As you're being seated, I invite you to take your copies of God's Word and to open with me to the last chapter of Romans, Romans chapter 16, going to be in verses 24 through 27. Our sermon is entitled The Gospel and the Glory, Romans 16, 24 through 27. As we finish up our sermon series entitled Romans, God's Righteousness Revealed, we've come to the very last passage, the doxology as it were, at the end of the book of Romans, Romans 16, 25, I mean 25 through 27. I said 24, but 25. Text reads, Now to him who was able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith to the only wise God, be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen and amen. This is the word of the Lord. Let us hear it. Let us heed it. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord will stand forever. As I said earlier, this will be the very last sermon that we preach from the Book of Romans in our series here. If you're wondering, we started this series in September the 26th, 2021. It's been about two and a half years. We've spent most Sundays in Romans. It's just under a hundred sermons, about 98 sermons altogether. And what we find as we look at this doxology at the end, these last three verses, is that Paul has come full circle. for he is praising God for the very themes that he has brought out and talked about throughout the book of Romans. He is praising God for the gospel that he has laid forth and opened up and unfolded before the church there in Rome. like a jeweled necklace, as it were, the gospel. that it has all of these different precious stones and gems and facets, this necklace. And we might take them one by one and see and examine them and turn them in our hand to see the beauty and the many sidedness and the wonderful colors of this thing. And as we go around this jeweled necklace. We come back to the end and give praise to God for the whole, the wonderful thing that it is. Back at the beginning, the beautiful gospel that he has given to us. These verses are one long sentence. I say sentence because really, if you're one of these English grammar sort of people, This is an incomplete sentence that Paul has here. He talks as doxologies do. Now to him, and he lays out all of these different infinitives and all of these different phrases. The one who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel, the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery. To the only wise God, be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ our Lord. So it is a long, very detailed, wordy sort of sentence. And what I want us to look at as we go through this doxology is the focus is on this gospel that he has been declaring. There are themes, again, that he's talked about throughout the book of Romans, but specifically we go back to the first chapter, we see him introduce many of these themes using some of the similar language that we find here in our passage. So the first thing that I want to see, I'm gonna mention five things about the gospel this morning from our passage. The first thing I want you to see is that the gospel manifests the power of God. that the gospel manifests the power of God. Now to him, so it is to God, he is giving praise to God, now to him who is able to strengthen you. This gospel comes to sinners. This gospel comes to those who are unable to keep the law, who are unwilling to keep the law. They neither do it nor want to do it. It comes to weak and poor sinners. He lays that out throughout the first three chapters, doesn't he? about how whether you're Jew or Gentile, you are unrighteous and guilty before God. You are a sinner in need of a savior. He says none is righteous in chapter three, verse one. Not, no, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And so those no ones means that's, We're included in that, those no ones. And those alls, all of sin, we're included in that. We need a savior in Jesus Christ. So this gospel comes to those who are weak and unable, the sinful and the guilty. Romans 320, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. So it's not a matter of trying harder. It's not a matter of earning it, of achieving it, of getting your wages or getting what's due from God for all that you deserve, all that you earn, all that you get from your unrighteousness and disobedience is wrath that you're storing up. But he says here, now, to him who is able to strengthen you, there is one who is able to save. There is a Savior and the Savior is not within us, the Savior comes from outside of us. It is God who saves, it is the Lord who saves, not to Him who is able. He strengthens you. He's able to strengthen you how? According to my gospel, this good news that he preaches, this revelation of Jesus Christ that he proclaims and heralds forth as the apostle to the Gentiles. We go back to chapter one. Paul says, I'm eager to preach to you in Rome because I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe. to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. In the Gospel, there is this revelation of God's power. There's the channel of God's power to say, laid forth in a message that He is proclaiming. So we say in this Gospel, it's able to strengthen you. It's able to strengthen you for salvation, by faith it's able to save, but it's able to make the sinner, the guilty, the weak and unable, this gospel is able to sanctify as well as save. This gospel is able to help and strengthen. and help us to obey the law as a fruit of our salvation, to be obedient to God for the first time, to be led by the Spirit of the Lord, to obey Him. The second thing I want you to see that the gospel does, firstly, we said the gospel manifests the power of God. Secondly, the gospel heralds the lordship of Jesus Christ. The gospel heralds, it proclaims the lordship of Jesus Christ. Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. That and is really a namely, the preaching of. His gospel is equal to the preaching of Jesus Christ. They are one in the same. The announcement of the good news concerns the Son of God. The announcement of the good news is the preaching of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. He talks about in chapter one that he is set apart by God for the gospel, which he says concerns his son, concerns the Son of God. And this son was descended from David according to the flesh. and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord. The announcement and the proclamation of the gospel is to preach Jesus, Him we proclaim, as Colossians says. If you're not preaching Jesus, then you're not preaching the gospel. What do we mean when we talk about the gospel heralding the Lordship of Jesus Christ? That it's about His person, who He is as the Savior, who Jesus Christ is. We said He is the Son of God, Him who is able. Well, the one who is able is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Him who is able, the preaching of Jesus Christ is He who is able. He is the Son of God who is resurrected from the dead. But He's also not only fully God, God in the flesh, but He is also human in that He was descended from David according to the flesh. He is, if we go to Romans chapter five, the second Adam. He is our federal head, he is our covenant mediator, the mediator of a new covenant, the go-between that represents us, our great high priest. It's not just as we preach Jesus in this gospel, it is not just about who he is, it is about what he has done, his work, as it were, that God, the One who was with the Father in the beginning, God in all eternity, took on true humanity, added to His deity, true humanity. He became incarnate. He came in the flesh. He was willing to suffer birth and life as a human being. And as this human being who lived and walked upon the earth He obeyed this divine person who has had a human nature as well. He obeyed perfectly the law of God. In those places where we are unwilling and unable to submit to God's law, Christ has willingly obeyed each and everything. He was without sin. And despite His being without sin, despite His innocence, despite the righteousness that He earned through His obedience to the Father, He was crucified. He was killed. They nailed Him to a Roman cross. had him suffer the humiliation and the death of that cross. But according to the Scriptures, three days later, this crucified Son of God rose from the dead, was vindicated by the Holy Spirit, He was raised for our justification as Romans 4 will say. He was resurrected and He is alive and He appeared to His disciples and to others over a period of 40 days, and after which He ascended in the clouds into heaven and was seated at the right hand of the Father. And that's where He is today, risen, ascended, seated at the right hand of the Father, one day coming back. So we talk about what the gospel is about, what Christ has done, not just who He is, but what Christ has done. but it is also this gospel that we proclaim. When we preach Jesus, we preach who He is, we preach what He has done, but we also preach what that work has accomplished, what was achieved by what Christ has done. It's one thing to talk about Him being crucified and resurrected. It's another to talk about what does that mean? What did it do? This perfect life achieved righteousness that we didn't have. No one is righteous, but He is righteous. So we need a righteousness that we have. If we're in Him, we're righteous. There was a substitutionary atonement. He died in our place to satisfy God's wrath. He was a propitiation to God. He turned back God's anger towards our sinfulness. And this substitutionary, this stand-in that took our punishment and took the penalty that we deserve, Jesus Christ, He covered our sins. and that shed blood upon the cross provided a ransom. It was a payment that was made with His own precious blood and not that of silver or gold. A payment that was made to redeem us, to set us as captives free. He paid that slave market value for us to set us free. And it provided forgiveness of sins, which has been fully paid for, complete salvation that has been secured. And this death upon the cross, this resurrection from the grave, shows the defeat of death, the conquering of death, and the defeat of Satan himself, in that he was mortally wounded by the cross. This preaching of Christ is a preaching of how this good news of the gospel is received to us. For if we talk about what Christ has done and what that has achieved, but then we say things like, and the way that it comes into your life is through obeying, then we have missed it. That's not good news. If we talk about what Christ has done, and what that has achieved, but then we say, it must be received by faith. It must be understood. That is a preaching of grace. That we look to Christ, just look upon Him in faith, and these truths come to us. That's about how this work is received. And this preaching of the good news, this feast of the gospel, the preaching of Christ that we do week in and week out without doing anything new here. This preaching of Christ, it has implications for those who have believed, for those who put their faith in Christ. What does it mean? And he's talked about these things in Romans. They have received a new birth. Whereby they are brought out of spiritual deadness and spiritual darkness to new life in Christ. They are regenerated in Christ. That by faith the believer is united with Jesus Christ. We're united in a death like His and in a resurrection like His, pictured in our baptism, being dead with Christ, going under the water, being alive to new life, coming up out of the water. And so we have now entered into this stage of new life, eternal life, that even though we will still die physically, we are eternally alive spiritually. It means that believers have gained a right standing with God. They are right with God. They are clothed in His righteousness. They are declared righteous by God, even though they may still sin, and we do still commit sins. We are righteous. Our faith is counted as righteousness. It is credited to us. This righteousness is not infused righteousness. It's not imparted righteousness. It's imputed righteousness. It's accredited to our account. He considers us righteous. It's marked in His accounting book, in His ledger, that we are right with Him. It is God banging the gavel, declaring that we who were guilty are righteous before Him. This comes through our union. This comes through our union with Him. Because we are united with Christ and because Christ is righteous, we are now seen as righteous. It means also this good news that in Christ, we who have believed in Him have been set apart as holy ones, as saints. And we are becoming what we've been declared already. We are becoming more and more holy. This is what we call sanctification. Both positional sanctification and progressive sanctification. We are positionally holy, we are saints, even though we still sin, but there is a progress towards becoming more holy, like the Lord. We are adopted into God's family, made heirs with Him. This is adoption. We as believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, are being led then as sons of God by the Spirit of God. We're reconciled with God. No longer at enmity with Him. No longer is there hostility between us and God. Jesus Christ is our peace and we are at peace with God. Reconciled with Him. We will live with Him forever. The good news of the gospel is not just that your sins are forgiven and that you're clothed and righteous. That's part of it. But it is now that you as a believer know God, have a relationship with God, have communion with God, the Father, Son, through the Holy Spirit, that you know God. John Piper illustrates this well. He talks about if we as a husband do a foolish thing, and get in a fight with our wife and we've offended her and we've made her upset and we apologize. We go and we admit that we're sorry to her. What is it that we're ultimately after in doing that? Is it just this forgiveness or is it that we want our wife back? We want the relationship restored. So it's not merely forgiveness that is all that we're after. We want the relationship to be good again. And the gospel is ultimately not just that you've been forgiven, not just that you're clothed in righteousness, not just that you're being sanctified, but that you know God and have a relationship with God. And that the very best gift of salvation is that you get God out of it. Thirdly, the gospel reveals the fulfillment of the prophetic writings. the gospel reveals the fulfillment of the prophetic writings. He has said, now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel. And we said that that gospel is the same as the preaching of Jesus Christ, really. And then it is also, he's able to strengthen us according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all the nations. Well, that too is the gospel. That is the answer to that, that the mystery is Christ. The revelation of that mystery is Christ. He's the one that's been all of the prophetic writings, the culmination of the shadows and the types throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. They were all about Him. They were all pointing to Him. He is the name and He is the answer to all of that. When we talk about a mystery, in the Bible, we're talking about something that's covered up, something that's hidden from our eyes, something that's unknown. It's like if there was a great new invention that is out there, and let's say that Elon Musk is gonna reveal this great new prototype of something. And he tells you all of what this thing is going to do. You hear about what this is, what this is going to be like, but he's keeping it. You don't see it. You never get to see what this thing is covered up. This new prototype, whatever, it's going to be life-changing, this thing. But you don't know what it is. And he keeps telling you about it, announcing it. There's an expectation. There's a, wow, I wonder what this is going to look like. I wonder what this is going to be. What is this thing? Well, it's a mystery at that point. This talks about the revelation of that mystery. Christ is that mystery in the Old Testament. Through the prophets. All that the prophets talked about. There's going to be a seed of a woman who's going to crush the serpent's head. There is going to be a righteous branch that springs forth out of David. There's going to be a prophet like Moses that's going to come one day. There's going to be a great high priest. There is going to be a good shepherd in all the bad shepherds of Israel. There's going to be a suffering servant. There's going to be one who is a son of man who approaches the ancient of days, according to Daniel. There's going to be one who is the great Passover lamb, the one who shed blood is the once and for all sacrifice for sins that satisfies the whole sacrificial system that God himself will provide on the mountain. There's going to be the child of Abraham, the offspring of Abraham that's going to bring blessing to every family on the earth. And we could go on and on and on about how the prophetic writings and how the scriptures pointed to this one, this Messiah that was going to come. And we saw as we walked through the Old Testament, we could see that it's not Cain and Abel. It's not Seth. Enoch comes along, he walks with God, and then he's not. It's not him. Noah provides some rest, but that's not him. It's not Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, or any of Jacob's 12 sons. Not ultimately. Moses delivers the people, but it's not him. He's just a servant. We need a son over the house of God. It is not any of these temporary saviors and messiahs in the judges. It's not Joshua before him. David, we're looking for a king like him, but he's not the one. All of these have flaws. And so throughout these long ages of Israelite history, there is this mystery. How can God be both just and the justifier of the ungodly? How can God forgive murderers like Moses? and adulterers like David, and liars like Abraham. How can God be friends with such people? Deceivers like Jacob. How can he do that? And the New Testament lifts off that curtain. and says it's through Jesus. Jesus is the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret but is now proclaimed. The good news is Jesus is the answer. Jesus is all that the Old Testament prophets talked about. He is the one. Do you see how there is an apologetic nature to these prophecies as it were? What do I mean by that? I mean that When you hear the story of Jesus about His death, burial, resurrection, about the forgiveness, about the adoption, about all of these good things that come to those who believe in Jesus Christ and that it's all through faith in Christ, it's all by grace, you might hear that story and say, that is such a wonderful, beautiful story, if only it were true. And what the prophetic writings and the fulfillment of all of these prophetic writings show us is that the wonderful story is true. Because Jesus didn't happen to fulfill all of these prophecies. He didn't happen to fulfill all of these types. You've heard the illustration before. You know how big the state of Texas is? It's big. Even if you don't know, you know it's big. And it's been said that the chances of one man accidentally fulfilling all of the prophecies that were predicted about Jesus is like filling the state of Texas with quarters two feet high. and asking a man, marking two of those quarters throughout the state of Texas with an X, a red X on two quarters, and asking a man to walk across the state of Texas and to bend down twice and pick up a quarter. And if he gets with those two, the ones with the X on it, that's the chances of this happening. The story is not only wonderful, it's true. And it's true because He is the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret but has now been disclosed. And so we preach Christ. We preach Christ and Him crucified. We tell everyone now that Jesus is the answer. We make known to Him. Fourthly, I want you to see that the gospel focuses the mission of the church. The gospel focuses the mission of the church. He's now made known to all the nations according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith. That what we're called to do is to go tell people about this Jesus, about who He is, about what He has done, so that they will respond in obedience to the gospel with faith. We preach Christ so that they might know God, the eternal God, Him who is able to strengthen us according to the gospel and according to the preaching of Christ. Christ has commanded us to go, therefore, into all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, teaching them to observe all whatsoever I have commanded to you. To preach Jesus, make disciples, of every nation. Paul in Romans chapter 1 verse 5, it is through Him that we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith. That same phrase, bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the nations. Paul is an apostle. He wrote the book of Romans for this cause, to lay out his gospel that the Roman church might believe and be saved and spread this gospel. There are many out there in today calling on the church to do this and to do that and to do this and to be this and to do that. And there are a lot of good things that the church can get involved in and do. And some of that is an outgrowth of the gospel. Some of that is a means to getting the gospel to people. But the focus of the church, the call and the commission of the church is to share this message. Lastly, the gospel redounds to the glory of God. The gospel redounds to the glory of God. He says in verse 27, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ, amen. That's what this whole three verses is. It's a doxology. It is giving God glory. It is giving God praise for what he has done in the gospel, for all that he's said. This is Paul wrapping it up with a praise to God. Our theology must never be an academic sort of exercise only. That our study of the great and wonderful doctrines that we've laid out in the gospel, it must end in worship. It must end in praise. It must end in giving God credit, in boasting, in bragging in God, in praising God for who He is. Paul does this throughout the book of Romans. He gets to the end of chapter seven, for instance, and he's been talking about how he doesn't do the good that he wants to do, but instead he does the bad that he doesn't want to do. He has this remnant of sin within him as a saved man. And he says, oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? And he says, thanks be to God. who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. He talks through Romans 9-11 about the plan of God to save Jews and Gentiles and to unite them in one person. And he gets to the end thinking about how God is going to use the salvation of Gentiles to make Israel jealous so that they too might believe in Jesus their Messiah." And he says, oh, the wisdom and the inscrutable plan of God. He says, what's printed on the very front of our bulletin in Romans 11, 36, for from Him, through Him, And to Him are all things, to Him be glory forever. So he has these doxologies throughout the book. And he does that here as well. for the salvation that God provides is supposed to end in worship. It's supposed to end in praise. We are created for the glory of God. We talk about that, don't we, on our church. We are people who are saved by grace and yet created for God's glory. to the only wise God, be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Again, that is a, it is a strong statement of Christ's deity, that the glory of God is revealed and comes through Jesus Christ. The only God, the one and only God, be glory through Jesus Christ. his son and it ends with an amen. Verily it ends with a so be it as it were. And we add our amen to that. Amen. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.