Romans Chapter 16:3-9

The relationships that I've developed in ministry, serving alongside people, are much stronger than relationships that I've developed outside of serving alongside people. And some people say, well, that's not healthy.

Oh, I think it is. Why? Because the thing that we have in common is pouring our lives out for God. We've agreed that we're not the most important thing, that He is the most important thing, and we're willing to give our lives away.

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. Serving is an important part of walking with Christ. As we serve and minister with others, it provides a great foundation for a deeper relationship. Find out why this is critical to a Christian walk today as Pastor David continues in Romans 16 with his teaching, Mission Critical.

Here's David McGee. Turn with me to Romans chapter 16. We're looking at Romans chapter 16, and it's an interesting chapter because Paul has spent a lot of time in the book of Romans talking about theology. He spent a lot of time talking about our relationship with God and our standing with God and how we achieve forgiveness through Jesus. And chapter 16 goes into a lot of relationship things. And so it's interesting because to me it's a great capstone or an ending point to a great theological discussion. It kind of reminds us that it's about people. You can understand theology to a great degree, but if you're not loving God and loving people and thriving in your relationships, then it's all for naught. And it's kind of interesting because as we grow up, you know, in elementary school and junior high and high school and in college, they really don't talk about how to have good, healthy relationships. And the Bible tells us all these things. And I know nobody here needs any of this information, but I'm concerned about some of the people in Second Service. So I'm going to go ahead and share with you guys, you know, how to have better relationships with one another.

And if you ever meet anybody that needs improvement in their relationships, then you have this to share with them. All right. So we're going to we're going to pick it up. Take it up with verse three, chapter 16, verse three says, Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their own necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. And in verse five, likewise, greet the church that is in their house. Greet my beloved Epitenus, who is the first fruits of Achaia to Christ or Asia is another would be a form of Achaia.

Now, we talked a little bit about Priscilla and Aquila last week. We talked about the important role of women in the church. We also talked about the role of pastors, elders and deacons. But looking at this now, notice this greet the church that is in their house.

I believe there's an interesting model here. And what we want to do is kind of approach this with balance in the sense that, you know, some people say, well, so this means that there's only supposed to be house churches. There's not supposed to be an organized place where everybody gathers together. And yet when you read through the book of Acts early on in the book of Acts in Jerusalem, you see 3000 people getting together.

You see 5000 people getting together. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they weren't meeting in somebody's house. Now, if you're not aware, this did start as a home Bible study. And what happened at six months, nobody really came except my wife and three kids. Following six months, about 15 people came. We moved out of the house after a year with these 15 people and got a location.

And so now I could have along the way at 15 people said, well, that's it. We're not moving out of the house. We're just going to stay home church. That was not God's design. That was not what God was leading me to.

Now, why do I mention that? Because we have small groups in this fellowship. And what happens is these groups get together, they discuss the teachings that go on here and help you to make application. In other words, kind of help you to figure out what does this mean? How can this help you improve your life and make life better for you?

And you realize that abundant life that Jesus speaks about. Now, here's what happens if a group is doing really well and it's going well, it grows. But then it gets to a point where it's not really a small group anymore. See, we want to have that environment where you can get together and you can if you're having a problem, you can share and you can say, hey, look, I'm really struggling with this. Now, what we found is that once that group gets over about 11 or 12 people, that doesn't happen that much anymore. So as the group grows, then we have to say, OK, it's time for the group to now split into two groups.

And of course, that's a little painful because people have made relationships. But if that happens in your group, please don't be selfish because God has blessed the group. And what we want to do is spread that blessing out to other people. So we don't want to say, you know, the church can only meet in the house and we don't want to say the church can only meet in the building because we see both of them modeled in the Bible.

So we want to do both. Now, let's remember when it says, greet the church that is in their house. Now, if your idea of the church is a building, it's a kind of a weird verse. Is there some house that has a little church building in it?

No, no, no, no, no. I know that sometimes we use the word church to describe a building and that's that's fine. But you need to realize that scripturally speaking, they're not usually referring to a building. The referring usually the word in the Greek is ecclesia, which means called out once is what is church is ecclesia are called out ones. So it's not just a building and it's not just an organization, but it's a group of people. We need to be involved to be the church. And so when it talked about greet the church that is in their house, it was the people meeting at the house that were the, if you will, called out ones. Verse six says, greet Mary who labored much for us. Now, here is the thing. And as we go through these verses, I shared a little bit about this last week, actually a good bit. But please notice how many of these names are feminine.

How many women were helping in the ministry with Paul? He's basically going through and talking about a lot of people who were doing it, not people who are saying, oh, yeah, you know, I'm doing it. I'm going to do this. I'm going to help you.

I'm going to do that. But people are saying, no, no, no, I'm doing it. They're expressing themselves. They are being the church because there's always going to be a section of any church of people who are not apart. They drift in, they drift out, never really engaged in serving the Lord. Don't really actively daily pray for the ministry or maybe don't give to the ministry and these things. And they're really not apart.

They may be they may even come to the same place every week, but they're really not apart. And gang, if that describes you, I would encourage you to overcome your fear, overcome your anxiety, because there is such a huge blessing in really being a part of something that God is doing. Step out and do it because there is a blessing that you are missing out on. So we need to understand that this is the body coming together. And again, that that each person plays their part.

And again, I want to emphasize the role and the how many female names that we see. Now, I talked about getting involved and and really seriously overcome your fear, overcome your anxiety and understand you're not serving God in order for him to be pleased with you. When you ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins, done deal.

That's it. But because of what he did for you, then there's a desire in you to begin to express that and begin to serve the Lord. And what's been such a joy is there are hundreds of people in this church that have never served God actively, never been engaged in ministry ever before. And what a joy to see him come forward in ministry here.

And I hear stories all the time, people say, you know what, I didn't know that helping out with Sparkle would change my life the way that it has. Because as you step out to serve God, that's another step on your path of discipleship. Thank you for listening to Cross the Bridge. We'll return to David's teaching in just a moment.

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The whole book for the whole world. Now let's return to David McGee's verse by verse teaching in the book of Romans. Verse 7, Greet Andronicus and Junia, my countrymen and my fellow prisoners who are of note among the apostles who also were in Christ Jesus before me. These are some deep rooted relationships.

And do you notice what they're based on to an arts degree? They're based on ministry. He's going through this list of people who are friends, people he has relationships with, and he's talking about they labored much and they risked their own necks and these were fellow prisoners. See, there's something that's really, really precious. There's people here that have been here since the home fellowship.

There's people here that, you know, early on when we were on Mountain Street in that little teeny room that we close in, you know, there's been people that have stayed the whole time and weathered storms together. We've had trials and we've linked arms and fought these battles and that is so, so precious when that happens. There is something that happens when we join together and we go through things together.

Why? Because the world doesn't work like that. Many of you are probably painfully aware that the moment that something goes wrong in your life or the moment something goes wrong in somebody else's life, that the relationship begins to fall apart. That's not a good, healthy biblical relationship. A good, healthy biblical relationship is a relationship that can ride out the storms together. And there's people here that want to ride out the storms with you.

That if you go through a tough place or hard spot, you know, they're not going to say, well, gee, I didn't know you were a sinner. I'll see you later. That's not healthy. That's not going to happen here. See, everybody here has some problems, plural, some baggage. Some of us can carry it in a cart. Others need a 24-foot moving truck.

Some an 18-wheeler. That's okay. I mean, we all have, we all go through these seasons, but we go through them together and we serve together. Because, friend, let me promise you something. The relationships that I've developed in ministry, serving alongside people, are much stronger than relationships that I've developed outside of serving alongside people. And some people might say, well, that's not healthy. Oh, I think it is.

Why? Because the thing that we have in common is pouring our lives out for God. We've agreed that we're not the most important thing, that He is the most important thing, and we're willing to give our lives away. If you want a great foundation for a deeper relationship, serving together is an awesome one.

It actually is a first life lesson. Serving in ministry with someone provides a great foundation for a deeper relationship. I know that there's some people that are kind of being islands right now, and maybe you're lonely, and God didn't design you or create you to be like that, but to work in a team to achieve something far bigger than you are individually and to achieve things that will last eternally.

So these relationships, I think there's a great way to form relationships. Now, it uses the word in the New King James, it uses the word apostles. I'll briefly touch on that because it's kind of a can-be-an-issue for some people. Because there's what's called the apostolic ministry, and do we here believe in an apostolic ministry? Yes and no. Let's move on.

Now, no, I'm kidding. We do in one sense. Apostolic is simply being a messenger or an ambassador of the gospel. So in that sense, we do believe in an apostolic ministry. Some people get really kind of weird and really kind of freaky and, you know, there's only the apostles and they're given kind of a weird place in the body. And certainly concerning the heritage and the lineage of the popes, they talk about apostolic ministry and stuff. That gets a little weird, but is the apostolic ministry valid today? Absolutely, because it's a messenger or an ambassador of the gospel.

Let's look at verse 8. Greet and plies my beloved in the Lord, my beloved. I started thinking about that term, and I thought, you know, that's a really cool term.

And I think I'm going to start using that more. I'm going to start calling you guys, beloved, because you are. I mean, I love you guys. I pray for you guys. I want to pour out my life to you guys as unto the Lord and share the word with you. So I'm going to call you beloved.

Is that all right? Beloved. Amen. I call you family sometimes, too. So beloved. It's talking about beloved. What does that mean? It just means to love each other.

Certainly, you know, David, that name, which happens to be my first name, too, the beloved and whatnot. But loving one another. And again, so much of this chapter is being the church. And part of being the church is loving one another. Loving one another. And, you know, if you go to any church for a few weeks, you're going to have within those few weeks, let's just be honest, you're going to have a reason to leave.

Somebody's going to say something you don't like, or you're not going to like the look of this or that. But you will miss the opportunity to walk in that love relationship. Sadly, some people spend their lives doing that. Now, is loving one another an option? No, it's not.

It's not. It's something, if you say that you're following Jesus, it's something we're supposed to be doing. And I think if we all had a little piece of paper and I said, how many people don't feel like they're loved enough? Or if I go, yep, I'm not loved enough. OK. But if I said, you know, ask a question, are you loving everybody else enough?

Some people say, yep. But guys, you know, when we compare the love that we give to each other, to the love that Jesus has already shown us, I think it's fair to say that we need to love each other more. That every person in here needs to love people more. John 13, 34, Jesus says this, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

In this, Jesus is saying, you know what, if you don't love one another, then you're not really a disciple. And then that love is shown in a sacrificial way, pouring your life out for others. And not just a warm, fuzzy, I love you, but an act of the will, not just emotion. Love is not just an emotion.

It is an emotion, but it is an act of the will as well. 1 John 4, 7 says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Now, this is not just a New Testament concept, but has its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures. Leviticus 19, 18 says, You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people.

That hurt. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord. Don't bear any grudge, but love people. And then this place in Matthew, they asked Jesus, Matthew 22, 36, they said, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So you'll frequently hear in this place me saying, Love God and love people. Now, a lot of times we say, Okay, well, I do love God and I do love people. Let me issue it in the form of a challenge, in the form of a life lesson here. We all need to love God and love one another more.

This is important, mission critical. You know, what we have to make sure as we learn the Bible is that we grow in our love for one another. See, because as we learn the Bible, the temptation now is to begin to say, Okay, now I know what is right and how to stay right and doctrinally pure and all this. So now I'm very interested in being right and we can begin to be more interested in being right than loving people. And when that happens, doesn't matter if you're right or not, you're wrong.

Because the emphasis biblically is on loving people. Now, please hear what I said. I didn't say let's water down the truth, let's candy-coat it and call that love.

No, no. We've got to be concerned with love. And if I'm getting ready to speak the truth to somebody to share, Hey, bro, you shouldn't be doing this or shouldn't be doing that or you need to look at this. I need to ask myself, Am I doing it in love? Am I doing this in love? Is that my motivator?

Or is it winning the discussion or winning the argument? Because this expression of love is so important that John, one of the disciples, said something interesting. And remember John, James and John, John who wrote the gospel. They called them the sons of thunder. And, you know, we think, oh, it's a really good theological term. No, I think if you really look at it and the Galileans, the people up north were kind of known for this, I think they were kind of hotheads. In other words, they were quick to fly off the handle and that's why they call them sons of thunder.

If you go through biblically and look at the scriptures, it kind of bears it out. Because if you remember, somebody got mad at them somewhere and James and John go back to Jesus and says, Jesus, let's call down fire from heaven and bake these crispy critters. There's a spiritual gift we can all be thankful we don't have. What if you had this little gift of calling down fire from heaven? We all think that would be cool, right? Because it could help with a grill or whatever. But get that charcoal ready and hurry, couldn't we?

I'm glad I don't have it because I know that's one gift. No doubt I would misuse, you know, especially like on the highways. Somebody got in front of me that's doing like 35 and a 60 mile an hour zone.

Lord, you know, just phasers set on stun. I'm up here talking about loving people. I get so convicted up here sometimes. This is one of those moments. And loving one another, if we're not loving one another. But John goes from this place, and I relate to this because there's been times in my life when I thought that would be an awesome gift to have. Calling down fire from heaven.

Now I'm glad I don't have it. So I can see that I'm growing in my love for people. It's something God is doing in my life. And John, who wanted to call down fire from heaven, son of thunder, progresses to the place that he says this in his 1 John epistle. It says, if someone says I love God but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar. For if we don't love people we can see, how can we love God whom we've not seen?

What a powerful, powerful verse. It's said that later on in life, and John was the only disciple to die a natural death. They tried to kill him, they tried to boil him, and all church history tells us. And he lived, and it really freaked the Roman authorities out. So they exiled him to Patmos, died a natural death, some say as old as 90. But they say church history, it's not in the Bible, but church history says when he got older, you know, the one remaining disciple.

Pretty popular guy. But they would come in to people and they'd gather, oh, this is one of the disciples, we're going to go hear him, you know. And he would sit down and he would just say, beloved, love one another. Amen.

That'd be it. It's how important loving one another is. Let's move on to verse 9.

It says, greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and stick his to my beloved. So we see beloved popping up again. And again, we see there's relationships, and I would encourage you, keep healthy relationships, keep the air clear. If there's a problem with you, with somebody else today, go to that person. Make the apology.

Be the bigger person. Be the spiritual leader and say, hey, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said this, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done this. Don't do it with the expectation that they in turn are going to apologize.

But just do it. And there will be a burden lifted off of you. I guarantee there's some people sitting here right now that are carrying a burden because they really need to apologize to somebody about something. Man, quit carrying that around and just dump that at the altar of God today. And examine relationships. Make apologies.

Forget about differences. And again, this emphasis of these personal relationships after these deep theological chapters are really awesome. And here, and let's understand, he's writing to Rome. This is Paul, the apostle, writing to the church in Rome. And again, he's not been to Rome yet, but he knows a lot of the people that are in the church there.

And these people are walking around. You think, you know, our world is somewhat pagan. Rome was incredibly pagan. Very much an unchristian, even anti-christian society. Now, you could argue the point that this is an anti-christian society in the United States today. And in some terms, I would agree with you. But these guys are going around spreading the gospel in this pagan capital of the world, if you will, of Rome.

And they're trying to reach other people. So again, if these people can do it in Rome 2,000 years ago, gang, we can be doing it today, inviting people to church and emailing them and calling them and talking to them about the Lord. 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.