Conclusion - 3 Preaching

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, (Romans 16:25)

Yesterday I started to unpack this verse but actually overlooked the first word. From the context it appears that Paul is signaling that he is beginning the conclusion of his letter, which is indeed what this is. In fact, it appears to me that this is the sum of everything that he has written condensed into one long sentence. That this is his concluding statement is signaled in this word now.

The object of this long sentence interestingly appears both at the beginning and at the end of it. This sentence goes from here all the way through verse 27. Here at the beginning the object of the sentence, which is later identified as God the Father, is presented as the one who is able. The word in Greek is very compelling much more than in English. It is very similar to the word from which we get our word dynamite. It denotes power as well as possibility. Following is the reason or target for this potential power which is identified as being us and our settling into a saving relationship with Him. This is contained in the root word for establish.

Everything after this until verse 27 are descriptors of how God goes about doing this in our lives. So everything we look at in the next couple verses reveals how God intends to settle us into the truth about Him and about reality. And the very first thing listed is that God intends to settle us into the truth according to the gospel as Paul viewed it.

For me this is very significant maybe more than for others. For I grew up with very confusing ideas about what the gospel was and I still struggle to unwrap just what it really refers to, though I have drastically updated much of what I used to assume. I can remember many times when a teacher would say that the word gospel meant “good news”, and in my mind I would wonder what was so good about anything I was hearing about God.

But in the past few years I have been led by the Spirit of God to challenge much of what I was taught growing up and to let go of many of the false assumptions about God I collected along the way. This was done by allowing myself to take a fresh look at the Word of God for myself using new “glasses” so to speak. Over and over God impressed me with new insights of what He was really like and how He felt about me. As my conceptions begin to align more closely with what I was being taught directly by the Spirit of God, the more alive and congruent and attractive the messages and instructions from inspired sources became for me.

What I see Paul saying here is that as I learn the real truth about God which is contained in the real gospel, I will experience the power of God drawing me deeper into that truth about Himself. And this leads me to the next point that he makes which is the preaching of Jesus Christ. For it is the revelation of God through the life and death of Jesus that reveals much more plainly how the Father feels about me than anything else. And it is through the sharing of the story of Jesus that humans become attracted to God in a way that nothing else can accomplish.

This is where I need to face yet another trigger word in my own experience. This word preaching for me has far too much unwanted baggage from a lifetime of dry, Christless sermons and hours of just filling up time to fulfill the demands of tradition in formal religious services. Most religions have long histories of assumed traditions of how to do worship and unfortunately, when the truth is finally exposed, it has to be admitted that we have actually come to value and even worship our routines more than we value God Himself. Of course we cannot admit such a thing openly as that would sound blasphemous; but the same problem existed in Jesus' day and indeed has been a problem all down through much of the history of the world.

Thus it is that preaching itself has taken on a mantle of “holiness” in the sense of the common assumptions of what that word means. Most churches today would be horrified and scandalized at the thought of not having a formal sermon each week. They would think that we had abandoned our devotion to God and there would be an outcry to restore the old traditions and re-institute the traditions of our fathers by placing the sermon at the center of our church service. Just think about this realistically for a little while yourself and ponder if what I am saying is true or not.

What has come to exist is that our routine, and particularly the exercise of preaching a sermon, has almost become the most important and hallowed exercise in all of Christianity. And yet if one carefully examines the record of the New Testament it is not preaching that is at the center of the gospel message. There is almost no record at all of Jesus preaching, especially in the sense that we think of it today. And even the sermons of Paul were quite likely not delivered in the way that preaching has become for most of us today. In fact, Paul himself referred to preaching as something he called foolishness. Does that not give us reason to pause and rethink our fierce defensive attitudes about how we conduct our own worship services?

And yet God continues to work with us where we are in the midst of our prejudices and traditions. But that does not mean that He endorses them or desires us to remain stuck in habits that lend themselves to keeping us at a distance from Him. Please don't misunderstand me here. I am not claiming that we should eliminate preaching altogether or ban it from our churches. But what I am saying is that we are so reluctant to expose this practice to the true light of the gospel, the real truth about God, that we tend to often enshrine preaching itself in place of cherishing God in our religious performances.

Having said all that, I will note here that Paul states in this verse that part of the way God settles us into the truth is through the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery.... Far from being something to be sidelined, the activity of preaching needs to be reinvented and reinvigorated by infusing it with the passion of God Himself. Preaching should be a means of unveiling the mystery about God that it too often obscures instead. Too much of our preaching leaves the listeners wondering just what it was that they learned that day or maybe leaves them feeling good about themselves with wonderful new suggestions as to how to get along with others. But how much preaching centers around the revelation of God by explaining how Jesus reveals the mystery about Him that has keep Him hidden from our hearts for so many years?

I am hungry for preaching, teaching and any other activities that will focus on uncovering the light of God's glory to believers and unbelievers alike.

I am starved for preaching that challenges my heart while at the same time fills me with hope and faith and love.

I crave to hear preaching that will fan the fire in my bones with the passion of Christ and to unmask the dark lies about God by revealing the real truths about His beauty, compassion and perfect love for all of us.

I want to experience preaching that actually follows the formula laid out by Paul in these verses so that anyone listening can never be the same again once they have been confronted by the real gospel.

I want to see our preaching center every presentation around the truth as it is revealed in Jesus.

God, send us bold and passionate people to preach the truth about You as revealed in the life of Jesus. Expose our silly exercises of filling up time to satisfy our mindless demands for routine and formalism. Heal us of our fear of breaking with traditions and cause us to see the living power of the gospel that You are waiting to share with us when we let go of our devotion to tradition. Send us real preachers of the gospel who are not afraid of us because they are so focused on You and Your glory. Lord, send us preachers of the real gospel.

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