You know, some of the best insights or best treasures in the scriptures are in places that we don't normally look. And I was just thinking, even last night, you know, this rarely happens now because people don't use cash. But before when we used to use more cash, you know, every once in a while I would put on my suit, because I only wear the suit once a week and I would have money in here and I would forget about that suit for a while and I would put that suit back on and I would reach in and I would find a $20 bill or $10 bill and say, "Wow." You know, I felt like I won something.

That never happens now because we don't use cash. So I felt like chapter 16 is one of those chapters that you typically don't think that there's anything there. Paul is just saying bye. You know, he said, "Greet this person, greet that person, greet this person," and then he finishes up the letter and then that's it.

So typically, by the time we get to chapter 15 in the Book of Romans, he's kind of wrapping up, right? Say hi to this person, I wish I can get there, when I get there, get some support, go to Spain. And we've already seen in chapter 15 how much content is contained in that one chapter revealing his ministry, his heart, the different people who are engaged in his ministry.

And then we get to chapter 16, it's just a bunch of lists of names. We're going to take about three, possibly four weeks in this chapter. And the reason why is because there's insights into what God is doing at that particular time and we don't know a lot about, you know, a lot of the people on this list, but the few people that we do know on this list, it reveals a great amount of what God is doing in that midst.

And so I'm just going to pray for us and we'll jump right in, okay? Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for today. We thank you for the beautiful weather. We thank you, Father God, for just a constant patience and perseverance with us, Lord God, knowing all our failures, past, present, and future, that you've sent your only begotten Son to cover us with his righteousness.

I pray that that sacrifice, Lord God, would never become old. It would never simply be dead theology, but it would be the fuel that causes us, Lord God, to run to you in every and all situation. I pray that you would clear our minds, soften our hearts, help us, Lord God, to be eager listeners, Lord God, that we may be hearers and doers of your word.

We thank you in Jesus' name we pray, amen. If you've been reading through the Old Testament or if you've done that in the past, you probably already noticed that the Bible lists quite a few names, right? There's a list on the Old Testament. In fact, when you get to the book of Numbers, you almost want to skip it because it's a book of numbers because it's a book of numbers of people.

So there's genealogy after genealogy, genealogy. You see it in Genesis, you see it in Numbers, you see it in various books, and then they just have lists of names that go, you know, sometimes for pages. So I don't know about you, but when I get to those passages, either I really slow down and examine these words or I end up just skimming it, right?

But there's a reason why these names are listed there. It's not, it isn't just there because, you know, these people are important to those people so we're just going to list it there. I mean, God could have easily written the Bible without having their names and then, you know, to our knowledge, because we don't know who they are, it wouldn't have made any difference, at least we think, to the overall gospel message.

But there's a reason why these people are mentioned. It's not random. God didn't just say, "You know what, let's just stick their names up there, you know, and let them know that they're important to me," right? But then we don't know who they are. There's a reason for that.

In fact, if you read over in the Bible, especially in the book of Revelation, it's repeated over again that every single soul's name is written in the book of life. Every name, every single person's name. The Bible talks about how God cares for us to the extent that He counts every strand of hair, right?

He knows if you have, you know, 50,000 pieces or 30,000 pieces, He knows. He says He counts the hair. So if God cares for our souls to that degree, wouldn't He be counting the souls' names? Who are these people? Why are they there? What do their names and their presence in Paul's ministry teach us about God, about the gospel, and about what He's been doing?

Just like the genealogy of Jesus, again, if you read the New Testament, you probably started the book of Matthew and list the genealogy. Again, you skip to chapter two. Yes, these are people that was in Jesus' genealogy, and then you start talking about the narrative, or you go to the book of Luke, and then you see the genealogy, and then you skip that.

But those genealogies tell us a lot about God's redemptive history, what God's been doing to bring about Christ. So every single one of those names connects Jesus to the promise in the book of Genesis, that the son of the woman is going to come and crush the head of the serpent.

And so all the genealogies and the names, all from Genesis all the way to the book of Matthew and the book of Luke, it connects God's faithfulness, despite the sinfulness of man, to bring about Christ. The greatest thing that it teaches us, that it wasn't because of the great people.

It was because there was a great God behind these people that he fulfills his promise. So every one of those names highlights redemptive history. And in the same way, what we see in chapter 16, it is a background information of what has been happening and what God has been doing and how the gospel has been spreading.

In chapter 16, we have a list of 26 individuals. Two people are not named, 24 are named. There are two families and three house churches. These are people that most people would never have known anything about. My guess is you probably may have looked at this list, if you did, if you're an A+ student, you already came and at least skimmed over it, and you may have recognized two, or maybe four, or maybe five.

But majority of these people you probably have never heard of before. Hopefully you'll know some of them after today. What I want to highlight this morning is, first of all, the different groups of people that are mentioned here. So we're going to talk about the females that are mentioned, Paul's family members that are mentioned in here, there are slaves, there are aristocrats, and then there's just one or two people that really are highlighted and it gives us a background information of what God's been doing.

So first thing that I want to mention about the different females that are mentioned here. You have to understand, out of the 26 names, nine of them, nine of them are females. More than a third of the list that are mentioned that Paul says to greet are females. Now in our culture that means absolutely nothing.

It's like why aren't there 50%? That's the response that maybe our culture would say. But at this particular time, to have nine females mentioned as prominent members of the Roman church saying, "Hey, make sure you greet these ladies." I'm not going to, I think the names are already up there, so I'm not going to mention all of them.

But women at that time in history, in the Jewish culture and in the Roman culture and in the Greek culture, did not have the same kind of status that women have today in our culture. Typically people say, without understanding the context, that if they read Apostle Paul's letters superficially, they say, "Apostle Paul is a male chauvinist because he talks about the order in the home, he talks about male leadership and the women to be learning and not to be teaching over men." And so they read that superficially and say, "Apostle Paul is a male chauvinist, no wonder the church is the way it is, backwards." In fact it's exactly the opposite.

It's because of the Judeo-Christian teaching that most of the countries today who have the background of Judeo-Christian teaching in history tend to be more elevating of women's status than the countries that don't have that background. Now you can study that for yourselves. Only the countries who tend to have greater value for women have at some point in their history Judeo-Christian values.

The reason why the women were elevated in society and were no longer treated like servants or property, a large part of that was because of the teaching and the practice of the early church. Women were not meant to be seen, at least in that culture. They were told by the Jewish law to be veiled when they were in public.

In fact, this is the exact Jewish oral tradition. The oral law stated, "Let no one talk with a woman in the street, no, not with his own wife." Some of us look at, think of that and say, "Well, that sounds a lot like the Muslim community." And I have friends who are doing missions in some of these countries and they're not allowed to be out in public.

And if they are in public, they have to be completely veiled. And this is today, we're not talking about 100 years ago. It said women typically were meant, again, by tradition, by their law, that they weren't allowed to be out in public without some kind of chaperone. The Eastern women of that time were discouraged to even go out in public at all.

And you can understand the reason why in John chapter 4, when Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan woman, why she is surprised, even shocked, that a Jewish rabbi is speaking to her in public. You know, I'm not going to go into all the different background information behind that, but here's a woman who was rejected by her own Samaritan people and a Jewish male is standing there in the middle of the day publicly talking to her.

So she's shocked. Why are you doing this? Right? Remember in chapter 3, Nicodemus is concerned about his reputation. So he comes at night and then in chapter 4, the Samaritan woman is concerned about Jesus' reputation. What are they going to say of you talking to me like this in public, a Samaritan woman?

See, that was the era in which the Bible was being written. In a traditional Jewish village, a young girl was never allowed to have any kind of education other than the education that mom would give her at home to cook and clean and take care of their children, and outside of that, they never had any kind of formal education.

The first century Jewish male, if you haven't been offended up to this point, you're going to be offended by this. His daily prayer said, "Thank God I am not a Gentile slave or a woman." This was his daily prayer. You look at the prayer book of the Jews of that time, that's actually written in their daily prayer.

So you can see what the society looked like at that time. Now if you take, again just logically from observation, if you take ethics and morality and value that God has given every human being out of the culture and you just allow your sinfulness to just reign free, what would happen?

Whoever is strongest is going to end up dominating. If you have power, you suppress those who don't have power. If you're physically stronger, you bully the ones who don't have power. That's typically what happens if you let sin reign free. And if you look at, again, societies where Judeo-Christian values are not at the foundation upon which the South society was built, that's typically what happens.

We're not saying universally and to an equal amount, but that's typically what happens. The point of all of this is to say that what the gospel taught about men and women were radical. It wasn't radical in suppressing women, it was radical in delivering them from the bondage that they were in.

So when the scripture says that there is no difference between male or female, in our culture we say, "Of course, why do you even have to say that?" But a Jewish male of that time, when he heard there is no difference between male or female, his response would have been, "What?

How could that possibly be? Our whole culture, our whole prayer that we pray before God, thank God you didn't make me like them." What's interesting on this list, the very first name that Paul mentions is Phoebe. Clearly it's a female's name. He says she was a servant of Centria, which is near Corinth.

It was a port city of Corinth. And the book of Romans was written in Corinth. So it's a popular understanding of where Phoebe fits into all of this is Phoebe was most likely the one who carried the Roman letter to Rome. Paul probably gave it to her and she was acting as a messenger for Paul.

And that's why he says, "When you greet Phoebe, make sure you take good care of her because she's coming to Rome." It says that she was a servant of this church. And the word servant is diakonos, where it can be literally translated a servant or deacon. So the translators, the commentators are divided whether this was a formal title or whether she's just described as a servant.

But either the case, she was a very prominent member. And it says that she was a helper, or in some of your translations, it says she was a patron. And so majority of the commentators believe that she was a very successful businesswoman. And because of her wealth, she was able to provide and support, and possibly she might have been going to Rome to do some business.

And so Paul, knowing this, may have given the letter to her and say, "When you are headed over there, can you take this letter for me?" She was the carrier of the letter, and she was, again, the first name mentioned at the end of this letter saying, "Make sure you take good care of her." Again, in our culture, that means absolutely nothing.

Remember I told you that whenever you see a list of names in the New Testament, it means that the first one that is mentioned is mentioned for a reason. Peter is there because the first name mentioned in the 12, because he's the leader, and he's always mentioned on the top.

So the fact that Apostle Paul, at the end of his letter, the first person that he mentions, the Phoebe, is significant. Because a Jewish male would have read that and think, "Phoebe." Of all the people that you could have mentioned, you mentioned Phoebe, right? Make sure you take good care of her.

It would have been culturally shocking. It gives us a glimpse of what was happening, how the gospel was changing the culture at the time. Right off the bat, some of the most prominent members of the ones who were carrying and doing gospel ministry were women. Secondly, Priscilla and Akilah, their names you probably heard before because they're mentioned about six different times in the New Testament.

But what's significant about that is among the six different times, four times Priscilla is mentioned first. And that is not random. There's a reason for that. Now why she was mentioned first, there's a debate. Some believe that maybe she was mentioned first because she comes from a Roman background, and she came from a prominent family, and as a result of status, before she became a Christian that she was elevated first and people knew her first.

Some people think that maybe Priscilla was the more dominant one, right? A lot of times we think of husband and wives, and in a traditional conservative church, we have male role and a women's role, and men are to lead and the women are to support and submit. And so a lot of the husbands struggle and wives struggle with what that looks like because a lot of times they project leadership at church or strong male leadership needs to look like this.

And the husband needs to know the Bible better than the wife, and the husband needs to be more articulate than the wife in order for her to lead, but that's not the case. In fact, that's not the case in reality, no matter if you believe that or reject that.

The reality is there are many marriages where the wife is probably more gifted. That's not an opinion, that's a fact, right? Because we can all see it, right? There's a lot of situations where the wife is more prominent, the wife is more outgoing, the husband may be not necessarily a submissive role, but he's not as gifted, maybe he's an extra introvert, and he has different gifts.

So that may be a reason why Priscilla is more prominent. I think another reason may be because these two people were tent makers, and they were heavily involved in business. Again, the first two people that are mentioned here are business people. And because they were very prominent business people, that there are times maybe when Priscilla went to one state, one city, one to another city, and Priscilla may have been better known in those four places that Paul mentions where her name is first.

And possibly the husband was mentioned first than the others because he was more prominent over there as a businessman. We don't know for sure, but the fact that Priscilla is mentioned first to begin with, it already tells us that the culture of that time was already changing because of the gospel.

Paul met these two people in the context of doing ministry, because he was selling tents, and Paul had to learn to make and sell tents, and as a result of their business venture, they were able to partner together in ministry. Priscilla and Achilla, they were the ones who meet Apollos in Acts chapter 18, and they were the ones who bring Apollos to Christ.

He's teaching all these things about the Messiah, and they realize that he doesn't know the real Jesus. So in Acts chapter 18, they pull him aside and instruct him, "This Jesus that you're talking about, he already came." So they're the ones who bring Apollos to Christ. And it's believed that the reason why Apollos was so prominent in Corinth, remember in the book of Corinth?

Some people were loyal to Apollos, some people to Paul, some people to Jesus, right? And the reason why Apollos had such a prominent ministry in Corinth was because Priscilla and Achilla were members in Corinth. So they believed that they were the ones who probably brought Apollos and introduced them, and then that kind of caused some friction in the Corinthian church.

So these people were very prominent in the early church. Paul, in fact, goes further and says, "These people risked their neck for me." They literally risked their neck because Apostle Paul ended up having his neck chopped off. Many of the early Christians of that time, because of their preaching of the gospel and involvement with the ministry, they had their necks chopped off.

So Paul literally says that these people were not just partnering and giving me money, they ran with me. And as prominent, wealthy business people, that they risked their lives to do this. Again, they were business people. Usually we think, "I want to serve God. I want to go to seminary and go overseas." All of these things are great, but you don't have to be a full-time pastor to be a passionate worker for Christ.

The first two people that he mentions are business people in the context of using their money. In fact, the first home that is mentioned in Corinth where they had the first church was in their home. So again, all of these things kind of point to the fact that the culture in the early church was changed.

The gospel was not only having an effect on what's happening on Sunday, it was changing the culture completely. Their paradigm of how they looked at the value of human beings. We see Mary, Paul says, who said that she worked very hard. We see these two ladies, Triphinae and Triphosa, and they believed that these were twins because this is typically how they named twins at the time, similar names.

I have no idea why they did that because it's confusing as it is. But it was their custom that if twins came out, they would have similar names. So they believed that it was twin sisters who together served the gospel. And what's interesting was their names literally means delicate and dainty.

So these delicate and dainty ladies were serving the Lord together. What we know about the significance of women on this list was women were made a significant part of the early Christian church. That's a fact. We know that from a systematic study of the New Testament, not just this passage.

Women were given the same access to God that men enjoyed. That's a fact. When Christ came, there was no outer court, inner court. When the curtain to the Holy of Holies was ripped, all the Gentiles, everyone who had to be stationed outside a certain distance from the holy place of God, all of a sudden, all of that is wiped out.

Jews, Gentiles, male or female, all had the same access to God. And this is all because of the gospel. Thirdly, women engaged in significant ministry. This doesn't mean that there's no role for men. There's no separate role for women. But we typically think that to be submissive, to learn in quietness means, or a lot of people think that it means that you don't get involved with ministry, you just stay home and take care of your children.

And that's not what we see in the New Testament. It's talking about submissiveness in attitude, which we are all called to do. We're all called to elevate Christ and be submissive in attitude. It's just that the women were called to do so in the context of the home. But we know that in application, that women were very active in the gospel ministry.

Let me get to the second part. Paul's relatives. Again, these are all things that we typically don't think about. But it gives us a huge understanding of the background. Andronicus, Junia, Herodian, Jason, Sospater were all called kinsmen of Paul. Now, the word kinsmen could refer to fellow Jews. But the reason why the commentators believe that this is not talking about Jewish people is because there are other lists of Jewish people on this list that he doesn't call kinsmen.

And there's good reasons to believe that Paul is talking about his personal relatives. And it only makes sense because, think about it in practice, right? Now, I'm not going to ask here, but how many of you got saved because a brother or sister, mother, father, aunt, uncle shared the gospel with you?

How many of you in this church, which I know for a fact, were brought to Christ because of somebody in your family member? And many, like in our church, we have a lot of brothers and sisters or brother, brother or sister, sister. And then it goes even further than that.

Sometimes you invite your aunt and uncle or your father and mother. And we have a lot of people come to church because of the connection we have with family members. And it was no different in the early church. When somebody came to Christ, the people who initially benefited the most were the people who were the closest to them.

And the people who were the closest to them were family members. And so we see that with Apostle Paul. Andronicus Junius, it says they became Christians prior to Paul in verse 7, that they met the Lord before Paul. So Paul probably didn't even know, right? He probably didn't know, or my guess is that he was actively pursuing Christians on the way to Damascus, not realizing that he had a family member who were already a Christian, that if he didn't convert, may have one day ran into maybe his aunt, uncle, or cousin and had to persecute them too.

Because they said they came to Christ first. Herodian. He may have been a freed slave from the King Herod. So typically when a slave who was prominent in that home was freed, he would take on the name of the one that he served, and he would be elevated because of the connection with the king.

And so Herodian may have been a servant in the kingdom of Herod who was freed. Now, why is this important? It's important because we know that Apostle Paul came from a very prominent home. Remember when Paul was being whooped, right? He's being whooped, and then he says, "Can you do this to a Roman?" And the Roman guard freaks out because by law he can get into trouble.

He said, "I bought my citizenship. How did you get it?" And Paul says, "I was born into it." So we don't know the connection. We just think maybe his father was a very successful businessman and something happened, and as a result his family got elevated. But this kind of gives us a glimpse.

If he had a relative who was a Herodian, there's a chance that all the people in his line all of a sudden got elevated and had special favor from the Romans. And that may be the reason why Paul had Roman citizenship. We know that the first four disciples, they were brothers.

Jesus' brother James himself, after the resurrection, becomes one of the prominent leaders of Jerusalem. Jesus' ministry, many of the ones who did the background work supporting the disciples were the moms and aunts of the disciples. The people who first benefit most are the ones who are the nearest. That's why in 1 Corinthians 7, 14, it says, "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife." It doesn't mean that an unbelieving husband becomes a Christian, but it says because of her presence in the husband's life, he's the first to benefit because he's going to be able to hear the gospel and see the gospel being practiced in their life.

The aroma of Christ came into that home. That's what he means. So that's why he says, "Don't separate because they are sanctified because of you." Acts chapter 16, 30, of the jailer, he said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved and your household." Now it doesn't mean that if one person becomes saved, the whole household becomes saved.

What he means is that the gospel comes into your home. Your whole home benefits from it. Now again, the significance of all of this is that you could see how the gospel is not only working in Paul's life and establishing churches, you can see how it's penetrating into homes.

And as a result of that, it created tremendous chaos. And it either forced the family members to either embrace Christ or divided homes. That's exactly what the scripture says. I mean, I don't know about you, but as I was studying all this list, again, to me, I don't know how it is for you, but to me it was like finding 20 bucks.

It's like, "Wow." I've preached through Romans before, but I didn't take this kind of time in chapter 16. I might have given one message. But it's like, "Oh, maybe I'll stay a little bit longer." I'm covering 16 verses today, but every single one of these names, we can go in depth and see what God was doing in their ministry.

And the reason why I want to do that is because outside of what we're doing today, you probably will never hear them again. Most likely, that's my guess. But these names are in here for a reason. God wants us to see something in these names. There's another group of people that are mentioned here that you would have never heard in any other context.

They were slaves. Amphiletus, Urbanus, Hermes, Philagus, Julia, they were all common slave names. The reason that we know that they were slave names is because once a slave became free, they would change their name. So the fact that they retained their slave names meant that they were probably still slaves.

Slaves in the first century, if women didn't have any rights, the slaves didn't have any at all. They were considered property. They were seen basically like cattle. So if you happen to have a bad, evil master, he can do with that person physically and even sexually whatever he wanted legally.

He had the power to carry out capital punishment on his slave anytime he wanted. He had absolute power over these slaves. So the fact that there are slaves that are mentioned, there's about five or six different slaves that are mentioned in this list of people who are prominently helping Apostle Paul do the gospel ministry would have been mind-blowing to the early church.

It would have been mind-blowing to anybody of that culture. It's like slaves are prominent members and enough that Paul, an apostle of Christ, a Roman citizen, possibly a member of the Sanhedrin, mentions them in this prominent letter. Obviously, it wasn't Apostle Paul, it was the Holy Spirit. These people are precious to Paul because they're precious to our God.

That's why their names are mentioned. In fact, the whole letter is written in Philemon, where he's introducing his slave back to his former master, which he ripped off before he became a Christian. He stole things and he ran away and he meets Christ in prison and then he converts and then Paul is trying to get him reconciled back to his master.

And the whole letter is written to reconcile him back to his master. You have to understand that a runaway slave, if he was caught, it would have automatically meant capital punishment. So for Onesimus to voluntarily go back to meet his master was literally to risk his life. And that's why Paul is writing this letter.

Receive him not as your slave, but as a brother now, because both of you have received the grace of God. Outside of the grace of God, it would have been ridiculous to even think of asking a runaway slave to go back. Not only by his master, but think of all the non-Christians around him that may have not converted seeing him come back.

How could he possibly be restored? This is something that you would never even imagine. How can that be? How can that person who did that to you come back voluntarily to be restored? And then the former master who lost not only his face, but money, maybe even status as a result of that, just receive him as a brother.

And Apostle Paul says, "Do this for me. I've done so much for you. I'm not going to force you, but do this for me because of what Christ has done for you." I mean, that letter in and of itself, it cannot be written in any other context outside of what Christ has done.

These are things that we don't normally think about or talk about, but that was the power of the gospel. This is not by human effort. This is not because somebody determined, "I'm going to be a good person." It wasn't because they were taught good ethics at some Jewish synagogue.

They were born again. They're new creatures. Only new creatures under the grace of God could possibly even think to do this. That's what this letter represents. In Galatians 3, 26 to 28, "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male or female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus." Again, we recite this passage so often in the New Testament and we think about the oneness of the church, how we need to be united.

Imagine the context in which this verse is written. That's no different than us talking about how terrorists who came and bombed our house and then all of a sudden you fall asleep for about a month and you wake up and then you say they're united. We're worshiping the same God, right?

We're all united. We're all one. Only the power of the gospel has the ability to do that. Only people who have been absolutely transformed from inside out could even think that this is possible. We don't need to look to the scripture to see that. There's people in this room, maybe some of you.

You have been forgiven some horrendous sin that you would never share to anybody else. And you know that. And God knows that. We may not know. There are some people who have committed some horrendous sin in your life. Humanly speaking, how can you possibly forgive these people? It is unrighteous to do so.

But the only reason why we would even entertain reconciling with those people is because of what Christ has done. That's the power of the gospel. That's what we see here on this list. Just a mention of their names when you really think about what this means. This is what the gospel is doing in the early church.

They were aristocrats. Apellas was in the household of Aristobulus. That's probably not how it's pronounced, but for now. He was a grandson of Herod the Great, who was a friend of the emperor Claudius. So it wasn't just the poor slaves and the disenfranchised, the misfits of culture who became Christians, which a lot of people think, "Well, Christianity took off because everybody was poor and Jesus promised wealth and health, and that's why everybody became Christian." It wasn't the truth at all.

There were a lot of very prominent people. In fact, the last years of Apostle Paul's life, he stood before kings and governors and wealthy, and he stood before them preaching the gospel until the day he died. Narcissus was a rich, powerful freedman who many believe was the direct secretary of Emperor Claudius.

He was put to death during Nero's reign. In fact, Paul says in Philippians 4.22, he says, "All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household." So the gospel did not only penetrate to the poor and the lowly, the gospel is also penetrating into Caesar's household. So it wasn't just limited to people who are desperate.

The power of the gospel was penetrating into places that you would have never thought. And that's the problem that we have sometimes in our culture, that we tend to target the gospel to people that we think are in need. You go on campus and you want to share the gospel with somebody, and you target people that you think you have some sort of advantage over.

So if they're older than you, don't talk to them. They're not going to take you seriously. If they're rich and you happen to be poorer, that's not your position. So we have a tendency to target people that we think that we have some kind of advantage over. We're older than them, more experienced than them, we have more money than them, we have better standing than them.

So we have something to teach them. And then if we want to reach the aristocrats, we need to reach Caesar. The gospel in and of itself is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is a power of God unto those who are being saved. It is not us.

It is not the messenger where the authority comes from. It is not because we are experienced, we're wealthy, and we're more educated or older that I have something to say to you because I have all this experience. My authority does not come from that. I could be dead wrong.

The only authority I have is the authority that comes through me in Christ. So the gospel came in and it penetrated even to the highest of places. And this was happening in the early church. Other notable names as I wrap up. Eponatus, he's mentioned in verse 5 as a man who was committed, he was called the first fruit of Asia.

First fruit of Asia, meaning that he was probably the first convert of many converts. You have to understand the persecution that was taking place in Asia was so tremendous the Holy Spirit told him not to go there for a period. But when he finally does arrive, he says Eponatus was the first convert.

And now he's residing in Rome, all for the purpose of doing mission work. And these are common people, business people, right? These were not apostles. These were not committed missionaries. These are all just regular, normal people who are affected by the gospel, who have shifted their lives around in order for the gospel ministry.

I'm going to mention these names. We don't know much about these people at all, but I'm going to mention them. I'm going to butcher their names. Asinicritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobus, Hermes, Philagus, Julia, Nerus, and his sister Olympus, and all the saints with him. The reason why I mentioned their name is because their names are important to God.

We don't know much. Maybe in the future, maybe there's some more archaeology will come out and we'll know more about them, but these are important to God and they're mentioned in the scripture, so I mentioned them to you. I want to mention one other name before I wrap up this morning.

Rufus. Rufus's name first comes to us in Mark chapter 15, 21. And let me read that passage to you. And this is a text where Jesus is carrying his cross to Golgotha, and because he is stumbling, the Roman guards make Simon, the Cyrene, to take up the cross and carry it for him because he couldn't finish this path.

And this is where Rufus comes in. Mark chapter 15, 21. They pressed into service a passerby coming from the country, Simon Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. Now the reason why we believe that this Rufus in Mark chapter 15 is the same Rufus in chapter 16 is because Rufus, the gospel of Mark, was written in Rome.

So Mark would have been very familiar with Rufus, Alexander, his mom, and his father. So the church fathers believed, and most commentators believe, that this is the same Rufus. And what it tells us is that random act of Simon, the Cyrene, that we never hear ever again in Scripture, that ends up picking up the cross, ends up sharing the gospel with his two children who are prominent enough where Apostle Paul would mention them by name.

And not only does he mention Rufus, he mentions the mother who was involved. And he says, not only is she your mother, but she's also my mother because she was very active in supporting Apostle Paul's ministry. So that one act, it doesn't say Simon picked up the cross and took him, and then as a result of seeing Jesus crucified, he gave his life to Christ and became a great missionary.

It doesn't tell us any of that. It's just a random story. Simon, who just came to watch what's going on here, picks up the cross, and somehow, we don't know how, we don't know who shared the gospel with him. Somehow he becomes a Christian, goes back, shares the gospel with these two prominent sons, Alexander and Rufus.

And then the mother becomes a Christian, and they join in the gospel ministry in the early church. There is nothing that is in Scripture that is there for no reason. We just haven't dug far enough. It's there. What does all of this teach us? Well, the power of the gospel reach all different walks of life.

Now why this is important is because we use marketing techniques to think that if we use human wisdom and marketing, if we can, that person will submit if we do this, and that person will be interested if we do that, and we use all kinds of techniques, human effort to bring people in.

But the power of the gospel is not human ingenuity. The power of the gospel isn't because we found the right technique or the right person to do the right thing. The power of the gospel goes beyond who we are. There is a reason why God deliberately chooses the foolish in the world to dumbfound the wise, because the whole rebellion of mankind is to glorify himself.

So even the way that the gospel reaches people, he uses people that people normally think, "That guy, why would you pick those people?" And when Apostle Paul, Apostle Peter and the disciples stood up and started preaching the gospel in the book of Acts, they were amazed. Remember what they were amazed by?

These lowly fishermen were able to preach with such boldness, and then they realized that these were disciples of Jesus. They gave credit to Jesus, because that's where the power lied. And so first and foremost, we see that the power of the gospel reached all walks of life. It wasn't human ingenuity.

Secondly, that the gospel brought unity among people where their lives would have never crossed, and that's the beauty of the church. Our unity isn't based upon our common background or our wealth or our culture or our language. There's something far beyond that that unites us. I mean, I can go to places in India.

I can go to places in Europe and in the remotest parts of Asia, and I see somebody reading the scripture. All of a sudden, there's a connection. And I remember early on when we used to go to China, and this is very early on in China in I think maybe 1999 or year 2000, and this was in Harbin, China.

I was sitting in a McDonald's and just reading the scriptures, doing my devotions early in the morning. And this lady was walking by the window with her daughter, and she was, you know, just a brisk walk because it was cold. And she was walking, and then she saw my Bible, and I could see her lifting her head, just backtracking with her daughter, you know.

And I was, "Oh, shoot, you know, maybe I'm going to get in trouble." And then she literally just stared at me for about a minute. It was really awkward. Yeah. Because I didn't know who she was. I didn't know what she was doing. But I was sitting there reading the scripture, and she was there, and she was looking at me, and I was looking at her, and then she was looking at my Bible, and then she was looking at her daughter, and then I was looking at her daughter.

I was like, "What is going on?" And then I saw what was going on. I saw that little cross of a necklace that she had on, and I could tell she was telling her daughter, "Look, another Christian." And that awkward moment, all of a sudden, just heart warmed another sister that walked by, just by seeing the scripture.

There was a koinonia. We had fellowship at McDonald's. That's the power of the cross. People who are disenfranchised, people who don't fit into this world, people who are aristocrats, slaves, runaway slaves, former masters, Gentiles, Jews, Pharisees, tax collectors, prostitutes, all saved by the grace of God, sitting together, calling each other brothers and sisters in Christ, knowing that we live in a fallen world, but one day we will be in heaven together for eternity because we have the same Father.

That's the power of the gospel. That's what this list teaches us. Third and finally, that the gospel ministry was carried out by many people without fanfare. When we think about the gospel, we typically think about Apostle Paul, Apostle Peter, the apostles, how they gave their life, but there were hundreds and thousands of people without glory, without fame, without knowledge of anything else outside of that particular time.

In fact, even today, when we think about great men of God, we think of these great conference speakers who wrote books, but 99% of all the gospel ministries are happening in the background with people who have no name. When they die, no one is going to venerate them, no one's going to remember them, but they're going to be gone, but their names are written in the book of life.

That's the power of the cross. Not only did Christ die for me, but I can die for him without name, without fanfare. I don't have to be the greatest. No one has to know me because my father knows me. My father loves me. My father cares for me. And that's the power that delivers us from ourselves.

Because the thing that kills us more than anything else is ourselves. Our desire to be somebody, our desire to be recognized, our desire to be better than our neighbors. Even as Christians, we come to church and we compete with one another internally, not externally, internally, because there's some of that world that's still sitting in us that even as I preach the gospel, I want to be a great preacher.

We all want to be Apostle Paul, but nobody wants to be Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. The gospel ministry happened with all of these people, and there are tons of people that are not even mentioned in this letter, and God used every single one of them to spread the gospel.

So my encouragement to you, again, chapter 16 is one of those, you know, like you just, you just, you know, what do they call it? The fan reading? You turn on the fan and the page just rolls, and you can say you read it because your eyes saw it, but you don't really know what's in there.

The chapter 16 is one of those chapters, but there's treasures in here because every single one of these souls are precious to God. So my encouragement, as I, again, let me ask our praise team to come up. You know, whenever we think of Christianity or I'm going to do something great for God, we automatically think of missions or, you know, be a pastor or do something, like I'm going to go do this and that, but so much of God's work is just men and women, business people, engineers, students, stay-at-home moms, just being faithful, and people who have been affected by the cross just doing what God told them to do on a day-to-day basis.

So my prayer for our church is, yes, let's thank God for men like Apostle Paul. Let's thank God for people who are being venerated, writing books, and challenging our generation, but don't forget the 99.9% of the people who are faithfully serving God in the background, which many of you may be as well, right?

Let's come to the Lord and be faithful as these men and women were faithful. Let's take some time to pray as our worship team leaves.