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Romans 9-16

Life Together in Romans 16

Keaton Washburn · Sunday, 30 November 2025 · Romans 15:14-16:27 · 37:31 · 5,652 words

Romans S32 · 15:14-16:27 Goodrich

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What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

greet 28 fellowship 26 aquila 8 bond 7 connection 8 friend 15 innocent 8 teacher 9 movie 9 together 23 friendly 4 grateful 8

Topics

The Gospel 2 Faith 2 The Holy Spirit 1 Obedience 1 Sin 1

Scripture referenced 33

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 16 3:36 Romans 16 4:58 Romans 16 5:06 Romans 16:1-2 5:08 Romans 16 5:17 Romans 16:1-2 5:31 Romans 16:3 6:35 Romans 16:5 6:35 Acts 18:26 7:44 Acts 18:26 7:52 Romans 16:3 8:43 Romans 16:5 9:02 Romans 16:5 9:02 Romans 16:5 9:29 Romans 16:6-14 9:54 Romans 16:6-14 10:54 Romans 16:15 11:46 Romans 16:21 12:33 Romans 16:21 12:38 Romans 16:22 13:06 Galatians 3:28 14:19 1 John 1:3 16:15 Romans 16 17:29 Proverbs 18:24 19:05 Romans 16:17 22:00 Romans 16:19 25:39 Matthew 10:16 27:04 Romans 14 28:46 Romans 16:20 29:41 Romans 16:24-27 31:13 Romans 1:16 32:54 Romans 3:23 34:41 Romans 10:9 36:12

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 7 lines, 0:35. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hi everyone, my name is Jules, and thanks for checking out one of our sermons today.

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You can also visit our website at theriverchurch.cc to learn more about us and what we have going on as a church.

Thanks again for joining us, and we hope that you are blessed by today's message.

Great to see all you that brave the snow.

If you're joining us online, thanks for being part of our gathering that way as well.

There are some days where we're especially grateful for the technology, for all those that are serving to make it happen.

And today's one of those days.

If I haven't met you yet, I'm Keaton. I'm the pastor of students and young adults here.

I have the privilege of opening God's Word with you this morning.

Rumor has it Josh is still in a food coma from Thanksgiving.

So he asked me to be here and to teach.

No, he's doing fine as far as I've heard.

I haven't heard from him.

A couple of days.

So can't confirm or deny that actually.

But grateful just to be together as we are going to conclude our series in the book of Romans as it's been a couple of months now.

I hope that you've been enjoying it, learning from it.

Let me pray this morning, and then we'll dive in.

Lord, just so grateful today that we get to be together.

Thank you for this church family, this church body.

Lord, who is on mission for you, who loves you.

Lord, I just pray that as we open your Word that you would teach us, that your Holy Spirit would work in our hearts.

Just illuminate the words of Scripture.

Lord, that we would walk out of here more convinced of who you are and what you're doing, but also who you've called us to be as individuals, but even greater than that as a church family and as a church body.

Lord, we give this time to you.

We pray all this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

So growing up, my family had a tradition that kind of had a love-hate relationship with.

We went to the movies a lot, which is ironic because if you know anything about me, I don't really know movies.

I haven't seen most movies, but we would go to the movie theaters a lot.

And the movie finishes up, and we were always those people that waited until the very end of the credits.

Like, the movie theater workers would be standing there waiting for us to get out of there to clean the theater, and yet we're still there.

I think my parents' hope was that there would be like an extra scene, a deleted scene at the end or something like that.

There was one time, a couple of years there, where I had a cousin that actually worked for Pixar.

And so as the names are scrolling, I did get to see his name.

But other than that, I was every time, I just remember being...

So frustrated by it.

It's like, why are we here for the credits?

The movie's done.

Why are we watching this?

I think there was also something in my parents that were like, all the people that worked hard to make this happen, we can wait an extra two minutes to see their names scroll across the screen.

So I don't know if you're one of those families or not.

I don't know if you're one of those people that gets out of there as soon as it's over or you stay the whole time.

The thing is, though, the reality of that movie that I was thinking through that is that that movie doesn't happen without the credits.

Without every single person that brought it to life, we don't have that movie or it looks a lot differently than it does.

And so this morning, we're going to be wrapping up.

We're going to take Romans, the book of Romans, to the very end.

Romans chapter 16 is where we're going to be.

It's really, if you're familiar with it, it's kind of like the credits in some ways.

It's a lot of names.

So we're going to have some fun reading those.

But it's Paul sending his greetings to people, thanking them for the role that they've played in his ministry.

And the thing is that...

The thing is that the Christian life is not one of lone rangers.

Paul was not a lone ranger, but it's a group of people all working together for the purposes of God.

The thing is, though, that many of us come to church on Sunday mornings.

You listen to sermons.

Maybe you serve a little.

But if we're honest, I think a lot of us feel strangely alone in this life.

We live in a time of busyness, of crowded calendars and shallow conversations

where people seem to be more concerned about sometimes followers or friends.

Or friend counts or likes or whatever that might be, instead of real friendship, true friendship.

You know, and if God designed the Christian life to be like this network of family of believers

that are truly tied together, costly, joyful relationships,

what happens to our souls and our relationships when we try to follow Jesus mostly on our own?

And so as we wrap up this series, as we look at Romans chapter 16,

Paul, this is what Paul's teaching on.

This is what I believe he shows us.

So let's dive in.

Romans chapter 16.

We'll read verses 1 and 2 to start.

Keep working our way through it from there.

But Romans chapter 16, as I said, Romans, though we have it in our Bible, we call it a book.

It's really a letter.

And any good letter is filled with greetings.

And that's what Paul is doing here.

So let's read Romans chapter 16, verses 1 and 2.

Paul says,

So Paul begins here the greetings.

He says,

I commend to you, Phoebe.

So what we believe, what the commentators believe is that she was the one that actually delivered the letter to the church in Rome.

And so Paul's beginning his greetings by saying,

Hey, the woman that brought you this letter, like I back her.

I commend her to you.

I speak highly of her.

Would you welcome her?

He calls her a couple of things.

He calls her his sister.

Not a biological sister, but in the Lord, but also a servant of the church.

We believe that if she had the means to go to Rome to take the letter, she was probably a well-off woman who had the, you know, who was able to do something of this, who could afford it.

But that didn't stop her from being a servant of those around her.

Let's keep reading in verse 3 down through verse 5.

A couple more greetings.

Paul says,

So the second group of people we meet here are Prisca and Aquila, a husband and wife team.

We know that Aquila, the husband, was a tent maker like Paul.

We don't know this from the scriptures, but as we piece things together, both being tent makers and both being men,

they probably met in the synagogue in Ephesus, Paul and Aquila.

This is in the synagogues.

They would sit, men and women, on opposite sides.

And the men would also sit according to their trade.

And so Aquila and Paul probably made some sort of connection there, over there.

And yet he and his wife have now become supporters of Paul, but not just, even more than that,

just important people in the ministry of the Lord here.

Acts chapter 18, verse 26, tells us of a young creature, a young man in Ephesus named Apollos.

And Acts 18, 26 says that,

But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

And so they saw this young preacher that was passionate, but he didn't quite know what he was saying.

I don't know if he said something that was a little wrong or they could tell he was immature,

but Priscilla and Aquila, or Prisca and Aquila, we can use them pretty interchangeably here,

they took him aside and they taught him as more mature believers in the Lord.

And as I think of that, you know, there's people in this church that I'm,

I'm so grateful for, that I'm still young, but when I was younger, have taken me aside in my time

and have said, hey, you said this, or can I help you in this, or I noticed this.

I mean, this is the body of Christ working together, and I'm so grateful for that.

But we also see in verse 3 here that Prisca and Aquila, they risked their lives for Paul.

We don't know exactly what they did for him, but Paul says it was wide known.

Even the Gentiles knew many of their Christians were grateful for their house,

or grateful for them and what they did.

But also we see here that there's a, Paul says verse 5, beginning of verse 5,

greet also the church in their house.

And so these people, this husband and wife, started a church in their home, which is fairly common.

We don't, the first church building really wasn't recording until 200 or 300 years after the time of Jesus.

And so this is the way of the churches back then.

And so we greet, he greets them.

And then at the end of verse 5, Paul says,

So we, this man, first to know the Lord, but this first convert here, this word is really like the first fruits.

Paul's writing saying, hey, I know he's the first, but I know the Lord is going to replicate that.

There's going to be many more followers of Jesus that are going to come from Asia here.

So we're going to read through a couple names in a row here down verses 6 through 14.

Paul says,

They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.

Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Statius.

Greet Apellas, who is approved in Christ.

Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus.

Greet my kinsmen Herodian.

Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.

Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphenaia and Tryphosa.

Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.

Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, also his mother,

who has been a mother to me as well.

Greet Asynchrotus, Phlygon, Hermes, Petrobus, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.

Those are some names, aren't they?

I was practicing those all week.

But either way, verses 6 through 14, Paul keeps rolling through these names, these greetings.

All these are real people.

We kind of group them together of hardworking women in the Lord.

We have some brothers and sisters who have suffered and been tested for Christ

He says beloved friends, co-workers that he treasures, believers from powerful households.

Aristobulus and Narcissus, those were descendants of Herod and the kings, the leaders at this time.

Some rich, well-off, powerful people there.

We also meet a man named Rufus and his mom.

Paul says he became like a mother to him.

They're not biological siblings here, but there was something that Rufus' mom did that meant a lot to Paul.

She was like a mother.

And then even an entire house full of unnamed brothers.

Brothers with them.

Keep working our way through here into verse 15.

Greet Philologus, Julia, Nerus, and his sister.

I guess Paul didn't know his sister's name or something.

I don't know.

It's not in here, but in Olympus and all the saints who are with them.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the churches of Christ greet you.

These might have been maybe members of another house church the way they're grouped together.

We don't entirely know for sure, but Paul concludes it with telling them to greet each other with a holy kiss.

It's really their version of a handshake or maybe a hug at this time.

There's nothing more to it.

He says he specifically calls it a holy kiss.

It's a greeting there for them.

And let's jump down to verse 21.

There's a couple more people, a couple more greetings here that Paul gives.

Verse 21, he says,

It's a couple more people, some more greetings that he's sending here.

But he says something interesting that maybe you caught in verse 22.

It says that Tertius wrote this letter.

So this is from Paul.

Tertius was like the scribe or maybe the stenographer, the secretary that wrote it for Paul.

Maybe Paul wrote, you know, little portions of the ending right here.

This, greetings.

Paul, from one person to another, made it through the list of names here.

But one of the big things we see, you might just read through this.

Maybe you've read through like genealogies before and you're like, I don't know what this has to do with anything.

Like, why are we spending our time on this?

Well, there's deep meaning.

We could go deep into the connections of each person.

We won't do that today.

But one of the things we see right off the bat is that Paul did not do ministry alone.

He wasn't a lone ranger.

He definitely wasn't a loner by any means.

You know, what do all these people have in common?

It's their connection to Paul.

But even more than that, it's their union with Christ, their connection with Jesus Christ.

Galatians chapter 3, verse 28 says,

There is neither slave nor free.

There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This list is filled with diverse names, each representing people that are united

bonded and tied to one another by Jesus Christ.

We read of nine women, 17 men.

Three of these people in this list are definitely Jewish.

The rest we're not sure about, but are probably Gentiles.

Two thirds of them have some sort of slave origin within their family.

But at the same time, we have multiple families of powerful world leaders.

We have the rich and the poor.

But almost with almost every person, not quite, but 10 times throughout this section, Paul,

uses phrases like in the Lord, in Christ, in Jesus.

This is what they have in common.

They were part of something that was greater than themselves.

There's this word that we see about 20 times throughout the New Testament that I think

describes this really well.

In the original Greek, it's this word, it's koinonia.

And what it means, I think the best, some of the ways we can describe it, it's like

community, it's fellowship, it's this idea of participation.

Not just active, but active.

It's what believers have with one another because of Jesus Christ.

Some people will say it's community, but I think it's more than that.

Because a community can just be people you have something loosely in common with, but

this is this fellowship that believers have with one another.

It's a bond.

1 John chapter 1, verse 3, John writes, he says,

That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship

with us.

And indeed, our fellowship is with you.

Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

This is the word koinonia.

It's used right here.

So it's fellowship with believers, one believer to another.

But even more than that, it's also fellowship, participation, being connected to the Lord

in heaven, the Father, but also his Son, Jesus Christ.

I think that the best way that we can just boil it down to keep it simple is the best

word for this that we're going to use throughout the sermon is fellowship.

I said it's fellowship.

It's more than a community, more than a partnership.

It's more than participation.

It's all of these together.

I think Christians sometimes throw around the word fellowship.

We're like, oh, Lord, bless our fellowship as we're just like hanging out together.

And there's an aspect of that, but there's a much deeper meaning, a much deeper connection

that we see here all throughout these verses.

There's a couple of things I want to point out.

The nature of this fellowship in Romans chapter 16, if we tie it all together in the first

16 verses here.

We see that this fellowship that believers have with one another and also with the Lord

It's a family.

Paul says brothers and sisters.

He says, Rufus, your mother, who's a mother to me as well.

He calls them his beloved, the ones he loves so dearly.

We also see the nature of fellowship and that it's made up of ordinary people.

The letter of Romans, though it's so deep and rich theologically, was written to everyday

ordinary people.

It wasn't written to theologians.

Or pastors, but everyday Christians.

And the third thing that we see about their fellowship with one another is that there

was a shared, important gospel work they were all involved in.

They were on mission together with one another.

Paul, he didn't do ministry alone and neither can Christians today live a solo Christian

We tend to think that dropping into church on Sunday morning and getting out and reading

our Bible here and there is all we need.

You're missing out.

And God has more for you than that.

Proverbs 18, 24, the new King James says this, a man who has friends must himself be friendly.

There's a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Connection, this partnership, if you want friends and you want family and fellow believers

in Christ, but really practical from what the proverb says, you got to be friendly.

One of the best pictures that I think of this and what this koinonia, this fellowship looks

like is student camp as a student pastor.

One of my favorite things that we do is winter camp and summer camp.

If you've ever been as a leader with us or you're a student sitting in here, you know

that the bonds that you make with one another, the time you spend at three in the morning

in your cabin where you're supposed to be sleeping, but you're up late, those bonds

stick with you.

You know, but at student camp, you worship together, you compete together, we eat together,

we dream together, we pray together, we study God's word together.

And this is what the Lord has in store.

I think it's just, this is just a glimpse of it.

It's one of those things that the students do so well that I'm so grateful for in so

many ways, you know, and they can attest that if you're not friendly camp, you're not, if

you're trying to come to camp as a loner, it's going to be pretty lonely.

So I'd ask you this morning, are you friendly?

Do you have Christian friends?

Are you just expect others to come up to you?

Maybe you'd say, I have friends, but they're not Christians.

You know, we're united.

We're united by our hunting or the things we like to do together or mutual friends or

maybe our kids are in classes together or the shows you watch.

I don't, I don't know what it is for you, but do you have friends that share this deep

bond that you have in Christ to one another?

Those friends that'll call you out.

Maybe you're running from some sin in your life or those friends who know when you're

struggling and have a kind word or text you a scripture, friends that'll give you a kick

in the pants.

When you need it, we all need people like that.

You have friends, fellow believers in Christ.

So I hope you've seen the need and also a picture of the nature of our fellowship here,

but there's a couple of results of being in fellowship that we see in the following verses.

Let's pick it up in verse 17.

Paul writes, I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create

obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you've been taught.

Avoid them.

For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites and by smooth talk

and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.

I don't know if you're anything like me, but I read this and I'm like, wait, Paul was wrapping

up the letter.

He just was giving all these greetings.

What is this section doing here?

I don't, I don't know exactly what's going through Paul's mind.

I think that maybe speaking of the holy kiss, he's thinking of unity and then things that

can separate them.

Maybe I was, I think maybe this is kind of like a Holy Spirit inspired rabbit trail that

he's like in his mind.

He's like, oh, hold on.

I got to say one more thing.

I just, I thought of this.

He's a little.

You know, just all over the place.

He, he warns them.

He says, I appeal to you to watch out.

Look out for those that are teaching contrary to the doctrine that you've been taught.

He says, look out for false teachers.

Look out for those who will distort the message, who will just add a little bit onto the gospel.

But he says specifically here, the doctrine that you have been, to be able to separate

false teaching from true teaching, you have to know what's true.

You have to have spent time in God's word, to have spent time.

With other believers that know the scriptures better than you.

You got to be able to distinguish those two.

You got to know the source here.

And he really gives four traits of false teachers to watch out for.

He says they cause division.

They create obstacles.

They serve their own appetites.

It's really kind of better translated their bellies.

Like they worship their bellies.

It's not that they're like overeating necessarily.

I don't think that's what he's implying here.

Maybe, but more than anything, it's probably the Judaizers who taught that salvation comes

from Jesus.

Jesus and by doing certain things.

You have to do this and you got to avoid certain foods in order to follow Jesus, which is not

true at all by faith alone and grace alone that were saved based on the scriptures alone

here.

And the fourth thing that the false, that false teachers do is they deceive people by

their smooth talk and their flattery.

If I'm honest, social media preachers freak me out.

Like the people that have the really good TikToks or the Instagram reels or the Facebook

They're quick and they're witty and they're good looking.

People really scare me.

I wonder, do they have older believers around them or are they just smooth talkers?

Are they being deceived?

I'm not trying to say it's wrong, but I would just say be careful.

One of the things that is so important in teachers, any sort of biblical teacher, any pastor,

any leader is what we always do look for.

We see throughout scripture is it's character over competence.

Just because someone can talk smoothly doesn't mean they're not good at it.

It doesn't mean that it's from the Lord.

So the people that you're listening to, the teachers you're listening to, do you know

that they're a person of character?

Do they have elders and leaders around them that are instructing them in the Lord?

But what do we do with false teachers?

Paul says, avoid them.

And in verse 19, it says,

Your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you.

But I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Makes it clear to the church in Rome that their obedience to the Lord is known.

Like people see, they stand out.

They look different because of what Christ has done.

They're living it out, not to earn it, but because of what Christ has done.

And he tells them, I love this phrase here.

It just stood out to me as I was studying.

It says, be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.

To be innocent is not to like put a bag over your head and walk around.

And walk into things.

It's not kind of the picture we get here.

But to be innocent as to what is evil.

It's this idea of something that's pure.

It's undiluted, unmixed, simple.

They used it oftentimes of wine that was not diluted.

Or a metal that wasn't weakened with another metal.

But it's pure, strong, innocent.

It's really echoing the words of Jesus.

Matthew chapter 10, verse 16.

Jesus says, behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

So be wise.

Be wise as serpents and innocence as doves.

So it's, again, not innocence, pulling a bag over your head or walking around with blinders.

But it's being innocent in combination with also being wise.

There's a true story of a man named Desmond Doss.

He was a World War II combat medic.

He was an avowed Christian.

And he was a conscientious objector of the war.

He refused to carry a weapon or kill.

Yet he was incredibly wise about what was good.

He understood the importance of saving lives on the battlefield.

And he acted courageously to do so, even under extreme danger.

His wisdom guided his actions toward the well-being of others.

But at the same time, as a combat medic, World War II, he was innocent as to what was evil.

He refused to harm anyone.

And he maintained his integrity despite pressure, ridicule.

But his pure motives and his stance on violence didn't prevent him from risking his life to rescue 75 wounded soldiers

and ultimately earning him the Medal of Honor.

Now, I'm not trying to say that war is wrong.

That's not the point this morning.

But for this man, he chose to not allow his innocence that I am not going to harm or kill.

That was his stance.

It could be a Romans 14, one of the gray areas that we talked about last week.

Didn't stop him from still going into battle, being on mission to carry out the task that he believed God had called him to,

ultimately earning him, as I said, the Medal of Honor here.

I don't know what that looks like for us.

What is it that God is calling you to be innocent?

To say, I'm not going to take part in this.

I'm not going to have this app on my phone, even though there's pressure to.

Or I'm not going to go out to this place with these people.

Or maybe it's the other way of, maybe you've been using that as an excuse to not step into something that God is calling you to do.

To still be wise, but yet to go where God has called you to be in the world, but not of it.

It's a call.

Verse 20 says,

God of peace, Paul writes, will soon crush Satan under your feet.

He says, hey, these false teachers are sent by Satan.

Their time is going to come because Satan's time is going to come soon.

They all are going to be crushed.

So the results of fellowship, what do we see here?

I think as we look at this, as we put this in tandem with the first couple of verses,

fellowship, this koinonia that believers have with one another,

fellowship looks like guarding one another against fellowship.

False teaching.

Having one another's backs.

Knowing what the truth is from God's word enough to distinguish what's true and what's not.

I would ask you, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ and you've been a follower of Jesus for any period of time,

do you have younger people in your life or younger believers that you are walking with,

that you can help them distinguish false teaching from true, solid, biblical teaching here?

But the other result of fellowship here is preserving this unity and obedience and holiness.

The obedience of the church in Rome stood out.

It was known to all.

And when we know that in the end the Lord is going to win, it changes our perspective now.

So let's wrap up the chapter with verses 24 through 27.

Catch my breath there.

That's a really long run-on sentence that Paul wraps up the whole letter with.

English teachers, grammar nerds, probably driving you crazy a little bit here.

Paul begins, he says,

Now to him.

Takes the last portion of the letter and he aims it to the Lord.

Says, let's fix our eyes on him, to him who is able.

And he recaps a bunch of themes that we've seen all throughout scripture.

Promised Messiah.

He says,

Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel.

When we think of gospel, we tend to simplify it to the good news.

But when he says my gospel, he's pointing to all the Romans.

He says all the effects of the gospel in your life.

All the benefits that we receive about it here.

One of the things that he harkens back on that I love that I came across in my study here is that

this is not a hymn who is able to strengthen you.

The root word is dynamis.

The same root word in Romans chapter 1 verse 16 that Paul says,

I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

For it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,

to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

The original readers would have caught the connection there.

They used to say, I began with God's power.

I'm going to end with God's power.

You say dynamis, it sounds a lot like dynamite.

Well, yeah, the inventor of dynamite knew that Greek word and wanted it to reflect this powerful,

this immense power here.

He says the gospel is for all nations, for all people here,

according to the command of the writing of God to bring about obedience.

The only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ.

To wrap this up, the source of our fellowship,

the reason we can have this connection, this bond with one another and the Lord is because of him.

And what he's done is Paul is setting their eyes on him.

He's remembering where it all came from.

Relationships stem from God and his relationship that we see even in the very beginning

from the Trinity within God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit

that has been for all time and will be.

And God's relationship with one another in the Trinity,

God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit is perfect.

But if we're honest, our relationships are far from perfect.

Whether it's on us, sometimes, sometimes on other people.

Well, it's because of the sin in our lives.

Romans 3.23 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short.

Every single person, nobody's measured up God's standard.

And the result of that, the wages of sin is death,

but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

To have fellowship with one another, we've got to leave that life of sin behind.

Jesus invites you to leave that sin in your past behind

and to step into the new life that he offers.

When Jesus came to this earth 2,000 years ago,

as we're about to begin celebrating this next month,

he lived a perfect life.

Perfect in every way, but yet they killed him on the cross.

After being dead for three days, he was raised to life.

He appeared to believers around him, a couple hundred people.

And now he went up to heaven, he ascended,

he's sitting at the right hand of God, the Father.

The scriptures tell us that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord

and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.

So if you've never made that decision, I invite you this morning, do that.

I invite you right here and right now,

no matter how messy your relationship was with the people around you,

no matter how messy your relationship was with the people around you,

no matter how messy your relationship is with the Lord,

you say, I'm way too far gone.

The scriptures are clear, Romans 10, 9.

Confess, believe, admit your sin that you will be saved.

You'll be invited into this fellowship, koinonia, this bond,

this family of believers.

And so because of the gospel, we don't follow Jesus alone.

And we belong to a family that works together,

watches out for each other, and worships God together.

So if you're a follower of Jesus, are you doing your part?

Are you involved?

Are you involved in the ministry?

Are you just a bystander?

Do you know the Bible well enough to know what's in it, what's not?

Do you make it a habit of being together with your church family,

week in and week out?

Do you have Christian friends?

Are you trying to do the Christian life?

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