December 24 Sermon: Now Disclosed

This week we explore three key themes: Disclosure (Jesus revealing God's story), Depth (the universal reach of the gospel), and Doxology (praising God for His saving work). We see how Paul emphasizes the importance of understanding and living in accordance with God's message.

Consider these questions as you listen to this week’s message from Romans 16:25-27:

1. How does the author's experience with puzzles relate to the concept of the disclosure of the Gospel message?

2. What significance does the author attribute to the depth of the Gospel message, particularly in its outreach to different people groups?

3. How does the author emphasize the role of praise and worship in response to the message of salvation in the Gospel?

Transcript:

When I was younger, I was never a really big fan of puzzles. I think it came down to the fact that the easier puzzles were far too easy and not a challenge, and the harder ones didn't provide instant gratification, so I didn't have the patience for them. You get to a point with puzzles where you go from being able to complete them quickly and one sitting easily because the pieces are large and they're simple, and it seems like the next step in the puzzle evolution is having an entire table dedicated to it for weeks. Right, that's like really all there is, and of course there's exceptions, there are in-betweens, but that is kind of how puzzles go. Compared to the small puzzles we start out with as kids, a giant puzzle with, say, several thousands of pieces, takes a long time to assemble. It takes a long time for the whole picture to come together. Now, if you decide to do one of those puzzles, the first thing that you do is you probably prop up the box after you have all the pieces dumped out, right, so you know what the end result is going to be and you can also imagine where the pieces are in the image. When you look at it. This piece kind of looks like it goes here or there, and so as you're plotting out the puzzle, as you're doing the work, you're able to put them in particular spots, thinking that maybe that piece is going to go there. And knowing how the puzzle will look, knowing what the finished picture looks like, kind of takes the surprise out of the whole thing. Right, when we do a puzzle, it isn't a surprise what the picture is when we get done with it. But imagine if you were given the pieces of a puzzle and simply told that the puzzle is a mountain scene or a sunset over a lake, but you didn't have the precise image to work from. It would likely take you longer to put the puzzle together, but you certainly could achieve that goal of getting it together. As you place the pieces on the puzzle you would start to get a better idea of what the result was going to be. But you won't see the full picture until every last piece of the puzzle is in place.

The history of redemption is a bit like what I've described From the fall. It was revealed that a Redeemer would come. This promised Messiah would come and crush the head of the serpent. But the complete picture of the gospel didn't come into view until Christ ascended and sat down at the Father's right hand. Now, as we continue preparing for Christmas, on this final Sunday of Advent, we come to a text with Paul telling us that Jesus is in fact, the culmination of the story, and he's more than just the last piece of the puzzle. He is the masterpiece, the masterpiece promised back in the garden when our first parents plunged all of humanity into sin. This rebellion against God caused our need for redemption. It broke the picture of how God saw the world. It was broken into pieces. We were promised that the puzzle would be put back together, and we see that Jesus is more than just a piece of the puzzle. He is the fullness. He is the entire picture of the story of God redeeming a people for his own possession.

Now we have just a few verses that we're looking at today, but they're packed, so we're gonna break them down into three points before we set out on this journey into this text. And today our three points start with D. They're going to be Disclosure, depth and Doxology. So Disclosure, the story of redemption, has been disclosed to us. The Lord Jesus is the key to knowing the story of God, the story of redemption, his appearance and the revelation of God's Word to us lets us know this good news of the salvation that we have in the Lord Jesus. Secondly, depth the story of redemption is passed on to more than just one people group. It's a message for more than just the Hebrew people. The message of salvation is deeper and wider than we can possibly imagine. Through the work of Jesus, the people of God are now a people from every tribe, every tongue and every nation. And finally, doxology the story of redemption passed through one people group, but it's a message for more than just the Hebrew people. The message then causes great joy. The disclosure of this message, the depth of its reach, leads us to praise the one who has brought us to this amazing saving faith in Jesus. So we start out by looking at Romans 16, 25 through 26 today, and we need to think about where we're sitting in the book of Romans here. These are the final three verses of this book.

This book of Romans is an amazing treatise by the Apostle Paul on the gospel, and he set out in this book to make his case that humanity is separated from God, and it isn't just the worst of sinners, it isn't just the Gentiles, it's the Hebrew people too, both Gentile and Hebrew folk, are alienated from God and need to be reconciled to him. Paul tells us that none are righteous, not even one. And he sets out to tell us how this righteousness of God, from God, has been revealed to us, righteousness received by faith, as a gift from God. And he then calls his readers to present themselves as living sacrifices. This is their spiritual act of worship to God, this God who has saved this people for himself. And as the letter closes up here, we see this statement of praise in verses 25 through 27. And it's a culmination of all of these facts, of the saving work of God for his people. And so, in this summary statement, paul tells us that God is the one who strengthens his people, and this is a powerful statement.

Our assumption is automatically going to gravitate to human strengthening, that we need to be the ones who do this. You know, we're prone to think that this information from the book of Romans is powerful information. And now that we know the story of salvation, the rest is up to us. And that just makes sense with the way we think. That's the way knowledge generally works we get information and then we do something with that information to help ourselves. I learned something very important from GI Joe cartoons. At the end of every one they said knowing is half the battle. And that's how we see things right that we have to have knowledge, but then we have to do something. That's just the way the world generally works. We see knowledge as the fuel for us getting to our destination. Knowledge is what helps us achieve our goals. That's how we generally view knowledge, and indeed Paul would say that there is something that you and I do. We turn to Christ in repentance and faith and we live in obedience to the law of God, striving for holiness.

But Paul makes it clear that God does the work of salvation and, as he does the work of sanctification in us as well. He tells us here that God is able to strengthen us for this task. He is doing a good work in his people and in saying this, paul makes an interesting statement about the message that he's delivered in the book of Romans. He calls it my gospel. Now, clearly, paul isn't saying he made it up. That's not what this statement is. What he's making clear is that the message that he's been driving home in this letter to the church in Rome is that this is the message of God, and the gospel that he is proclaiming is God's message of salvation, and this is displayed in what he says at the end of this verse. It's the proclamation of Christ and it aligns with what was revealed in all of the Scriptures. But notice what he calls it here. He says that it was a mystery kept secret, and Paul is helping us to see that.

This is the story of Scripture. It was pointed to in the past in types, in shadows, in prophetic words. The people of the Old Testament. They were looking forward to it, they were expecting it, but they couldn't see it fully, they couldn't understand it in its fullness. What they needed was the revelation of Jesus Christ, and this is a theme that we see in other parts of the New Testament as well.

The idea is that all of this was pointed to in the past and maybe, like the past week, it was kind of foggy, but now, because of Jesus, it has come clear, because the fullness of time is upon us. In Jesus, the puzzle pieces have come together and now we are able to see how the pieces of the story, even the ones that don't seem to fit very well, suddenly we understand why they're there. They're an essential part of the whole picture of the story of redemption. And this is the great truth that the Gospel has been disclosed to the people of God. It has been made known to us. It was foggy, the puzzle pieces were scattered in the past, but in Jesus it's come together for us. It has been disclosed and revealed to us and we are able to see it now in its fullness. And as we celebrate Christmas, we are reminded how the story has come to us through the ages. And we are blessed to have heard, and even more blessed to have been given the gift of faith, by the working of the Holy Spirit in us, to believe this good news.

You know, we quickly become used to stuff that is in front of our faces all the time, don't we? And the Gospel is in front of us all the time. We have the knowledge of it, we know it, we know the beauty of the miracle of the incarnation. But may the disclosure and the truth of this mystery reveal to us in Christ, awaken in us joy for the message of Christmas this year. What those in the Old Covenant saw in mystery, through types and shadows and prophetic words, we are able to see in fullness. And that fullness shows us the beauty of the grace and mercy that God has bestowed on us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we have seen the disclosure of this true message of the salvation in the Gospel.

And so now let's move on to our second D. Let's consider the depth of this message in Christ. Now, the Gospel is amazing, and when we look at Scripture and how it discloses this message to us, we see the message of how deep it is in what it does for us. The work of Jesus fulfills all that is needed for a people who've been separated from God by sin, and it reconciles us to God. And the depth of what God has done for us as individuals is staggering when we consider what separates us from God. We're creatures of the dust who have rebelled against our holy Creator, and yet through this child that we celebrate being born in the manger, we are reconciled to Him. What an amazing story of how, in His mercy, god reaches down to us and he brings us to Himself. And we can only ever partially plumb the depths of this truth. We know and we experience it, but we can never fully understand the depth of the chasm that was crossed for God to save us. But that is not the depth I want us to talk about this morning.

One of the great truths that comes through in the book of Romans is the fact that the message of salvation is not only for the Jews but for the Jews, that the message of salvation is the message of salvation but for the Gentiles as well. And we don't really grasp how substantial this idea is because we don't live in that world, we don't live in that time. But in the ancient world the assorted people groups have all their regional gods. That was just the way the world was. But the Hebrew people worship the God, who is the creator of heaven and earth, and there were no other gods beside Him. There were not to make any images of Him or of any of the other false gods, and they were to speak the name of this God with reverence because he was that holy, and they were to also rest and worship Him on the seventh day, because that was the day that he rested from the labor of creation and it was to be a holy day, a set-apart day, for this God. Now I know you caught what I just did. I just gave you the first table of the law right, the first four commandments, remember. Those show us how God is different. Those commandments remind us that the God of the Hebrew people is different. He's set-apart, he spoke and created. He is all-powerful.

The Hebrew people receive revelation from this God about who he is and about why the world is in the state that it's in. It's broken because of sin and rebellion. But they also received the most important part of the message from God His plan, his plan to restore His creation that was broken in sin. And so we see, then, that the reason this story is revealed to the Jewish people is because the one who is going to come from their family line down through the ages is going to be of the line from Shem or well, no, sorry, from Seth then to Noah, then to Shem, and then through Judah or Abraham Isaac, jacob, noah. We've already been there. What is wrong with me this morning? Should I just start over? But it eventually comes to David and the one who is going to come from him.

This is the story of the Hebrew people. This is why God revealed Himself to the Jewish people, because it was through them that the message of salvation would come and the one who would do the saving would come, and the book of Romans tells us that there's no difference anymore between Jew and Gentile. Because of Christ, the Gentiles were unclean. The Hebrew people were to be set apart because they were the ones with this message, with this family line, they were the ones who were to be clean. But the book of Romans tells us that there's no longer any distinction.

Jesus came to reconcile not only those of Jewish ethnicity but all people. And throughout the whole book of Romans this comes up again and again. And in verse 26, we see it expressed to us when Paul says it's been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God. And so the message of salvation in Christ goes out into the whole world, not just one ethnic group, but all of those who are descended from Adam, which is every person who has ever taken a breath. And Paul says in Adam all died, but in Christ all are made alive. And so the mystery of the Gospel, this message disclosed to us in Christ. It has depth because it brings people from every tribe, every tongue, every nation into the family of God. No longer just one people group with the message, but the message goes to every people group. Instead, we are defined not by our ethnicity, but we are defined by the fact that we are united to Christ, and so we're united to one another. We have salvation, and so we are brothers and sisters, we are family in Jesus. That is a part of the depth of the Gospel message that Paul is bringing out for us here, and he also says that this calls these people to the obedience of faith.

The striving for holiness, the living according to God's law, is the obedience of faith. It comes about not because one group of people was given the law, but because we see the salvation that we have in Jesus and we desire to be holy and set apart, because the God who saved us is holy. It's an obedience that understands the great gift of the faith that we have in Christ, and so it changes how we view God, it changes how we view the world, it changes how we view ourselves. It's an obedience that desires to be holy because God has called us to be so. So there's great depth in our salvation, and so we move on to our last D. That we see in verse 7 and throughout this entire passage, and that's our final point of dexology. We praise God, we worship Him with our voices and with our lives, because we're His people. As I just said, our understanding of this message leads us to obedience, but it also causes us to praise God. Our lifting up of the holy name of God flows out from our salvation.

As you've heard me say on so many occasions, god is holy, he is majestic, he is powerful. He is worthy of praise for those things. But the main reason that God is worthy of praise is because he is merciful, because he has brought us creatures who rebelled against Him back to Himself. That is His most astounding attribute and that makes Him worthy of our praise. God could have justly left us in our sin and rebellion. He could have done away with humanity all the way back in the garden and just started over, tried again. But instead, in His sovereignty, he set forth a plan to bring us back the creatures that turned from Him in the garden.

Well, we've sinned every day since the fall. We sin in countless measure, but yet God has shown mercy, and it was costly mercy To redeem His people from sin. God did not magically wave His hand and say, ah, forget about it, like a parent who doesn't want the responsibility of disciplining their child. That's not what God did. It cost a lot and the reason is that our sin is an offense against His holiness and that offense needs to be paid for. And it needs to be paid in our flesh because it's us. It is humans who rebelled against our Creator. And the good news is that it is costly.

Salvation is done for us in our flesh and that's the reason that God, the Son, left the glory of heaven to come here and suffer for His people. And this is why we celebrate Christmas, because God took on our flesh to save us from our sin. Now, I spoke a few moments ago about the distance of the chasm between God and us and because of our sin, we can't even begin to comprehend it. But God knew and he crossed it anyway, coming into His creation in a lowly manger to a life of suffering. And we struggle to get it.

And the world might think that this idea of God taking on human flesh to suffer for His people the world thinks it's foolish. But it's the wisdom of God, it is the means by which we are saved. It is the wisdom of God to the power of salvation for us. This is why we proclaim Christ and Him crucified, because it is our only hope and because of what he's done he is to be glorified forever and ever more. So as we prepare for our celebration of Christmas tomorrow, we fix our eyes upon this glory of God. His glory manifests to us in the salvation of His people, and Christmas shows us this good news. So may you and I truly have hearts of praise amid all the other things happening around us at the Christmas season. May we be able to focus on the child who took on human flesh in the manger.

Now I've had so many conversations with people I'm guessing you have as well about Christmas sneaking up on us this year, probably because we couldn't see it through the fog. That's my last fog joke today, I promise, but people are attributing this fact of Christmas sneaking up on them when I have conversations with them on the fact that the weather is good and good grief, the grass is getting greener. Some other people have said maybe it's because I'm doing more of my shopping online and I'm not shoulder to shoulder with people in stores. Whatever the reason, the feeling seems to be pretty unanimous in all of these conversations that it doesn't feel like Christmas for most folks. So here we sit on Christmas Eve, the final Sunday in Advent.

May the message of Paul here resonate with us. May it remind us that God has disclosed the message of salvation to us. May we comprehend the depth of this message, that this brings us outsiders, us Gentiles, into the family of God. And may we have doxology, may we have praise for who God is and what he has done. So, as we celebrate our Lord and Savior taking on human flesh, may we not only praise God, but may the Holy Spirit also bring about in us what Paul says here the obedience of faith. May the glory of what God has done for us push us towards holy living. That God might be glorified in our lives. Amen. Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God. We praise you for the gift of your Word. We thank you that it discloses to us the depth of the salvation that we have in you, and we pray, lord, that you would cause us to praise you not only with the words that come out of our mouths, but with the lives we live to your glory. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray, amen.