Forest Hill Presbyterian Church
To God Be the Glory! - Romans 16:25-27
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We're going to hear from God's Word now the very end of the book of Romans. This is indeed the final message in the book of Romans where if you look at the doxology that closes this wonderful book in Romans 16 verses 25 to 27. This is the Word of God. Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. According to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages that has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations. According to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Lord you indeed deserve all glory and honor and praise and thanksgiving, adoration, our deepest worship for all that you are and all that you have done. So Father as we meditate on this wonderful doxology that closes the book of Romans would you please engrave it on our hearts that every fiber of our being might resonate with the truth of what is being presented here and it might echo to your praise in our lives and in your church now and throughout the world and through all eternity we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. It's interesting as we've been going through the end of the book of Romans it feels like Paul will get to a point where he's ready to close the letter and then he'll have something else to say and then he gets to a point where he's ready to close the letter and then he has something else to say and Paul's normal way of closing his letters is with a benediction and we've talked about that already and the most common benediction he gives is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you or some variation of that and that's almost all of Paul's letters end with some form of that benediction or with a benediction but here Paul has actually given us four benedictions of different kinds and yet he still thinks of more things to say and now he just breaks forth in praise and he ends this letter not with a benediction but with a doxology. Now those are big words and they're not words that we use every day but just to simplify a benediction is a blessing it's a word a good word spoken over God's people to impart blessing from the Lord and it goes all the way back to the way that God commanded the priest to end the worship in the Old Testament the Lord bless you and keep you and cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you that's the benediction and so Paul ends most of his letters that way but then there's doxology and doxology is literally a word of glory or a glorious word and it's praise to God and I think it's fitting that in this magnum opus of Paul's what some have called the greatest letter ever written the first sort of theological treatise of the gospel to really unfold in full in the church that it ends with praise to God because it is ultimately to God's glory that the gospel is given to us and it is to God's glory that we are caused to stand by God and established before him for all eternity we now these are two different things as I said a benediction and a doxology but they're not really separate things because every benediction speaks a word of blessing to God's people that resonates to the glory of God the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you is to the glory of God because we know that the blessing we need is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ or the Lord would bless us and and keep us and cause his face to shine upon us it's his glory that blesses us and here while speaking a word of praise to God it's it's glory to God because of how he's blessed us and how he keeps us so in the notes that you have in your bulletin I open with thinking about this idea of what what is it that establishes you before God for all eternity how are you strengthened spiritually how do you
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