All right, so if you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 16, verse 25 through 27. I'm going to read it again just as a reminder. 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, but now is manifested and by scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the eternal God has been made known to all the nations leading to the obedience of faith.

To the only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we've gathered here together this morning because we want to hear from you. Not to simply study this text, not to simply meet our friends. We desire Father God to hear from you, to meet you, to drink of the living water, to eat the bread, Lord God, which is Christ.

I pray your word will be open to us. Help us to see your spirit, your very breath. May our hearts, Lord God, be filled with you and reminders, Lord, of the reality of the unseen things, Lord God, that we are hoping for. We pray in our busyness, help us never to be distracted and to conform to the pattern of this world.

But I pray that preaching of your word and listening to your word would renew our minds that we may discern what is good and perfect will of the Lord. We entrust this time to you asking for your blessing. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. We are finally at the last sermon of the Book of Romans.

I do not have any more after this unless I choose to do an overview survey for the next few months. But, no, it is the final message. I am kind of reluctant to get out of it because, again, Romans is, you know, I have shared with you many times Romans is probably the book that if I had one book that I wanted to put to memory and really have it regurgitating in my soul, it would be the Book of Romans because it is so rich in content.

Every aspect of the gospel that we hear of all our lives, whether you have been a Christian for a year or you have been a Christian for 30, 40 years, basically what we are doing every single week is reexamining, deepening on our understanding of what Paul is saying in the Book of Romans in different aspects.

Paul is going to conclude this letter in the same way that he started the Book of Romans. So again, assuming that none of you remember what we talked about in Romans chapter 1, but I gave a brief overview last week. So basically the content of what he says here is repeated exactly the same thing that he says when he opens up the letter in Romans chapter 1, 1 through 17.

It talks about God's power, the purpose of the gospel. It talks about mystery that is to be revealed. It talks about sanctification. So everything that we are talking about, he says it. So he is kind of wrapping it up with these two book ends of this is the gospel.

And that is basically what he has been expositing the last 16 chapters. The two things that we looked at last week was the gospel is a demonstration of God's power. So the power of God that people are constantly looking to connect with God with his power. We want to see him doing miraculous things and if he heals or if he does something beyond human ability, we say that is God's power and that would help me to see and believe in God.

But the scripture says it is the gospel, the gospel, his death and resurrection. That is the demonstration of God's power. And then the second part that we talked about how Jesus is the gospel. That the preaching of the gospel is the preaching of Jesus Christ. That Jesus says that he is I am.

So the point of all that we have learned about the gospel is to bring us ultimately to him. Not just through him, but to him. You can come to church all your life and never have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Somebody can blaspheme his name and you get very offended when you say your mama is and then you get nervous.

But if you say God is, nothing. Because there is no personal affection for him. You hear people blaspheming his name and it doesn't offend you because there is no personal connection with this Lord. So if we are not careful, we can be an expert of the gospel, expert of what the word of God says, but be completely emotionally in every practical aspect completely disconnected with this God.

So the second part was Jesus is the gospel. The third, fourth and fifth, the third is the main part and the fourth and fourth and fifth is going to be kind of tagging along with that. So I'm going to be spending most of my time on the third point where the gospel is the mystery revealed.

Gospel is the mystery revealed. We have to be careful when we study the Bible that we don't project onto it what we think it means. So this was written obviously in 2000 years ago, the vocabulary that they used at that time. So in interpreting the Bible, okay, this is a pop quiz and I know you college students are in the middle of your finals, okay, but this is a pop quiz, all right?

In interpreting the Bible, what is the most important part of understanding what that text means? I feel it, but I don't hear it. What is the most important part of Bible interpretation to get the right meaning? And this isn't just the Bible, this is just common sense in anything that you read.

Context. Yes, my son. Context, right? Some of you guys don't know what I'm talking about. He's actually my son. Context, right? You have to understand what is being said in context, in context of the letter, in context of the culture, in context of how the person is using the word, right?

It has to be understood in context. The problem, the danger of interpreting the scripture where you take a passage out and then you say, "Well, that's what I heard," right? That's no different than jumping into the middle of a conversation and somebody says something and said, "But you said this, but you didn't hear the whole conversation.

He was just quoting somebody." You can take it completely out of context and it has nothing to do with what he says if you don't understand the context. Well, this word here, mystery, is a contextual word. In fact, it's a very important word. The New Testament uses it in relation to the gospel over 26 separate times.

Jesus uses it repeatedly in the way he teaches the parables about the kingdom of God. He says it repeatedly about the mystery of the kingdom, the mystery of the kingdom. Paul uses it probably predominantly more than anybody else. It's repeated again all the way through the book of Revelation that the gospel is the mystery of God, which was at one point hidden and it is now revealed.

The first thing that we need to understand before we begin to project onto it what we normally mean by mystery. When we think of mystery, you're probably thinking of the genre of mystery, that you have a bunch of things happening and you can't quite understand. Or you would say something or someone is mysterious.

There's something about it that you can't quite put together, that it's hard to understand. That is not how the Bible uses the term mystery. I think the best way for us to understand the term mystery is something that was hidden, but it is revealed to specific people, that it is meant for people to know, but the way that he revealed it is through progressive revelation.

Now since we're all movie buffs, or at least many of you, let me ask you. I'm not talking about a singular movie. I'm talking about series of movies that they've created throughout maybe 10 years or 20 years What do you think is the best series of movies in the last 50 years?

What do you think? It has to be more than two, three. It has to be more than one. That's what series means in English. What is it? It has to be more than one. Lord of the Rings, okay. All right. That's a good one. I wasn't thinking about that one.

Something else. That's probably on the top of the list. Star Wars. Yeah. The end. All right. That's what I was looking for. So Star Wars obviously came out many, many decades ago, and it didn't start at the beginning. It started, and everybody, like people who are older than me, really got into Star Wars, and then when the prequels began to come out, the story began to make more sense.

So you can watch it and enjoy it by itself, but when you began to understand the history and the story behind it, it really made that much more, it made a lot more sense. And then obviously they have other movies that were coming. And you can say, "Well, I like this one better than the other ones." But the storyline in and of itself, right, every one of those things fits together and it makes a lot of sense.

How they came about and where Darth Vader comes from and how he turned into Darth Vader and who his son is and all of these things that was left, what, a mystery in the first movie began to get revealed through the prequels. The best way for us to understand this gospel is that God has implanted into human history, and that's what we've been studying in the book of Revelation.

He's been planting in the history all these things that in and of itself for the nation of Israel made a lot of sense. This is what it meant to be holy, this is what it meant to be atoned for, but the ultimate purpose behind it was meant to be revealed in the future in Christ.

So it wasn't that the gospel was left a mystery and something for us to unravel like Rubik's Cube and if you're really good at it, you can figure this out. God deliberately left imprints of what he was about to do. And so when Christ came, all of a sudden it became a reality.

In fact, Jesus himself in Matthew 13, 10 through 11, before his death and resurrection was teaching about the kingdom through parables and the disciples asked him, "Why do you teach them in parables?" This is what Jesus said. The disciples came to him and said to him, in Matthew 13, 10 through 11, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" Jesus answered them, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted." So for those of them who believed, he said the parables actually made more sense.

Just like we use illustrations today, we would give a teaching to really help us understand. Just like what I use Star Wars as an illustration, to help us to understand what does the Bible mean by mystery. But to those who don't believe, the parables actually make it harder. He said he left it like that.

And he said he spoke in mystery for the purpose of revelation. Romans 11, 25, "I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery," talking about the gospel, "so that you will not be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." In other words, because of Israel's sin, this mystery that he gave the nation of Israel that began to get revealed to the Gentiles, that the Israelites were experiencing this continued hardening until the fullness of time of the Gentiles, which is the period that we're in.

To clarify even further, 2 Corinthians 3, 14-18. Paul says of the nation of Israel, "But their minds were hardened, for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant," which is talking about the Old Testament, "the same veil remains unlifted because it is removed in Christ." In other words, the answer was in Christ, but because they refused to receive him to them, the gospel remains a mystery.

It is veiled. Verse 15, "But to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away." Now let me stop here for a minute. So the way that the mystery was revealed wasn't simply through careful study.

Who reveals this? According to what we read, who reveals this mystery and the reality that is found in Christ? God does, right? It wasn't simply, "Oh, they didn't study enough," or "They didn't read enough books." He said, "Because they refused Christ, there's a veil that remains even to this day.

But whenever a person turns to the Lord, veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, being transformed into the same image from glory to glory." So in other words, when the veil was taken away, and when he began to behold his glory, we began to change by seeing that glory.

You understand? Right now, he described not only justification, but also sanctification. So glorification, justification happens when the veil is torn. Right? Did you see that? So the mystery that was behind the curtain, all of a sudden, we saw it, and it made sense. All of what we've been studying in Leviticus began to make sense that Christ fulfills this, and he tears the curtain, and now we behold the glory.

And then sanctification is continuing, right? Continuing to see this glory that's been revealed. So now we are transformed to his glory as we gaze upon his glory. Does that make sense? So how does sanctification happen? A greater and greater revelation of that glory, of this mystery that God begins to reveal.

Let me look at another passage. First Corinthians 2, 6-10. "Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor the rulers of this age, who are passing away." Let me stop right here. He's talking about now not the Jews, but the rest of the world who do not believe.

And he says this wisdom that he is preaching is not a wisdom of this world, meaning you can't study this. You can't have the revelation of God simply because you read a lot of books or attended churches, because it's God's doing. "But we speak," verse 7, "God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory, the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood.

With all the knowledge and education and access they have to information, it's that none of them could figure out, for if they had understood, if they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, but just as it is written, 'Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man,' all that God has prepared for those who love him.

God revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depth of God." It is not by human wisdom. It is not by human effort. It is not by us simply trying. He says it is by God. When we believe and we begin to behold his glory, and that's exactly what the scripture says.

"The God of this age blinded the mind of the unbelievers so they do not see the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ." So salvation is the blinders being taken away so that we may begin to gaze upon his glory. That's why Jonathan Edwards says, "The greatest evidence of the salvation is this renewed affection for God's glory." You can love the church, the people, the mission.

You can love the gathering. You can love whatever it is that the church is involved with and yet have no affection for the glory of God. There is no beholding his glory. That's what Jonathan Edwards means. But the greatest evidence of your justification is your renewed affection for Jesus Christ.

See, in the earthly kingdom, they only believe what they can see. If I don't see it, I don't believe it. But in God's kingdom, we can only see what we believe. Let me say that again. In the earthly kingdom, they only believe what they can see. But in God's kingdom, we can only see what we believe.

Let me give you an example. You listen to that and say, "Well, that sounds like a cop-out. That sounds like something you say to somebody when you don't have an answer." Right? Maybe. But let me give you an example. Have you ever had a funny moment with maybe a close friend of yours?

Maybe you went to missions and you came back and said, "Oh my gosh, it was so hilarious. It was so funny. We cracked up for 10, 15 minutes and people were telling us to be quiet because we just couldn't contain ourselves." And then they asked you, "What happened?" And then the moment you begin to share the story, there's a confusion that comes because it's not funny at all.

And even as you're telling it, you can tell that this is not funny. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. And the only explanation you can give is, "You had to have been there." So it wasn't simply the story. It was the expression. It was the context. It was things that led up to that.

And all of that contributed to why probably at that moment it must have been funny. But when you try to recreate that by telling somebody, you just can't recreate it. That's something that happened at that moment. And all that led up to that and all that was around that.

And the connection maybe between that person. In the same way, when we try to reveal the gospel, the Bible says it is veiled. And it is open to those that God chooses to have it open. And so once God opens our eyes, all of a sudden it makes sense.

You know that missionary who went out to India and found out that, I think, Jonathan Chow, there's been a lot of stories and there's been a lot of confusion as to what to make of it. And the sad thing is even some of the Christians were looking at that and saying, "Oh, what was that guy doing going to India?" You know, that's how we got the gospel.

Some crazy person or people decided to risk their lives and translate the Bible into English and get the gospel over to us. And that's how we got the gospel. You know, what he did was very common in the context of the gospel history. See, the world doesn't understand it.

If you're not a Christian, that makes absolutely no sense. Why would a young man who has a very promising career, educated, intelligent, why would he do such a stupid thing? Go to an area of the world to preach this silly message and give his life. He must have been crazy.

There's something about him. And so they're trying to figure out what led him to do that. Oh, he was so adventurous and he just didn't care about... And they're doing their best to try to understand. But if you genuinely believe what the gospel message says, and that's the reason why you're here, there is no need for explanation.

You know why he did it. In fact, not only is it not confusing, it's challenging that that person was willing to give his life to share the gospel to the unreached people. No matter how much you try to explain that, that's not something you can explain until they actually see for themselves.

There's people at our church. I remember early on when we used to go out to China. I remember some of the parents, when we used to go out to China, and at that time, China was not as comfortable as it is now. It's become very modern. And at that time, there's a lot of stories about underground church leaders getting jailed.

And I remember early on when we were going there to teach English, we would pay a lot of money to go there to teach English, pay a lot of money to run the camps so we could share the gospel. And I remember some of the parents who weren't Christian at the time saying, "What are you guys doing?

If you go to Japan or Korea, you can make a lot of money in the summer. Why would you pay money to go to a place in the world and work for them for free and come back with nothing?" I'm not going to tell you who they are, but eventually, one of the parents became Christians themselves.

And then they came to us. They came with us at one point to China to do missions, to do the same thing. Something they could not figure out. They couldn't understand. Until the veil was torn, they began to see the mystery revealed. All of a sudden, not only did it make sense, they participated.

They began to support. That's what he means. That at one point when it was hidden, now it is open for people to see. And it was not only was it hidden, he deliberately put it into the Old Testament to cause a stir. Kind of like the way the movies are made today.

Today's theme is movies. I guess this is not a movie. It's a TV series. Remember a while back, there was a TV series called 24. You guys remember that? I don't like watching things for a long period of time. If it's like one ends, then I want to be done with it.

I don't want this lingering on and on. But this thing, everybody at church got into it and I got curious. I said, "What is this?" I watched, me and Esther watched it, and we got hooked. The first one. And the reason why is because at the end of everything, at the end of whatever the series is, how would they always end?

Some crazy cliffhanger. He's about to save the president and then if he doesn't do this one thing, the bomb is going to blow up and the clock ticks. 10, 9, 8, 7, then whatever else comes after that. And then it would go black and then say next week. So you have to go back to see, did he save him, not save him?

And every one, it would end like that and it would hook you. Even if you got bored in the middle, at the very end, it would always hook you to make you come to the next week. We got caught up in this and by the time we got to the third series, we said, "We got to stop.

This is a lordship issue. We're spending way too much time with this." And just how many presidents are going to die? How many times is he going to save the world? But the genius behind what they did was to kind of hook you to make sure. Well, the Bible says that that's exactly what God was doing in the Old Testament.

He was implanting. He was waiting for the perfect time to reveal, but he was trying to stir up, get people ready. I mean, wouldn't that make sense if your son is about to come and give his life, the greatest thing that happened in human history, depending on what it is, you're going to spend a lot of time preparing.

Those of you who got married and you're preparing for a wedding, and I know we have a bunch of couples now, or if you're having a kid and you know that the kid is coming in the next six months, as the time ticks, depending on how important this is, you're going to spend more time, more money, more energy preparing to make sure.

Well, that's exactly what God was doing with Jesus. All through Israel's history, in everything that he did, everything that he did in the Old Testament was to point to and to prepare for the coming of Christ. 1 Peter 1, 10-11, it says, "As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, made careful searches and inquiries." Even as they were prophesying, what is God doing?

They were beginning to ask questions. What is this? How is this going to be revealed? Can you imagine Isaiah prophesying, Isaiah 53? And as he was prophesying, the Messiah is going to be slaughtered like a sheep? He's not going to open his mouth? All our iniquities are going to be laid upon him?

What does this mean? That's exactly what he says. He said, "God gave these revelations, but even as it was coming through the prophets, they began to ask the question, 'What is this? How is this going to happen?'" Verse 11, "Seeking to know what person or time of the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the suffering of Christ and the glories to follow." He said that this mystery that was coming through the prophets was so spectacular that even caused them to ask questions.

They began to search and they began to look with envy. And that was God's intention. That was his intention. So you can enjoy the New Testament independent of the Old Testament, just like you can watch Star Wars, the first one, without seeing the other ones. But when you study the Old Testament, when you study the book of Leviticus and Israel's history and the prophets, all of a sudden you begin to see the depth of what God has been doing in history to prepare for the coming of Christ.

Colossians 2, 2-3, "Even in Paul's prayer, Paul's pray that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, attaining to all the wealth that comes from the fullness assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." All the treasures, all the wisdom, all the knowledge is in Christ.

So this mystery that is revealed isn't simply a part of human history. Anything that you and I have been fooled to believe can be found in this world because of the lie, because of our sins and our lust. He says it is found in Christ because he is the author of life.

All things were created by him and for him and is sustained through him. Jesus is the gospel. So when this mystery is revealed, it is not simply a way to get to heaven. Every longing and desire in sinful man is found in Christ. That's what he means. All the treasures, all the wisdom, all the knowledge is found in Christ.

It is this mystery that he kept hidden and is now revealed. That's why nominal Christianity isn't Christianity. Nominal Christianity is not a sub-level of Christianity. It is not a different part of Christianity. It is not Christianity. You can't behold this glory and walk away and say, "Well, you guys are fanatics.

I'm just going to be average." It's not possible because it betrays what you profess to believe. Either you beheld his glory and it changes everything about who you are or you didn't behold it. You can love the church, you can love the people, you can love the teaching, you can love the purpose, but that's not Jesus if it doesn't change everything about who we are.

2 Timothy 3.7, always learning. He's talking about the end times, these false prophets. They're always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. C.S. Lewis says it this way, "I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." Beholding God's glory, I'm sure many of you can testify the same thing.

Once you met the Lord, whether it was an instantaneous meeting of the Lord or whether it was a gradual unveiling of this mystery, once you met the Lord, your purpose looked different. Your values began to change. Even why you choose a major starts to change. What you want from a marriage changes.

How you raise your kids, it changes because your perspective changes. What you consider to be successful changes. What makes you laugh changes. The kind of people that you want to be around, it changes. How you view eternity, how you view your retirement, how you view life, how you view singleness, how you view marriage, it all completely changes because through the lens of Christ, everything changes.

It's kind of like the light got turned on. Before we met Christ, we were kind of functioning in the dark and we were feeling, it's like, "Okay, this looks like a table." You would go to the dining room table and it looks like, "Oh, this feels like a chair." But all of a sudden, when the light gets turned on, all of a sudden you see what it is.

Your whole world changes when the light gets turned on. See, that's Christianity. But again, the danger that you and I are in, in a post-Christian culture where there is a lot of description of what the world is supposed to be like, and a lot of people who are living in darkness can tell you and say the right things and yet have never changed their values.

They just added Christ to whatever it was they were pursuing before because they never met the Lord. Jeremiah 29, 13, it says, "You will seek me and find me when you search me with all your heart." God is not playing hide and seek. He says in the scripture, he left all these imprints and for those who are searching, like the prophets, when these prophecies were coming, they said, "What is this?" And they began to search and they began to search him with all their hearts.

God began to reveal it to them. But the people who are just kind of nonchalant, satisfied with their life, he says, "No, if you search me with all your heart." He left imprints and it will remain an imprint. It will remain a mystery. He allows the veil to remain because you are not interested.

You know, a while back, and I don't even know the author, but I didn't even want to look it up. You might have heard it where this guy wrote a book because he's not that into you. It's a dating book, it's not a Christian book. So basically in that book, he describes if he does this, right?

Like if you dated him and you came back and he does this, it just means he's not into you. Don't pursue him. Don't get hurt because he's just not into you. And I remember hearing certain things. If he met you, no matter what he said, if he leaves and he doesn't call you back in the next five days, he's just not into you.

Or he goes out and then he asks you to split the bill and you pay your half and I pay mine. He may not be that into you. He doesn't introduce you to his friends. You know, he always kind of meets you sideways, but when you say, "Hey, where are your friends?" He never wants to introduce you to your friends.

He's not that into you. So he's got all these lists of things that no matter what he said to you, his actions prove he's not that into you. In our faith, we nonchalantly put the minimum effort in pursuing Christ and constantly wonder why God feels so distant. Could it be you're not that into him?

You're not that interested? You haven't made up your mind that he is everything. Maybe that's the reason why he always feels so distant. You want the world and him and God made it very clear you cannot serve mammon and God at the same time and you're trying so hard and it just isn't working because you're really not that into him.

You want the benefit of Christianity without having Christ. You want holiness without his presence and it doesn't happen. See God left it a mystery to draw those who are hungry to him and when they came, he tore the veil and he began to see and everything started to change.

It was manifested by the scriptures of prophets according to the commandments of the eternal God through his word, primarily through Christ. Hebrews chapter 1, 1 through 2, God after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways in these last days has spoken to us in his son whom he appointed heir of all things.

The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to bring this mystery to us and make it known. A lot of times we think of the Holy Spirit as being emotional in the middle of worship like God touching us and bringing tears and yeah, we're not saying that that can't be the work of the Holy Spirit but according to Jesus, the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to make the revelation of Christ clear.

John 14, 26, but the helper, the Holy Spirit whom the father will send in my name, talking about the Holy Spirit, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. His primary work is to make the revelation of Christ clear so that when the word of God is taught that you understand it and then when you heard it that you would meditate on it and it would actually cause you to bear fruit, that you don't just hear it and then when you're out the door you forget about it.

He said the work of the Holy Spirit causes it to stick into your mind and in your heart and it begins to challenge you and change you and sanctify you. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. So a lot of times people think like well because we're not emotional, we're not raising our hands and enough people are not crying, this Holy Spirit is not working.

That's not what the Holy Spirit, the Bible says the Holy Spirit does primarily. Let me get to the fourth and fifth point because it's kind of tagged and I'm not going to spend as much time on this. Considering all that we know about the gospel and that's pretty much the summary of what Paul has said, in light of that he says this gospel is a mystery to be preached.

It has been made known to all the nations. So faith, Romans 10 17 comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. So first application of that is that the preacher upon this pulpit must preach his word. My goal here is not to try to fill this room with as many people as possible.

My hope and desire is more and more people will come and hear the gospel. But my primary purpose is to make his voice clear. Not my voice, not my experience, not the wisdom of this world, but this mystery that's been revealed to the world to proclaim it. That's the primary purpose of this pulpit.

But it doesn't end with this pulpit because you have family and friends and strangers around you that I will never reach. I don't know them. I don't know who they are. And even if they came here, I preached to them from a distance. In light of this mystery that's been revealed, the gospel is to be preached.

First Corinthians 1 21, for since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. Our job, we don't have the power to save people. If we just apply the right technique, if we have the right discipleship, if we're organized certain way that somehow we can add to whatever Christ was doing.

He said no. The foolishness of the preaching of the cross is what brings them to Christ. So our primary purpose outside of these walls is to make sure that everybody at least understands this mystery, at least cognitively. That nobody around you dies not knowing what the gospel is. They may die rejecting the gospel, but they should not be dying not knowing the gospel.

Because he says if you know this mystery, and that's why it's called euangelion, the good news. You can't hear the good news and just keep it to yourself. Because it was a mystery that was revealed and once it is revealed you are to spend the rest of the time telling as many people as possible.

This gospel is to be preached, to know him and to make him known. Whose motto is that? Does anybody know? Navigators. If you've ever been involved with Navigators campus ministry, it's to know him, make him known. I've always coveted that because I wanted that to be ours. Too many people know it so I can't take it.

To know him and to make him known. That pretty much summarizes our calling. You can't make him known if you don't know him. If you're not continuing to pursue him, you can't make him known. But those two aspects have to go hand in hand. Our goal has to be constantly to know him, to understand this great mystery that has been revealed in depth.

And then the more we know, the more we are to proclaim and to teach. Everything else is a distraction. Everything else is a distraction. Distraction doesn't mean it's sin. But it can lead to sin. All our hobbies, all our desires, all of these things, they're not necessarily sinful. But it's a distraction because it takes us away from our primary calling, to know him and to make him known.

That's what he means when he says, "Whether you eat or drink, do it all for the glory of God." You know, so sometimes we compartmentalize God and so we have God things that we do and then we have the non-God things that we do and then somehow these things never overlap.

Right? I mean, God didn't just purchase a part of your life. The scripture says we all belong to him. Everything that we do, eat or drink, is for his glory. Fifth and final, the gospel is to be obeyed. You can't obey something that you don't believe. And here's the fundamental thing that I want to, again, encourage and challenge you.

Because we're afraid to ask the question if we really believe. Because if the answer to that is, "Oh, maybe I don't," means maybe you're not saved. So that's not something that I want to even entertain. So we look at our life that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense with what I'm reading in scripture.

But when we take that, "Maybe I don't really believe," and we're trying to make sense of a life with no affection for Christ, no desire to evangelize, no desire to read his word, no desire to obey, pursuing the things of this world, and yet we can never question whether I really believe.

So we're trying to make sense of this. Where in the Bible it says, "If you believe, then go." So the fundamental question always is that. Do you believe in that God? Do you believe in that God? Because when we reorient ourselves based upon our faith, what we believe, it causes us to rethink.

If I believe that this world is temporary, why do I love it so much? If I believe that all the money in the world and all the acclamation in this world, all of it is under judgment of God, why do I cherish that so much? If I believe that the world is condemned and if they die without knowing Christ, and condemnation is waiting for them, why am I not motivated to teach them, to preach to them, to bring them to Christ?

Why not? Is it because I don't believe, or am I so distracted with the things of this world that is not on my radar? Whatever it is, it is not normal. It is not consistent with our faith. He says to bring obedience, the mystery of the gospel is ultimately to bring us to obedience.

Let me wrap it up this way, because that's exactly what he says. That's how Paul started this letter in Romans chapter 1, 5. "Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his name's sake." Matthew 28, 20. Baptize them, go, make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

So the end goal of discipleship is obedience. The end goal of preaching the gospel is not simply to say, "Here's believers, here's the non-believers, here's the atheists, and here are the theists." It's to bring us to obedience. So let me wrap this up, because the way he wraps it up is ultimately pointing to God.

"That has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience to the faith, to the only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever. Amen." And all of this culminates in human history, ends with this, "To the only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever.

Amen." The goal, ultimate purpose of the revelation of this mystery is for his glory. And it all points back to Genesis chapter 1 and 2. God created the universe, what? To reflect his glory. He made man in his own image. And then when man rebelled against God, we can no longer bear his glory.

And that's exactly what it says, right? All have sinned and fall short of what? God's glory. So when we are restored, that glory is restored. So how is that glory restored? How did we lose it? We lost it because mankind decided that he wanted to be the object of worship.

And you can summarize all of human rebellion as pursuing his glory. Isn't that why we covet? Isn't that oftentimes the source of our depression? Isn't that the source of contention? Isn't that the source of frustration? Isn't that ultimately the source of lying and slandering and oftentimes murder and theft?

Because we're pursuing our own glory and somebody else and something else or some circumstance is getting in the way. So when we pursue our happiness, when we pursue our own glory, it leads to the exact opposite of what we think it's going to achieve. And that's what Jesus said, "If you seek your own life, you will find death." But if you die in the name of Jesus, you will find life in him.

You and I were not made to be worshipped. As much as that sounds attractive, to be the center of attention on a pedestal with people clapping hands and saying, "Wow, you're so awesome." As much as that may be appealing to us, we want to play football, we want to be the captain.

We want to be a multimillionaire, drive nice car. We want to be the tallest, we want to be the most handsome, we want to be the most talented. And we bring that even into the church. We want to be recognized, we want to become leaders. All of that at the source is human rebellion, wanting to be worshipped rather than be worshippers.

The gospel, the mystery that is revealed, it flips that script and turns it back to what God intended. We put God on his throne. That's the end goal of human history, is to put God back on his throne and take ourselves off. And we think, "Oh, that's kind of egotistical.

I mean, of course we all want to be the center of attention." Think about how freeing it is if you didn't have to worry about your hair. Something as trivial as that. It's like, "No, no, no, I don't want to." If you didn't have to worry about other people, think about how much time, energy is spent to make sure that your hair is a certain way every morning.

It'd probably save you at least 30 minutes. So some guy is just kind of like, "I'm sick of this." I think about something as trivial as your hair and how much time and effort goes into making sure your hair is a certain way, combed a certain way, your skin, your pants.

Is it tight enough? All right. I made myself laugh. Imagine how much time and effort goes into wanting attention a certain way. Imagine being freed from all of that. Imagine being freed from all of that. How that would affect your marriage. How that would affect your friendship. How that would affect your work.

And how that ultimately affects your life. Don't you think what Jesus says, "He who knows the truth, they are disciples of mine." Right? "And they shall know the truth and the truth shall set them free." What is he setting us free from? From the sin. The sin of rebellion against God to glorify himself.

So what's going to save us from this desire to be glorified? Is to reveal a glory that is so much better than us. So much better than what we can possibly imagine. That we don't trick ourselves to pursue that. That we notice something so much more than us that all of a sudden we just forget.

Isn't that what Paul means in light of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ? Everything else became rubbish. And the reason why it's not rubbish is because we keep going back and looking at it and forgetting who Jesus is. That's the point of the gospel. That's why he had it hidden and then all of a sudden now it's revealed.

So that those who have seen the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ would want nothing more than that glory every single day. To the only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever. Amen.