Guard The Gospel

A roll call of names becomes a roadmap for modern faith. We close our journey through Romans by meeting the often-overlooked servants of chapter 16—people like Hermas, Julia, Jason, Tertius, and Erastus—whose ordinary obedience carried the gospel through homes, cities, and social barriers. Their stories show how grace gathers a diverse family and assigns real purpose to every role, from hosting a house church to writing a letter by hand.

Then comes Paul’s sharp, loving warning: watch out for those who divide and teach a message that bends away from Christ. Smooth words and flattering tones can sound spiritual while hollowing out the cross. We unpack how to practice biblical discernment without sliding into suspicion, how to walk patiently with teachable believers, and when to step away from voices that refuse correction. The key is simple and searching—become wise in what is good. Like a bank teller trained on genuine currency, we learn the real thing so well that counterfeits lose their charm.

Anchoring it all is the promise and power of God: the God of peace will crush Satan under our feet, and the grace of Jesus will establish us. We reflect on the final benediction, the revealed mystery of the gospel for all nations, and why eternity clarifies our choices now. If you’ve ever wondered how a church stays united, guards the non-negotiable gospel, and still practices warm affection within its culture, this conversation offers both conviction and comfort.

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Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com.

Chapters

• 26:00 Marker 01

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02: 0:20

But there are those that come into the flock that are not part of the flock, and you need to watch out for them. Verse 17. Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrines which you learned and avoid them. What are those doctrines that they've learned? Everything that you've said in the last few chapters of Romans, which point to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

There are plenty of things that are mysterious in our faith, things that we cannot make a definitive statement about. But then there are things that are centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Pastor Carl concludes our study of the book of Romans, he highlights how important it is to guard the church against those who bring in other ideas about the gospel. The gospel is non-negotiable and not something that can have opinions connected to it. And now here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21

Hermas, this is interesting. Hermas is named after, it's the same sort of name as the Greek god Mercury. And a lot of times in the Bible, the Lord would change somebody's name. When you used to be Abram, now you're Abraham. This person continued with their old name. But this old name is now redeemed. This old name is now glorified. Yeah, my name means Mercury, but I serve the true God. Let me tell you about him. He was a former slave and may have been, may have authored uh an interesting book called The Shepherd or the Pastor of Hermes. Look that up. The Shepherd of Hermas or the Pastor of Hermas. It circulated around in the early church for a while. Some people thought it should have been part of the Bible. It didn't make it into the Bible. It's an interesting story. And it brings glory to the Lord. So check that out. So Hermas was a writer as well as a servant of the Lord. We got Petraboas, may have been part of the Emperor's whole household. We got Hermes, which was one of the 70s, and later a bishop, and may have been a freed slave to begin all of that. And you got the brethren who were with them. We're called to be part of a covenant, part of a community. And not just because that's what you need to do, but because that's how God operates. And you see all these people that Paul came in contact with throughout the years that he can have a rapport with and have support from and encourage and support at the same time. That is how the body of Christ is to work. Greet Philiogas. Philiogas, which means lover of the word. We should all be fililogos, right? Love the word. Phili, love, logos, the word. Lovers of the word, because the word is where we find our power, our strength, our the change. Renew our minds by the power of the word. Changes from the inside out. We get all these messages from the world and from ourselves, but we need to flush it out with the word of God and to become strong in the word and love studying the word. He formed one of the home churches in Rome as well. So he loved the word so much he wanted to teach the word and share the word with others, and people came to hear and were changed. Julia, she was the wife or sister of Velogius, and may have been part of the imperial household as well. Nerius, he was a servant of this couple that served under the Roman government, and apparently he shared with them the gospel because the husband was executed and the wife was banished because he shared with them the gospel. Now, sharing the gospel doesn't always end up the way we think it should, right? So I I share the gospel with you, and you get killed and you get banished. But you have the Lord for eternity. See, things you could be rich and comfortable for the rest of your life and burn in hell forever if you don't have the gospel. This is all perspective. This is the Lord's mind on these things that often are just upside down from our way of thinking, isn't it? We need the Lord to show us his heart. So greet Nurus and his sister at Olympias. Uh Olympius, her name means heavenly. And isn't it glorious when you have it? Heavenly women in your midst that love Jesus and just shine with the glory of God. And he just said, just say hi to her. I just appreciate her so much. And all the saints who are with them. He says, Greet one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ greet you. So now we want you to stand up and give each other a good smack right now. Nobody's moving. Okay, that is a cultural thing. All right. Give yourself a good side hug, a high five, fist bump, whatever it is. Just show the love and appreciation in the Lord as your culture says so, you know. And and just sharing the love of the Lord with one another. I just say I am, I just I miss you guys so much. Just give give everybody a hug for me. That's that's what Paul is saying at this point. Now he gets into a little more teaching again before he wraps things up. He was telling all these things about how in their midst, problems with the way they were thinking and the way they were uh approaching their relationship with the Lord. And and and and in one of the greatest books of theology ever created, the book of Romans, Paul was laying it out and straightening them out so that at the end he would say, So, you know, treat each other. If these are brothers and sisters in the Lord, recognize that their sin was paid for at the cross. And now you walk in that grace. Now he's changing the fact that, but there are those that come into the flock that are not part of the flock. And you need to watch out for them. Verse 17, now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrines which you learned and avoid them. What are those doctrines that they've learned? Everything that they've said in the last few chapters of Romans, which point to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If anybody teaches something other than the gospel of Jesus Christ, or contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ, that doesn't build on the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you need to point them out and watch them. Things that, you know, some of the things you guys were believing early on. That if you are a Jew, you know, and you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you're better than the Gentiles still, because the Gentiles were cursed of God. But if they want to come in, then they need to be circumcised and they need to start following the law to become part of God's grace and his family, and that doesn't work. And if people are coming in that don't understand the gospel and start teaching that, you need to you need to mark them and and you know uh disassociate yourself with them, avoid them. Because there are people that come in that do not want to seek after the Lord, that do not want to humble themselves before the Lord, that do not want to be, to learn, to grow, to be changed. There are ones that come in with their own agenda. And if they're coming in with their own agenda that is that is different than what God has called the church to be, that's going to be a problem. But if there are people coming in that believe all sorts of weird stuff, but they have hearts that are willing to learn that they have come to faith in Jesus Christ, but they brought a lot of other stuff with it, you can work with them, and they can work with you. You can learn from them, they can learn from you. That's part of what he was talking about in the last couple of chapters. But these are people that have no desire to be changed, no desire to repent, no desire to admit that they might have been wrong in what they were doing. Verse 18 for those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. Look, they're smooth talkers. You gotta be careful with them because they'll come in, they say some good stuff, they even sound like loving people. The enemy. Satan himself can can make himself out to be as a as a minister of light, an angel of light. But he's not. But he can look like it and he can say some nice things. We need discernment. And it's not based on my opinion, it's based on the word of God. So we need to seek the word to change us from the inside out so we have that discernment of what we need to watch out for, and also so that we too can allow the the Holy Spirit to check our motives, our system. Are we really serving the Lord or are we serving our own bellies? What is your kingdom about? I mean, I love Jesus, but uh excuse me for a second, Lord. I got this stuff I want to do. We do that at times. May the Lord change us, may the Lord make us. I want to serve you all the time, Lord. It's not about me. Anyone who wants to follow after me, the Lord said, May him first what? Deny himself. It's not about your belly, it's about serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 19, for your obedience has become known to all. You have a reputation, a good reputation. Therefore, I am glad on your behalf, but I want you to be wise in what is good and simple concerning what is evil. So often we talk about the things that are bad in this world and the things that are evil. And he, again, that's another subject that he talked about earlier in the book. If we're talking more about the evil in the world than about Jesus, we're missing it. The Lord wants us to grow in what is good. A bank teller, you've I've heard you've probably heard this before. How does a bank teller get to know a counterfeit bill from a non-counterfeit bill? Well, it's not because they train them on a bunch of counterfeit bills, they train them on the real thing. And then when a counterfeit comes up, they're like, whoa, there's something wrong about this one. I don't know exactly what it is, but it ain't right. This is what Paul is saying. Grow in the Lord, in the gospel, in what is right, in what is good. He'll take care of the rest. That's that's what verse 20 is about. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. You you realize that the evil in this world is mainly the work of Satan in our lives. But the Lord is gonna crush it. Under our feet. The Lord is gonna crush the head of Satan under our feet as we grow in his grace, in the truth of the word, in relationship with Jesus Christ. So he says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. We need the grace of the Lord. We can't do it on our own. Grace is not just forgiveness, grace is the power of God in order to complete his task in and through you. We need the grace of our Lord, and he pronounces it, and I pronounced it on us. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. And that would have been a good place to stop, but he kept on going. Now he talks about some of the people in Corinth sending their greetings. Timothy, my fellow worker, sends his greetings. Now you remember Timothy, he was his son in the faith. He led Timothy to the Lord, and he brought him on board, and Timothy did a lot of work, a lot of travels with him, and then he started his own church. He even wrote a letter to Timothy, two of them, in fact, to Timothy, to encourage him. He was there with them in Corinth, he's his fellow worker, and Lucius may have been in Antioch and preached Jesus to the Hellenists at that time after he came to faith in the Lord. And the Hellenists are, of course, are Greek Jews, Jews that uh have kind of melded with the Greek culture, and there was always a debate between the non-Hellenist Jews and the Hellenist Jews. Uh he went to go preach to them the fulfillment of what the Jews were looking for, and that is Jesus Christ. He is our completion, he is the one that makes you whole. And it doesn't matter your background, if you're in the Christ, you're you're part of the body. And Lucius was one of those that went out there and taught that word. Jason, he hosted Paul and Silas while they were in Thessalonica in their place. He was dragged into the city square and was accused because Paul and Silas were in town preaching these things. He hid them away, they pulled him out, and they said, This guy and the the others that are with him, they're turning the world upside down. And how do you answer that as Jason? Why thank you. Right? Um, because they were preaching the truth of the gospel, which really does turn the world, actually turns the world right side up once again. Ever since the fall, the world has been upside down. And now with preaching the gospel, people like Jason and Paul and Silas were accused of turning the world upside down, saying that there was another king besides Caesar. Oh, could it be? The king of kings and the Lord of Lords, the one who changes the whole world. Yeah, there is another king. I won't deny that. Sossa Patriots, that's another great name to call your grandson, maybe. A relative of Paul joined him after his third missionary journey and may have been a governor, uh a governmental leader in Thessalonica. So again, people in positions of authority in the communities coming to faith in Jesus Christ and using that influence to be salt and light to a world that desperately needs the truth of Jesus Christ. 22. I Tiratus, who wrote this epistle, greet you in the Lord, Tiratus was hired to write Paul, and that people like Paul would often hire somebody to write the letters for them. Paul had a hard time writing. In one of his letters, you could see, and I'm actually writing at this point. He's saying, You see how big my letters are? And some believe that's because he had a vision problem, and and that might have been from when he was blinded on the road to Damascus. And and yet he keeps on going, and he has people come around him to help him. Tertius, there, there's probably like Curtius. Tertius was hired by Paul to write for him. So Paul is saying, All right, this is what I'd like to say. No, cross that out, put it there. And he didn't have a word processor, he didn't have computers, so he had to always change this and change that and rewrite. And it was an important position that he was in. But he was also a brother in the Lord. And he says, I actually wrote this and I wanted to say hi to you too. I feel like I know you guys because I've been hearing everything that Paul is telling me. I'm writing it down and I want to share it as well. You know, everybody that you bring in is affected by your witness. Everybody that you bring in, hopefully, is affected by Jesus in your life because you're allowing him to work in and through you. Tertius was one of those people that was affected by the witness of Paul. Gaius, my host, and the host of my whole church, greet you as well. He hosted Paul in Corinth and traveled with Paul and was one of the few that was baptized with Paul. You remember in another letter, Paul says, I didn't baptize any of you except for a couple of you guys, because I didn't want to be known as Paul baptized me and this and that, and he didn't want to compete and so forth. It wasn't about the baptism or who did it. It was about who changed you in that baptism. Jesus Christ changed you. But he didn't he didn't live his life like that. What he lived his life on is that Jesus Christ changed him, and he also hosted the whole church that was in that area. Erastus. Yes, I don't have Erastus. Well, because he's the treasurer of the city, it says it right there. And again, another important position. Uh somebody who came to faith in Jesus Christ that was part of the operations of the local city. He greets you in Quartus, a brother. Um he was one of the 70s early on as well, and later on made a bishop in one of the areas, and a brother in the Lord, a real brother. Uh he not only heard the gospel, but he really walked in the gospel and he came alongside me and he encouraged me. All these people greet you from Corinth. And I hope to be with you soon, Paul is saying. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Again, we need the grace of the Lord. And then he wraps up with a great benediction. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel. Who is him that is able to establish us? Jesus is able to establish us according to Paul's gospel, which he only says it's my gospel because the Lord has given it to him to clarify and to bring it out in a way, but it's my gospel as well. The gospel that changed me. But it's it's the true gospel. It's the preaching of Jesus Christ and his suffering on the cross. Because he became weak, I become strong as I believe in him. He establishes me not because of me, but because of him. According to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest. The Lord has given us the secret to salvation, and it's him taking our place, taking our sin, and giving new life to whoever would believe. And uh it's made manifest, so we have a responsibility to go out and share it. We can't say, well, it's just a mystery. There's still a lot about the Lord that is mysterious and how he works these things out in the world. And we have different theories and and different theologies that that try to explain it, but but ultimately there's there's a lot of things that are still not clear until we see them face to face. But what is clear is the gospel. What is clear is the The word that He's given us, and that we have in His grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit the ability and the power and the responsibility to share that good word with others. And by the prophetic scriptures made known to all the nations, the word, even throughout the Old Testament, and in chapters back, we he brought a lot of these out. That not only was the Old Testament talking about the Jewish nation, but the Old Testament talks about that Messiah that would come through the Jewish nation that would be a savior to the whole world. It has been fulfilled according to the commandments of the everlasting God. This was God's plan from the beginning, from before the beginning, in order for us to be obedient to the faith. How are you obedient to the faith? You believe it. You grab hold of it, you walk in it. So now to him who is able to establish you, parentheses, all that other stuff, to him, to God, who is alone wise. We might think we're wise, but we're wise in our own eyes. I need the wisdom of God. He alone is wise because he isn't tainted with sin. To him be glory through Jesus Christ forever and ever and ever and ever. Amen. Amen. And as soon as you run out of Evers, forever, we're just getting started. This tells us again that our lives with the Lord are eternal. It's not just about the here and now. And the here and now is so short. The older I get, the more I realize how short it is. Amen. And the more I look forward to eternity. And maybe that's the way God set it up to help us to long for eternity, to long to be with Him forever. But not just, again, getting stuck in forever, but bringing that back to the here and now. This is why I have vision. This is why I have a purpose. This is why I will deny myself in order to proclaim the good news of the gospel to others. Because that is more important to me than anything else, anyway. Amen. May that be our hearts as we go forward this morning. Lord, we thank you for Paul. We thank you for changing his life. And we thank you for all these other lives that were affected by Paul. And we know it wasn't Paul, it was the gospel. It was it was your work in and through him that changed the lives of all these people. And all these people continued in ministry work with him. And then because of him, they continue on in the areas that you sent them to. And Lord, we realize that in our lives, um, there are people that have come and gone, that have affected our lives, and that we've affected their lives, and again, not us, but but the but but the Holy Spirit working in and through us, the word of God coming alive in our lives. Lord, thank you for for loving us. Thank you for choosing to use us. Thank you for changing us from the inside out. It is an amazing thing how a fallen people would be saved and and would be called the the chosen of God, the beloved of God. We ask for your blessing upon that because you are a God that desires to bless. Again, not because of who we are in our past, but because of who you are and what you've done for us on the cross. We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 24:07

Thanks for listening to today's edition of Come On Up. Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross has been taking us through a study in the book of Romans. Did you know that the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to those who lived in Rome and who had begun a church there? He was encouraging them to keep the faith, not compromising with the culture around them. The practices that were going on at that time were ungodly and against the morals that God established. Roman gods were worshipped, these false idols that had no power or authority. Sexuality was subjective and was going in all kinds of directions that go opposite to what God created between man and woman. As you listen to some of the corruption that was going on in that society, it may not sound very far off from what's going on today. When people stay rooted and grounded in God's Word, it leads them to the truth and the pure understanding of everything God created and why. But when you lean into popular opinion for the sake of not offending, it quickly leads you astray from what God created in the first place. You can find all of the messages in this series on our website. It's themountaincross.com and look for Bible studies. The Mountain Cross is a group of believers in Jesus who seek to grow in faith by simply teaching the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter. We meet on Sundays at the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville, beginning at 10 a.m. If you'd like to learn more about us, go to themountaincross.com. Come on up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.