This Worldwide Movement

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. The health of your walk with Jesus is measured less by how much you know. It's measured less by how gifted you are and more by how much you know and are known in the body of Christ. You need to beware any sense of importance or busyness that cuts you off from that because that is cutting you off from your spiritual health, the spiritual health that God gives to you by being in a family and a community in the body of Christ. Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. You're joining us today as we near the end of our year-long study in the book of Romans and after spending 15 chapters in Romans explaining how the gospel has the power to change the world, the Apostle Paul closes the book with a list of commendations. While that may not seem important to some, Pastor J.D. Greer uses today's teaching to show us how ordinary people can play significant roles in the church. Will you be a part of the movement of God's kingdom, whether or not anybody ever lists your name in the credits?

Let's join Pastor J.D. in Romans 16 for a message he titled, This Worldwide Movement. For the last time, I want you to open your Bibles to the book of Romans.

I'm actually a little bit sad, to be honest with you, as we come into this weekend. Romans 16, the last chapter in the book. I want you to listen as I read this last chapter, at least the first part of this chapter. Chapter 16, verse 1, Paul ends the letter to the book of Romans by saying, I commend to you our sister Phoebe. She's a servant of the church in Cenchrea. You should welcome her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and a sister in whatever manner she may require your help. For indeed, she's been a benefactor to many and to me also. Give my greetings to Prissa and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their own necks for my life. Not only do I thank them, but so do all the Gentile churches. Greet also the church that meets in their home. Greet my dear friend Epinatus, who is the first convert to Christ from the continent of Asia. Greet Mary, who has worked very hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews and fellow prisoners.

They are noteworthy among the apostles and they were also in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my dear friend, Stachys. Greet Apellus, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus.

Greet Herodian, my fellow Jew. Greet those who belong to the household of Narcissus, who are in the Lord. Greet Tryphana and Tryphosa, who have worked hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, who has worked very hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, also his mother and mine. Greet Asenchritus, Philegon, Hermes, Petrobas, Hermes, and the brothers and sisters in Christ who are with them. Greet Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister Olympus, and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send you greetings. Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who create divisions and obstacles contrary to the teaching that you have learned. Avoid them, because such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but only their own appetites.

They deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting with smooth talk and flattering words. The report of your obedience has reached everyone. Therefore, I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise about what is good and yet innocent about what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, so don't worry about that.

The grace of our Lord Jesus will be with you. Timothy, my co-worker, and Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my fellow countrymen, they greet you. I, Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who has hosted me into the whole church, greets you.

Erastus, the city treasure, and our brother Cordis, greet you. Can I just say, friends, we did it. We did it.

We did it. Here we are at the end of the book of Romans. For what it's worth, we broke all the church growth rules with this series. All the church growth gurus tell you that you should never do a series longer than four weeks, because everybody's intention, you will lose it, that you should always have a really creative title. We overshot the four-week barrier by about 27 weeks in this series, and we chose a really, really engaging, creative title for the series. We just called it Romans.

That was our title for it. But do you know why that did not matter? Because we had 981 people give their lives to Christ throughout this series. 981 people who profess faith in Christ. And that is because, as we have said multiple times throughout this series, the power, Paul says, is not in the presentation. The power is in the gospel itself. Romans 1 16, Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. When you have a powerful gospel, you don't always depend on flashy packaging. And God, as my witness, Summit family, we did not skip a single thing in this book, did we? In this series, we've talked about total depravity, God's wrath, predestination, homosexuality, the exclusivity of Christ, modern-day Palestinian politics, how we should feel about Donald Trump, drinking alcohol, and whether public school or homeschool was the best choice.

And you're still here. Honestly, it's amazing. Everybody look at your neighbor right now and say, I am really impressed with you. Okay?

Look at him, I'm really impressed with you. You, you are a serious Christian. Listen, Romans 16, y'all, we have made it. Romans 16, y'all, reading that chapter that I did a few moments ago reminds me of a tradition that my family had at New Year's. On New Year's, my mother would cook corn, beef, and cabbage. And that was the only time of year that we would eat corn, beef, and cabbage because that meal is nasty. But on that day, it was my favorite meal of the year because our tradition was we would take coins, she'd clean boil coins, and she'd hide coins through it. And so as you scoop it out, think of corn, beef, and cabbage, you're getting coins.

And that's supposed to represent, you know, like how prosperous your year was coined to be. Just out of curiosity, did anybody else have that tradition? Anybody? Look, you know, when you grow up as a kid, you think everybody does what you do. And I was telling somebody about that. I think it was, and they were like, what? That is the weirdest thing I've ever heard. I thought everybody did that. So, well, the reason, you know, like I said, that we did it is because you're trying to, and the difficulties of the year, you're going to find this prosperity, whatever.

That was our tradition. Well, the reason I share that is because eating that meal is what reading this chapter is like, because when you first go through it, it's like a random list of names. It's like Paul's list of Twitter followers or the credits at the end of the movie that you don't watch unless somebody has told you that these credits are followed by bloopers.

And so when the credits go out, you know, and you're in the movie theater, you get up and you start to walk out. And that's exactly what some of you do with Romans 16. You get to Romans 16 and all of a sudden you start skimming and you're working your way through there. But tucked among all the cabbage of these names are some amazing gospel coins.

We don't know a lot about most of these 26 individuals that Paul lists out here. Obviously, what makes it feel like working our way through cabbage is that some of them had some strange names. By the way, just from Uncle JD here, if you are a new parent and you are looking for a name for your baby, I would not encourage you to draw a lot from this chapter. Rufus, verse 13, Philologus, verse 15. I mean, imagine growing up with a name like Philologus.

And what kind of parent looks at a little baby in a crib and says, oh, Philologus, you know? By the way, the word literally means, word means lover of words. It's like naming your kid Chatterbox or Gabby or something like that. Then you've got Ampliatus, verse eight, or Asyncritus, which sound like pretty serious medical conditions to me. Narcissus, verse 11, which is another one I don't get because Narcissus meant the same thing back then that it does today.

That'd be like naming your kid Eagle Boy or whatever. So bottom line, if you want your kid to hate you, then use Romans 16 as your basis for choosing their name. But here is what you are supposed to actually learn from the list. You're supposed to learn a few things about the body of Christ.

Number one, here's what you learn. You learn that unity in the body outweighs divisions in society. Unity in the body outweighs divisions in society. These names show you, if nothing else, these names show you that the early church was diverse. The names might sound strange to you, but they reveal a distinction, first of all, in race.

Some of them are Jewish names, some are Gentile names, some of the names derived from the Middle East, some from Asia, some from Europe. Paul mainly seems concerned to demonstrate through these names that the early church consists of both Jew and Gentile. Having Jews and Gentiles in one church, as we have seen, as we've studied Romans, gave rise to all kinds of problems. And Paul spent several chapters trying to diffuse those problems. In fact, you've got to wonder, wouldn't it have been easier just to plant two separate congregations, First Baptist Church of the Jews on one side and the First Baptist Church of the Gentiles on the other side of town?

Maybe they could come together for a joint rally every once in a while. That seems to be easier because when you bring them into the same church, they've got cultural clashes, they've got music-style clashes, they've got political preference clashes. Why did Paul plant one congregation instead of two? And it's because he understood that the unity that would take place among Jew and Gentile by overcoming these differences would be a greater testimony to the gospel than would it be having each of these churches just grow and reach tons of people on their own. In the same way, I will tell you, it is easier.

Just so I'll give you the inside secret knowledge here. It's easier and faster to grow churches if you do it along the lines of homogeneity. And that is just get one kind of person, this church of this kind of person, this church of this kind of person. But we understand here at the Summit Church that that is not the best testimony to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so we want to do what Paul did. We want to have a congregation that is filled with old, young, rich, poor, black, white, Hispanic people from all across the community. Because we know that the unity that we demonstrate in the gospel is greater than if we simply get along with people who just look like we do and think and talk and act like we do.

Now, if you agree with that, you've got to do more than just kind of nod your head and say, that's right, that's good. At the Summit Church, we say we don't merely want to host a multi-ethnic event on the weekend. We know we want to live multi-ethnic lives. In fact, what we do on the weekend should be a reflection of what happens throughout the week. Dr. King, one of his most famous statements, the one everybody knows is he laments, and he should have, that the most segregated hour in America is 11 to 12 on Sunday. Everybody knows that part, but if I could add something, if I could be so bold as to add something to that statement, there probably is one other hour throughout the week that is even more segregated than 11 to 12 on Sunday morning, and that is 6 to 7 every night around the dinner table.

The reason we don't come together naturally in places like this is because we live separately throughout the week. And what Paul is showing you is that he is deeply connected, not just to a bunch of other apostles who went to the same school he did and look like him. He is connected to people all across the body of Christ, because that kind of unity in the midst of diversity puts the gospel on display. We don't want to just host multi-ethnic events. We want to live multi-ethnic lives.

So the first thing these names reveal is they reveal distinctions of race. Thanks for joining us today on Summit Life. We'll get back to today's teaching in just a moment, but first I wanted to remind you about our featured resource this month. It's a Bible study through the second half of the Book of Romans called In View of God's Mercy, written by the late Tim Keller. Pastor Tim was one of Pastor Jadie's biggest ministry influences, and if you've listened to much of this teaching through Romans, you know how many times Pastor Jadie has referenced the thoughts of Pastor Tim. This guide is a great way to get an even better perspective and understanding of one of the Bible's richest books, and it would make an incredible study to do with a friend or a whole group. Each of the book's seven studies walks you through passages of Romans 8 through 16, along with application questions and prayer prompts.

To get a hold of your copy, just give us a call with your gift at 866-335-5220 or visit jdgrier.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching from Pastor Jadie right here on Summit Life. We also see distinctions of class. Some of these people we can tell were of considerable means. For example, Aristobulus, verse 10, Narcissus, they're both said to have been the heads of households or the head of an estate. Some believe Aristobulus was the grandson of Herod the Great.

Right? Erastus, Paul recognizes as the city treasurer in Corinth. By the way, if you go on a trip to Corinth and when they take you in the tour, they will point out a building that has Erastus' name carved into it. When you're important enough that your name gets carved in a building that 2,000 years later it's still there, that means you're a pretty big deal. We know that Aquila and Priscilla evidently had a house that was big enough, they were of means enough, they could host a whole church meeting in their house.

Other names are like Rufus and Urbanus or common slave names. And here they are in one church, all sitting together as equals. See, and that's what's behind Paul's command in verse 16 when he tells you to greet one another with a holy kiss. I know some of you single guys perked up at that and thought, when are we gonna get to that verse and how can we apply that verse? Not what you think it means. I will tell you, this is how I asked Veronica out, I'm like, you wanna do a study of the book of Romans, we're gonna start at chapter 16, and we're gonna press in on this verse.

Just kidding, that's creepy, don't do that. But the word, emphasis is on the word holy, okay? And that's not different than what you were thinking. Holy, a kiss on the cheek like that was a sign of equality and friendship. And when he says greet one another with a holy kiss, what he's saying is royalty and slave meet together in this place as equals. That recognition, by the way, was the seed that ultimately undid slavery in Western society or in societies that have been influenced by the Gospel. One of the best works on slavery, the history of slavery, is written by an African American named Thomas Sowell. It's three volumes, and in it, what he points out is that every major civilization in history, slavery has always been a part of that civilization.

Whether you're talking Asia, Africa, Europe, the Arab Peninsula, it just seems to be endemic to the human nature that when one group has power, they use that to subjugate other groups. He said, but the only societies where you saw change happen from within, where you see all this kind of lament and moral outrage and guilt literature that comes out of it and change come from within are the societies that have been impacted by the Gospel. Because in the Gospel itself were the seeds that ultimately undid what human nature loved to do, and that is oppress others by pointing us to a savior that had been oppressed for us so he could liberate us and set us in the church as equals. Like I said earlier, one race, human, one problem, sin, one common hope, the blood of Jesus.

That's why everywhere the Gospel goes, you see these distinctions get torn down. I've told you before that every Jewish man, part of their morning ritual, part of their quiet time was they would repeat one of these prayers that was found in the Talmud. One of the prayers was, Lord, a Jewish man would say, Lord, I want to thank you today for all the many blessings you've given me. I want to thank you that I'm not a woman, a slave, and a Gentile. It's no coincidence that when Luke records Paul going into the city of Philippi, a Gentile city, the first three people that he leads to Christ, a woman, Lydia, a slave girl, and a Gentile, the Philippian jailer. So just taking it at face value literally, it means that the first church service in Philippi, it consisted of a Jewish man, a woman, a slave, and a Gentile.

Yet here they all are together, now it's equals, greeting one another with a holy kiss, sitting together as equals. So we see distinctions of class. Finally, in this list, you see distinctions of gender. Of the 26 names that are mentioned, eight or nine are women. And the reason we're unsure whether it's eight or nine is we're not sure about Junia. Junia was kind of a unisex name like Taylor, or Jamie, or Alex today. So for what it's worth, if you choose a name like that for your kid, that's cool. But if we get a Bible written about us 2,000 years from now, they may not know if it's a boy or girl.

So we just don't know about Junia. But what you see in the list is Paul's inclusion of women, for shout outs here, that's very intentional and very unusual for letters of this type during the time. Rome and Jerusalem, both societies were very male dominated. Yet Paul not only calls these women by name, Paul refers to them as co-laborers, like they're equals, particularly worthy of notice. Phoebe, verse one mentioned, she is called servant in verse one, but if you got your Greek New Testament open, you notice that the word for servant was diakonos, which we will translate often as deacon. Some of your translations in English probably say that, a deaconess. The word, here's the thing, the word can mean either servant, or it can mean the official office of deacon or deaconess.

Which one does it mean here? We're not totally sure. Deacons were a group of people that Paul, you first see them in Acts 6, that were appointed officially in the church to oversee the ministry to physical and material needs within the church and out in the community.

And that was so the apostles could focus on teaching. The question you ask is what version of the word is Paul using here? Is he referring to her kind of generally as a servant, or is he referring to her as an official deaconess? And again, we just don't know. We're not sure. The fact that she is tied to a location, a deaconess of the church in Centria, probably indicates that she had some kind of official position in the church.

But again, we're not sure. What we do know is that Paul recognizes her as a co-laborer. And Paul gives her a very important task. She is charged to bring the book of Romans to the Romans. If you read what he's saying in verse two, he's telling them to welcome her. It means that she's the one that's carrying the book. She's going to convey Paul's wishes to them. He's going to give whatever words to them that Paul wants to communicate.

And if they got any questions about it after they're done reading it, then she's going to be the one that answers them. This is a very important woman leader in the early church. Furthermore, Paul mentions Priscilla, verse three. We know from the book of Acts that she helped mentor Apollos, who was a well-known preacher in the early church. The point I'm making is that these women were prominent. They were very influential in early ministry.

They weren't simply in the back making copies and getting coffee for all the men while they worked. In the church, we see a society where distinctions of superiority based on race, class, and gender no longer apply. That there is a unity in the body that outweighs the divisions normally put on us by society. Here's the second thing you see. Number two. You see that you never graduate from the need for connection to the body.

You never graduate for need for connection to the body. What is striking in this list is how many people Paul felt connected to in this local church. Y'all, if anybody in the kingdom of God ever had an important job, if anybody was a big deal, it was Paul, right?

His preaching and teaching would set the direction for the church for the next 2,000 years. But you don't see Paul all isolated somewhere in his prophet's chambers, alone with himself and God all the time, separated from ordinary people by three sets of security guards. Paul seems to be swimming in friends. And by the way, not just one kind of friend, not just other important apostles and other people who are really people of stature.

People, ethnically diverse friends, weak friends, strong friends, slaves, free, rich, poor, men and women. If I could just be really, really personal with you all for a moment, I'll tell you as this church has gotten bigger, I have felt this temptation. It's like a tractor beam toward isolation. You start to believe this lie that there's all this important stuff out there to be doing and so I don't have time for the messiness of ordinary relationships. I'll tell you, Veronica, my wife and I have battled against that because we know that that kind of isolation does not lead anywhere good.

And I always quote to you this statement by the late David Pauluson, a Christian counselor, things that grow in a secret garden always grow mutant. People who live by themselves, people who live in isolation without peers, without people who can look them in the eye and just be real with them, they always end up in a bad place. Ever noticed, by the way, how a lot of men, how a lot of men as they get older have less and less friends? They pull away and by the time they're in their late 50s, they've got very few actual friends outside of their wives.

Again, that's not exclusively a man problem, but I see it a lot with men. That's dangerous because that is not how God designed you to live and I promise you it will lead to all kinds of problems. I read this thing in an article in the Scientific American that said that, listen to this, living in isolation or in loneliness without peer kind of close friends is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Things that grow in a secret garden always grow mutant.

You will shrink your lifespan, strengthen your lifespan, they said, by about 15 years if you live in an isolated way. Yet some Christians feel like the ability to live by yourself with just God is some kind of mark of spiritual maturity. Oh, it's fine, I don't need anybody else, it's just me and God and that's sufficient.

That's actually wrong. Listen to what Tim Keller says, I love this, look at this, Adam was not lonely because he was imperfect. In the garden, you know, not good that man should be alone, Adam was lonely.

Oh, Adam, something was wrong with that, no. He wasn't lonely because he was imperfect, he was lonely because he was perfect. The ache for friends is the one ache that is not the result of sin. God made us in such a way that we couldn't even enjoy paradise without friends. You're in a perfect place, right, no pain, play all day, you can't even enjoy that without a friend, he said. Human friends, Adam had a perfect quiet time every day. For 24 hours a day, he had a quiet time, yet still Adam needed friends. If you're lonely, you aren't dysfunctional, you're healthy.

You're lonely because you're not a tree, you're lonely because you're not a machine. To need deep spiritual friendships is not a sign of spiritual immaturity, it's a sign of maturity, it's not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of health. Love and connection to the body, listen, is the ultimate sign of Christian maturity. Which is why when Paul lists out all these names and praises them, he doesn't talk about how important they are, he doesn't talk about their status in society, he doesn't talk about how much money that they've given over and over, he praises one thing.

Their devotion to God and their devotion to one another, because for Paul, that's the ultimate sign of maturity. The health of your walk with Jesus is measured less by how much you know, it's measured less by how gifted you are, it's even measured less by how many people you brought to faith in Christ, and more by how much you know and are known in the body of Christ. You need to beware any sense of importance or busyness that cuts you off from that, because that is cutting you off from your spiritual health, the spiritual health that God gives to you by being in a family and a community in the body of Christ.

I've told you, I've just admitted you, I have a sort of a natural proclivity toward this, I think a lot of men do, but I do, and my wife has helped me out a lot of this. She's like, this is just gonna do nothing but mess up your quality of life, even if that's all you're concerned about, if you get isolated. Are you truly devoted to God? Are you wholly devoted to your brothers and sisters in Christ? Very simply, that's what Christian maturity looks like. You're listening to Summit Life with pastor and author J.D.

Greer. We're wrapping up our series through the book of Romans tomorrow, and I recently had a chance to sit down with pastor J.D. to ask about what the apostle Paul is communicating in these final chapters of Romans.

Here's what he had to say. I think what you'll see is the difference the gospel makes in your life. You're going to see this recurring theme of God's faithfulness and your inability to produce the fruits of the Christian life. He's going to show you that the gospel has implications for all of your relationships. Christians who love studying the Bible, I think will love this resource by Tim Keller because it really takes you into the heart of maybe the most gospel-rich explanation anywhere in scripture and show you how it not only changes your relationship with God, it changes how you live. We'll send you a copy of Pastor Tim Keller's study through Romans chapters 8 through 16 as a way to say thank you for your financial gift of $35 or more to this ministry.

To give, call us now at 866-335-5220 or give online right now at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch, and guess what? It's time for us to finish our year-long journey through the book of Romans. Be sure to join us again Thursday as we conclude this rich teaching series right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.