewish people. They were living in Rome. Claudius, who was an emperor, said they had to leave.

So they left. They went to Corinth where Paul met them and ministered with them. And then they go back to Rome to minister there. So these are two leaders, two servants in the church. And again, the biblical model, and I'm not going to talk about servanthood today at any length, but the biblical model is that whoever comes together as the church is serving in that body, in that church. I think a lot of danger came in through thinking that, well, there's a professional clergy and they're the ones that are supposed to be doing the work and supposed to be serving and everybody else is kind of a spectator.

I think a lot of things went wrong with that, including that we kind of muted the development of believers and disciples because part of being a disciple is serving the Lord and serving other people. Thank you for listening to Cross the Bridge. We'll return to David's teaching in just a moment.

You know, it's often the case that during this time of year, many of us will make New Year's resolutions in order to better our life. And this year, Cross the Bridge wants to help with the Cross the Bridge Every Day Devotional book. Cross the Bridge Every Day is filled with 365 days of scripture, David's life lessons, and practical applications that will help you find victory in life and encouragement every day of the year.

David's devotional also offers a detailed index, allowing you to find specific devotions that deal with subjects like depression, relationships, salvation, and more. The way to abundant life is through fellowship with Jesus Christ, and Cross the Bridge Every Day makes spending time with the Lord convenient and enjoyable. Cross the Bridge Every Day is available this month only for a gift of any amount to Cross the Bridge Ministries. To donate, call 877-458-5508 or visit us online at crossthebridge.com. Act on your resolution today and receive David McGee's devotional with your donation.

Again, that number is 877-458-5508 or online at crossthebridge.com. Friend, do you have a heart for the lost? I invite you to send us the first names of your lost loved ones, and we will have hundreds of people praying for them. Just go to crossthebridge.com and click on the prayer button, and you'll enter their name. And if you put your name and email address in there, I'll send you free resources to equip you to pray and teach you how to reach your lost loved ones. Please, don't wait.

This is so important. So please, again, go to crossthebridge.com and click on the prayer button and send us the first names of lost loved ones. We'll send you some free information, and together we can partner to deliver the good news of Jesus Christ to the whole world, the whole book for the whole world. Now let's return to David McGee's verse-by-verse teaching in the book of Romans. Let's move to verse 4.

It elaborates on Priscilla and Aquila. Let's go back to verse 3 and then read the whole thing. Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risk their own necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Paul knew them from ministry in many places, and we're not told anywhere where they risked their lives for Paul. But you can pick up through this verse and other verses in this chapter that there was a mutual respect, if you will, for one another in the ministry, that they had been through some things and they had earned the respect of one another. You know, I'm blessed, and you guys are blessed, because some of the people who have linked arms with this ministry, I'm amazed at the giftings and the talents and the heart of the people who have been raised up in leadership here. And you better believe that when you start looking at the elders in particular, the pastors, the deacons, these guys have been through some stuff.

We have fought alongside one another. I think if you ask any of them, they would not say, well, I've agreed with everything that's ever been done in this church. No, we're always going to have disagreements.

We're always going to see things a little differently. But the way that they've given themselves to the Lord, the way they have loved you folks, and the way they've loved me, speaks about their commitment. These aren't fair-weather friends. These aren't leaders that are looking to find an out at the first little hiccup. See, in Christianity, we're not really supposed to have fair-weather friends.

Oftentimes, we have a relationship, and as soon as we disagree with somebody about something, we decide we can't have a relationship with them. Some people have approached church like that. They'll go to a church until something happens or something said that they don't agree with anything. Well, I'm going to go somewhere else. I'm going to go somewhere where I agree with everything that happens.

Good luck. I don't think you're going to find that place. And here's what happens. While you're trying to find that perfect church, you're going to miss out on a lot of blessings of being in a imperfect church. None of us are perfect. But we're joined together here in this place, and the Bible talks about us being saints, and we'll talk more about that later. But there's this bonding together, loving one another, that's supposed to be happening in this place. And it really is happening in this place. Do we have our moments? Absolutely.

Because you know what? There's people in my life that I have no doubt that if something happened to me physically or emotionally or whatever, that they would be there. No doubt in my mind. And I hope that you have formed those type of relationships in this place. If you're new here, we can help you with that.

We'd love to help you with that. That's what the body of Christ is supposed to be. I heard a story years ago, and I think it's a beautiful picture. These guys grew up, they went to elementary school together, junior high, high school. They were called into combat together. They were engaged in a battle. This guy's friend was out on the battlefield and got shot. His friend, who was still in the foxhole, turned to his CO, the commanding officer, the person in charge, and he said, I want to go get him. And the officer said, no, you can't. Because your friend's been gut shot. He's going to die. And I don't need two dead soldiers.

So no, you cannot go. Well, CO turned to do something else. A man jumped out of the foxhole, went and got his friend, picked him up, carried him back. As he fell into the foxhole, the CO looked at him, and on his way to get his friend, he had been shot, mortally wounded, and was going to die. The officer looked at him and said, son, I told you that your friend was going to die, and by that time his friend had indeed passed. He was holding his dead friend, and he said, I told you what was going to happen. I mean, was that worth it?

Now you're dying, your friend's already dead. And he said, yes, sir, it was. He said, because when I went out there and bent over him, his eyes met mine. And he said, I knew you'd come. I knew you'd come.

That's the body of Christ. That's the type of relationships that we want to encourage here in this place. I think we would all agree, well, yes, people need to love me more. But there's a challenge in the word of God that we need to love each other more.

You cannot control how much people love you to a very strong degree. The final life lesson is we should want to treat other people better than we do now. We should want to treat other people better than we do now. I think if we're all honest in this place today, we'll say, you know what, I can do a better job. I can do a better job loving people. I can do a better job loving my family members, loving my friends. I can do a better job maybe honoring church leaders, political leaders.

All of us can do a better job developing relationships with one another. And that is what God desires. The church is not a building. I understand we use that word as a building. You know, there's a church and we mean there is a church building. Biblically, the church is not a building. The church is called ecclesia in the Greek or called out ones is what it means.

The people who've been called out from the world to dwell with one another, to love God and love one another. It's quite the challenge, isn't it? Can we do it?

Well, no. In and of ourselves, I've just told you to do something impossible. Jesus tells us to love one another the way he loved us. How did Jesus love us? On the cross. He died for us. This is the way we're to love one another.

This is what we're called to do. And humanly speaking, it is impossible. Spiritually speaking, it can be done. I've seen bonds and relationships form in this place that all the power of the enemy and deception and all sorts of things could not budge or break. Don't you want to be in that kind of relationship?

Don't you want to be in that kind of community? Then that takes pouring yourself out and at times being a little scared, feeling like you might fail. But understanding that everybody in this place has experienced the grace and the mercy of God. See, because we have to extend grace and mercy to one another.

Why? Jesus Christ extended grace and mercy to us. How could any of us sit here and sing worship songs? Sit here and look into the word of God. Sit here in the middle of the church and when we think of all the things that have gone wrong in our lives, accept for the grace and the mercy that God has already shown us. Sometimes days are hard in ministry.

They're long sometimes. People will hurt you. People may speak evil of you and you're still called to love them. Some relationships, you're still called to honor them. May God give you the ability to do that because as you do that, you will be honoring God.

And through that, you will develop relationships that will take you through some difficult places in life. God himself, Jesus Christ, has demonstrated his love in such a remarkable way to each and every one of you by dying on the cross. See, all of us have sinned. All of us have fallen. All of us have messed up. Jesus never messed up. And yet he died a sinner's death.

Why? For you and I. So that we could be forgiven. He showed his love for us in a very demonstrable way. Friend, if you ever feel like you're not loved, you think about the cross.

Now I know we think of this as kind of just a religious emblem. It's much deeper than that. This is the love of God expressed towards you. And whenever you go through a moment in time and you think, well, I'm not sure anybody loves me, quit believing the lie. Jesus Christ loves you. And he loves you more than anybody else.

And he's not a fair-weather friend. He says he's never going to leave you. He's never going to forsake you. And with that assurance and that confidence, may you begin to reach outside of yourself to others and build these relationships that we see so beautifully exampled in the Bible. Maybe you've heard that Jesus Christ has died for you before and hopefully you have.

But have you made that personal? I grew up in church. I knew the facts about Jesus that Jesus died for my sins. I was not born again.

I had never made it personal. I'd never asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins. Friend, if you're here today or listening to the satellites or the live stream or radio or television and you're not absolutely sure you've been forgiven, you can be forgiven in the next few moments. The Bible says in Romans 10, 9 and 10 and 13 that if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth and that whosoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. It's asking him to forgive you.

God is so willing to forgive you that he gave his son, his son's life so that you could have access to forgiveness. Let's pray. God, thank you for today. Thank you for what you're doing and desiring to do right now in our hearts and in our lives. And Lord, may we be an expression of your love to one another and your love to a lost and dying world. May we love each other through hard things and tough things and through falls and stumbles. May our friendships and relationships weather the storms of this life. And Lord, we can do all this because you died for us and showed us your love. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we would love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. When you call, ask about this month's special offer featuring David's devotional book, Cross the Bridge Every Day. This inspirational book offers 365 daily devotions as well as a detailed topical index to help you grow deeper in your relationship with the Lord. Cross the Bridge Every Day is available now for your gift of any amount. Again, the number to call is 877-458-5508 or you can go online to crossthebridge.com. Thank you for listening. We pray that you will join us next time as we continue to cross the bridge.