Advent Series: Secret Revealed (Rom 16:25-27)

Snippet of sermon by Rev Tan-Yeo Lay Suan

This morning this last paragraph in our text is a doxology. The word “doxology” comes from two Greek words: “doxa” which means glory and “logos” which means word. A doxology is a word of glory. Paul wants to wrap up his letter by offering up a word of glory to God and not to himself. To glorify something is to draw attention to it or to shine the light on the wonder of something. He shines a spotlight on God and the gospel.

How does God get glorified? How Does God Seek His Glory? First, I want you to notice how God goes about getting glory. Many Rulers Have Other Ideas About Getting Glory. Many have sought it through their power, riches, wisdom, and influence. They have done so at the expense of others. They do it by keeping their people poor, uneducated, and powerless. Many attempt to gain power, influence, glory by keeping others just a bit beneath them and they will use anything to do it: race, gender, politics, wealth, health, where you live or even what kind of car you drive

There are an infinite number of good ways Paul could have given glory to God. He could have listed the attributes of God. Yet here at the end of the letter to the Romans, he decided to takes a different tack.

·       Paul writes that God seeks His glory by making His children strong! He is able to establish you in accordance with the gospel, Isn't that great?! God plans, purposes, and commits all the resources of heaven itself and the holy Trinity to make His children strong in the faith. . But when Paul speaks of our being established, he means putting us on solid, stable ground so that nothing gets to you, or shakes you up, or throws you off balance.

Reflection Question:

·       What usually shakes you up and throws you off balance in your Christian faith and witness? Have you ever had the desire to be established?

·       How may you allow God’s dynamite to work in your life?

This is the goal of all Christian teaching in the New Testament (and especially the goal of the letter to the Romans) that we believers might be brought to that place of security where we are not shaken by things. God seeks His glory by making His people strong. Interestingly, Paul uses the word “dynamite” describing vividly the sort of power that we are connected to when we trusted in the gospel.

It is God himself who is responsible for this through the dynamite of His power. God did that with Abraham, who was an idol worshiper. Abraham could not tell the truth about his wife. He was always lying about her because he thought that would save him from difficulty. He had various character faults but God stabilized him, established him, and brought him to a place where he became one of the great names of all time. God did this with Moses and David and, of course, with Paul himself. God broke him, softened him, changed him and put him through circumstances that Paul did not understand at the time. This finally established him, so that no matter what came, he remained strong, steady, trusting and certain. That is the great good news of this letter. "Now to him who is able to establish you..."

·       God is glorified by creating in believer's hearts that desire to obey Him (v 27)

This gospel has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith. This is the goal of our faith: to bring glory to God by obeying Him from faith. Real faith in Jesus Christ produces obedience and obedient lives make God look glorious. That's what Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Here's the purpose of God strengthening us. To make us obedient by giving us hearts that believe He is worthy of our allegiance. By His word and the present help of His Spirit we now can obey Him.  When we get saved we're not only acquitted by grace we are also transformed by grace. Grace not only forgives us it changes our hearts. It changes what we value, cherish, prize and treasure up in our hearts. This is the word of God's promise in Ezekiel. He says,

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you and I will remove the heart of stone (hard and unresponsive) and give you a heart of flesh ( living and pliable) I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues and you will be careful to observe My ordinances." The reality of justifying faith is made manifest through the changes God has made in us in Christ.

Reflection Questions:

·       Have you glorified God through the obedience that comes from faith, confidence and trust in Him? How can you begin to obey more consistently? Which area should you begin with?

 ·       The third way God is glorified here is when all nations believe and obey him through the faithful proclamation/revelation of the secret that has been concealed for a long time.

You can hear echoes of chapter one, where Paul said that he was "set apart for the gospel which He promised beforehand through the revelation of His prophets in the Scriptures concerning His Son Jesus.”  This gospel did not begin with the coming of Jesus. It had its origins in the promise of God or command of God in eternity past. God promised the coming of Jesus as early as Gen.3:15 when God told Eve that a child of a woman would prevail over the enemy of our souls. He said, the serpent will "bruise His heal but He will crush his head."

Illustration: Have you played the game Reversi before? Reversi (also marketed by Pressman under the trade name Othello) is a board game involving abstract strategy and played by two players on a board with 8 rows and 8 columns and a set of distinct pieces for each side. Pieces typically are disks with a light and a dark face, each face belonging to one player. The player's goal is to have a majority of their colored pieces showing at the end of the game, turning over as many of their opponent's pieces as possible. The player with the most pieces on the board at the end of the game wins.

Imagine the world is the Reversi board. It appears that God’s world is going to be completely reversed, the dark pieces overcoming the light pieces. That’s how some of us are thinking that perhaps God has gone on tea-break leaving the world to drive itself to the ground. But the doxology lifts our heart upwards to sound the fact that the game is not over. Adam and Eve had made the wrong move but it will not ruin God’s plan forever. When we read the Old Testament you find men and women puzzled as to how God was going to put together all its great promises and themes. There is the promise of the restoration of Israel. There is the promise of the forgiveness of an individual's sins. There is the mighty promise of the healing of the nations and the cessation of war. Then it began to unfold. Jesus came. He was the secret. He would be the one who would bring to pass all the tremendous promises and themes of the Old Testament. That is what Paul means when he says that the mystery was "hidden for long ages past, but now revealed."

 And these promises are for ALL nations not just Israel. It’s not an “Ang Moh” faith. The secret that needs to be revealed is that the gospel promises are meant for all who believe in Jesus for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That is the mystery, the secret that we must begin to share.  Paul in his doxology reveals that God intends to add to his battle strategy, all the other nations and races. He intends to unite both Jews and Gentiles into one body. All that God is, wrapped up in a Person and given to you and to me -- the only hope we have of ever discovering the glory that God intended for us as human beings: Christ in you, the hope of glory. The subversive element is planted in each person when they respond to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the radical, powerful secret of authentic Christianity: Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Reflection Questions

·       Do you know that mystery? Do you know it, not only in your mind, but do you live it? Picture our lives as a reverse game board. What would it look like? The Holy Spirit works in us to establish us, turning our sinful selves on their heads.

·       Are you actively cooperating with the Spirit in obedience to the gospel, living out the change that Jesus has been sent into the world to effect? It is the knowledge of it and the living of it that turns Christianity into an exciting adventure. It may be demanding, it may even be scary, but I can guarantee you one thing: It will never be boring, because the mystery is at work.

·       God is glorified when all the Gentiles come to the obedience that comes from faith in the gospel. There is this global, cosmic aspect that will bring the glory of God to a crescendo. The present creation, which began at the beginning of the heavens and the earth, has long since grown old and is passing away. But gradually through the centuries God has been building up a new generation, a new race of beings, a new kind of man which the world has never seen before---better even than Adam. But he has had a goal and a purpose in mind that he intends to fulfill, and the instrument by which he is doing it is the Church. This is something we can never fully grasp, but it involves the education of the whole universe.  

Reflection Question

·       What can you do to be part of this new race that can be involved in the education of the whole universe about the ways of God?

CONCLUSION

Do not lose sight of what God is doing. The world cannot see it. It has no idea what is taking place. But you know, and you can see it, so do not lose heart.