Closing Things Out
Romans 15-16

The beginning of chapter 15 carries on from Paul’s discussion in chapter 14, where we left off last time.  As we learned then, it seems the manner in which we disagree (not the content) on things in the Body of Christ really does make a difference.

Romans 15:1-13 (NIV)

¹We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. ²Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. ³For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” ⁴For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

⁵May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, ⁶so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁷Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. ⁸For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs ⁹so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written:
“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;
I will sing hymns to your name.” ¹⁰Again, it says,
“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” ¹¹And again,
“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
and sing praises to him, all you peoples.” ¹²And again, Isaiah says,
“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
one who will arise to rule over the nations;
the Gentiles will hope in him.”

¹³May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Notice Paul continues by showing on whose side the burden lies in a disagreement.  If two people disagree, and it is primarily a matter of maturity of faith, those who are more mature should bear with those who are less mature.  This is a simple solution – after all, if a child disagrees with us because she doesn’t understand what’s going on, we don’t expect them to just grow up and deal with it.  As Paul points out, this is just what Jesus did.

But again, Paul stresses what he’s been focusing on since chapter 12.  From the beginning of his letter, he laid out the story of redemption – humankind’s sinfulness, our inability to reconcile ourselves to God, God’s steps to be reconciled to human beings.  How then shall we live?  We ought to live in obedience and love for God and for all God’s children.

Keep the Peace

And as the Body of Christ, we ought to maintain love and unity at all times.  Why?  Because it is one of the primary ways God shows his glory to the world!

After all, the natural order of the human world is decay, corruption, division, and death.  Every civilization in history so far has become corrupted and has fallen.  Every government deals with corruption.  Every person comes into some kind of conflict with another person.  And all together, our normal response is to be intolerant, spiteful, to hold grudges, to want revenge.

So when a group of people can live together in harmony and in love – respecting our disagreements but not allowing them to divide us, forgiving when we are hurt, giving to each other so that all may have what they need – when a group of people can live together like this in unity and peace, the world will notice.  And we can tell them – the only way it’s possible is because of God.

In fact, most of Paul’s instructions to the church from chapter 12 onward are directed at keeping peace and unity.  This seems to be his primary concern.  It’s understandable, considering the recent history of the church in Rome.  The fights between the Jews and the Jewish Christians had gotten so bad that Claudius expelled all Jews – both Christian and non-Christian – from the city of Rome in AD 49.

Five years later, Nero allowed all the Jews to come back into Rome, but by that point the Gentile Christians had probably grown distrustful of the Jewish Christians.  It’s obvious from Paul’s letter that there has been a lot of conflict there in the recent past.  This concerns Paul greatly for theological reasons: Jesus had commanded his followers to live in unity (John 17).  But it also concerns him for practical reasons – who would want to become a Christian if it automatically meant fighting and getting kicked out of your home?!

So Paul’s instructions toward peace and unity make perfect sense.  As an apostle and an evangelist, he’s concerned about how Christians present ourselves as a witness to the world.  Our conduct as a Family of God speaks more to people than our words ever will.

If last words are any indication of the main point Paul was trying to get across in this letter, his final instructions in 16:17-19 should tell us what he urges above all else:

¹⁷I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. ¹⁸For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. ¹⁹Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.

Final Plans

Next, Paul moves from theology and exhortation, to more personal details of his travels and his plans.  In 15:14-22, he recounts what he’s been doing and why he hasn’t been able to visit the churches in Rome.  He has felt God’s call to minister to the Gentiles in Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece.

Now he is free at last to tackle what he imagines will be his greatest challenge yet – Spain.  During most of Paul’s tenure in each town and city, he would first look for an established group of believers.  If he found none, he would then connect himself to the Jews in the synagogues.  Often, the Jewish people would resonate with Paul’s message of God’s messiah, and they would gladly receive Paul’s message of the Gospel.  This was a perfect starting point as Paul encountered places where the Gospel hadn’t yet taken root.

But in Paul’s time, Spain was almost completely pagan – there were no Christian believers, no Jewish synagogues.  Paul would be starting “from scratch,” working with people who had never even heard of Jesus of Nazareth.  You can hear his excitement building from verse 17:

¹⁷Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. ¹⁸I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done- ¹⁹by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. ²⁰It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. ²¹Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.” ²²This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.

²³But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to see you, ²⁴I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

Paul considers Spain the ultimate challenge – the starting point of what Jesus meant when he “ends of the earth.”

But he has to take care of one thing first – he has a gift to deliver to the believers in Jerusalem.  The Gentile Christians have heard of their distress, and they have sent monetary gifts to assist the Jewish Christians.  Paul recognizes this generous overture – after all, the Jews had shared their faith.  The Gentiles could certainly share their wealth in return.

Acts tells us that Paul did make it to Jerusalem, and he eventually made it to Rome – but not as he had planned.  Paul acknowledges in 15:30-32 that his visit to Jerusalem could be dangerous.

³⁰I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. ³¹Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, ³²so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed.

But he didn’t realize how dangerous it would be.  Paul had become one of the best known Christians during his time – his name was spoken across the Empire by both believers and non-believers.  But Paul had been a Jew once, and a very zealous Jew.  Remember that Paul was one of the first to persecute the Christians before he was converted.  Once he had been a model Jew.  Now he is a model Christian.  You can imagine how the Jews felt about that…

So when they got their hands on Paul in Jerusalem, they arrested him and accused him of being a trouble-maker.  Paul recognized his opportunity – he invoked his right to appeal to Caesar, and ended up traveling to Rome in chains…

But that’s a story for another time.  If you want to hear where Paul goes after he writes this letter, read Acts 21 and onward.

Greetings and Commendations

Finally, Paul wraps up his letter by sending greetings to the believers he knows in Rome.  Notice how many people he knows in the church, even though he’s never visited it!

Notice also, that Paul mentions 11 women among the almost 30 people he names.  Two of them appear to be leaders, including Phoebe – who was either a deaconess or a minister.  The other is Junias, whom Paul calls an “apostle” before he was!

©2012 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

This sermon was actually delivered on November 23, 2008 – the last Sunday before Advent began.  Now that I’ve resumed the series on Romans, I am putting this sermon up as well, which actually covers just the first verse of Romans 12.  It also includes a summary of what’s come before – a good way to get re-oriented to where Paul has been and where he’s going.

Introduction: A Change in Tone

Today’s text marks a changing point in our walk through Romans.  A very important couple of words at the very beginning of today’s passage signal that something different is coming.

“Therefore… in view of God’s mercy” – in light of all that has come before

“I appeal to you” – Here’s what we should do about what we’ve heard

Paul has done with his theologizing.  We’ve heard 11 chapters of all kinds of theology:

• How our sin has separated us from God
• That all of us are without excuse
• That in God’s eyes, we are all on level ground, no matter the type or number of our sins – all of us have sinned, and all of us have fallen short
• But God did something to make matters right – he sent his only son as a sacrifice in our place.
• Jesus’ work is powerful enough to save any who will rely on him for their salvation.
• So we have been set free from our old master, sin, and are now free to serve a new master
• Therefore, if God has done this for us, we should not be afraid of anything – for “if God is for us, who can be against us?”

Now Paul moves from his theological section to the practical matters.  Most scripture – most writing of any sort – is arranged in this way.

• Here are the facts.
• Here is the explanation of the facts.
• What should we do then, about the facts?

The Image: Sacrifice

12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship.

“Sacrifice” is a strong word to us – it invokes images of blood, violence and death.  It’s hard for us to understand, in our culture, what Paul is talking about.

The act of a sacrifice is to take something that is valuable to us, and to give it up for someone or something else.  A quick look in the definition yields the following basic facts about religious sacrifice in particular:

• WHO – the devotee of a particular god
• WHAT – Something valuable – crops, wine, valuable animals, etc.
• WHEN – A sacrifice occurred at a particular time – usually surrounded by ritual and prayer.
• WHERE – A sacrifice occurred in a particular place – on an altar, in an important spiritual place like a temple.

The basic idea of a sacrifice is to say, “This is what I’m willing to do for something or someone that’s important to me.”  When you sacrificed an animal, you said that the god you worship is of greater value to you than the animal you’re sacrificing.  When you took the best of your crops and burned them before God, you said that God was more important to you than the profit that could come from those crops, and that you trusted God to provide for your needs in place of those crops.

The more important the item offered, the greater the sacrifice and the greater the statement you made about the person or thing you were sacrificing to.

It became, over time, a way to satisfy an angry god, or to ask for something you needed – more rain for the crops, for instance.  It moved from saying “This is how much I value you,” to “This is what I’m willing to give you – what will you give me in return?”  Or sometimes it was used as a kind of spiritual “thank you” note – a way to tell a god “thanks” for something good that had happened.

That’s why eventually, people were willing to sacrifice the most important thing they had – their children.  What more valuable thing could you give to show your devotion to a god?  And what would a god NOT give to someone so devoted to him?

But God absolutely forbade this practice because it was against his nature to destroy human life, and because this kind of sacrifice was selfish – designed to get something in return.

And for the Jewish people, sacrifice had become their core act of worship.  They made the long trip to Jerusalem each year – but not to sit in a worship service and hear a Revival preacher.  They offered prayers while they were there, but their primary action, and the thing that all other acts of worship revolved around, was SACRIFICE.

But this was not the original intent of sacrifice, though.  The original idea was to declare how valuable God is to us by giving up something important.  And in using this important word, Paul is signaling a return to that original idea.

We don’t kill animals on an altar anymore.  But we still practice sacrifice today, though we may not view it that way.  When we tithe and give offerings – we’re not “paying” God, we’re saying that God is more important to us than money (at least, that’s the concept).  That’s a big statement to make – especially as Americans who value money so highly.

Living Sacrifice

So now that we’ve looked at the word “sacrifice,” what is Paul saying about it?

“…to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.  This is your spiritual act of worship”

A better translation for “your spiritual act of worship” would be “your reasonable act of service.”  It’s a term that implies the central and most basic act of worship.  Like the sacrifice to the Jewish people, this was to be the primary action of people who worship this God.

And what is this action?  It’s still sacrifice, but a different kind of sacrifice.

“Offer your bodies…” – are we to throw ourselves into the fire?  Commit suicide?  No, because he uses the word “living sacrifice.”  By “bodies,” Paul is speaking figuratively of our lives – our every moment of every day.

HOLY and PLEASING – this is to be “offer your lives as a LIVING, HOLY, and PLEASING sacrifice.”

Our most important sacrifice – our central act of worship – is not bringing our tithes.  For most of us, the amount we give is not enough to cause us undue anxiety.  Neither is our sacrifice the hour we spend here on Sunday mornings.  It’s no real sacrifice to be here on Sunday mornings… an hour is no big sacrifice for us most of the time.

No, our real sacrifice is the 167 hours we live the rest of the week. Living every waking moment of every day in a “holy and pleasing” way.  That is the ultimate cost for us.

Wow!  How in the world can we achieve this?

We want to believe that the way to follow God’s will – being a holy and pleasing sacrifice – is to know all the rules so we can follow them rightly in each situation.  But the problem is, you don’t always know all the rules, and you don’t always know how they apply to each situation.

So how do we do it?  Paul only gives us a hint:

2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.

We’ll have to wait until the next sermon to figure out together what this means!

©2012 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

As some previous entries, this post is more notes and commentary than sermon – I referred to these notes as I preached, but the final format was much different.

This week, we’re going to cover a little more ground than we have been so far.  At this point, Paul gets into a discussion that certainly has theological value, but is aimed more for his audience in the Roman church.

He gets into a discussion about the place of the Jews in God’s plan.  And he talks about it for three chapters.  This was a difficult topic for the Christians of the early church – they KNEW that their religion had sprung from Judaism.  Jesus himself was a faithful Jew!  And because of this, they knew the history of the promise that God had made to the Jewish people almost as long as they had existed – that he would be their God and they would be his people.

And yet the Jews had rejected Jesus, and had been his primary adversaries during Jesus’ ministry.  So what was the relationship of the Jews in this new “Kingdom of God?”

Let me briefly sum up what I think Paul’s saying about the Jewish people and how it relates to us:

• 9:1-13 – God established a holy nation, but with Abraham he took that nation beyond just flesh and blood – so that all those who chose to believe God’s promises became part of God’s people – including you and me. This means that some of the descendants of Abraham can be excluded from the Kingdom, even though they are flesh-and-blood descendants of the promise.
• 9:14-33 – Knowing some of his hearers were Jewish, Paul reminds them that God is sovereign and can do things in any way he pleases – it’s not up to us to question his actions or motives. We cannot say that God is unfair, because we do not know what God is up to.
• 10:1-21 – Still, we should desire (as Paul does) that they can be saved. When God offered salvation through Jesus, he didn’t say it was only to people who weren’t Jews – even the Jews can believe in Jesus and be saved. So WE CAN NOT TREAT THEM ANY DIFFERENTLY.
• 11:1-10 – God has not rejected his people, so we should not reject them.
• 11:11-24 – Far from treating them with disdain, we should treat them with utmost respect because they are the “root” from which our faith springs!
• 11:25-36 – Then, almost as if to undo what he has said before, Paul says that in some mysterious way “all Israel will be saved” because of God’s plan! He ends with a exclamation of the great mystery of God – we do not (and CAN NOT) understand… and for that, we should give thanks.

The long and short?  Paul says, “I know you’re asking about the Jews and what will happen to them.  I can only speak to what God has revealed to me.  But in the end, I don’t know any more than you do!”

Yet, as much as the logic of these chapters seems to contradict itself, there are some very familiar passages that we should make note of this morning.

Stepping Out of Theology

The passages we know so well from these chapters shows us a very different side of Paul.  Paul is authoritative and confident, to be sure.  He has studied, he is very intelligent, and he knows that people are counting on him to explain God’s word.

And yet, his emotions get the best of him here – see how he speaks of his people in these verses:

9:1-5 – I speak the truth in Christ-I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit- 2I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!^[a] Amen.

Here, Paul reveals his feelings about his Jewish people – he loves them so much, he would even offer himself that they might be saved!

But he goes on:

10:1-17 –  1Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

5Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: “The man who does these things will live by them.”^[a] 6But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’^[b]” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7″or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’^[c]” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,”^[d] that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”^[e] 12For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile-the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”^[f]

14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”^[g]

16But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?”^[h] 17Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

I’m not so sure that anti-Semitism is much of a problem here in Kenbridge – maybe I’m wrong.  But what’s more striking to me in these passages is Paul’s passion for these Jewish people.

• Among these are people that hated Jesus enough to crucify him.
• Many of these people rejected God outright for centuries
• Who promised to love him, and then stabbed him in the back time and time again. Then they came crawling back asking forgiveness!
• These are the people who saw what God could do with their own eyes – they watched him send plagues, part the sea, feed them in the wilderness, take them into the promised land to defeat enemies greater than themselves. God raised up a nation, rescued them time and time again. They watched Jesus do miracles of all kinds. And STILL they rejected him!

But Paul doesn’t reject them.  He LOVES them.  In fact, he loves them so much he’s willing to sacrifice himself for them in the most awful kind of way.  Paul’s not talking about death – when he says he wishes he could be “cut off,” he’s wishing he could be damned instead of them!

And Paul tells us why:  Because we are all the same.  If we expect God to reject the Jews because of their stubbornness, then we’ll have to expect God to reject US too.  Because we’ve done just the same thing.

• WE are the people just as responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion as the ones who drove the nails.
• WE have rejected God outright for al our lives.
• WE have promised to love him, and then stabbed him in the back time and time again, only to came crawling back asking forgiveness!
• WE are the ones who have watched God do all kinds of miraculous things in our lives, and still we don’t trust him to take care of our basic needs.

Do we have this kind of love for people?  Do we love our neighbors enough to give any price that they might be saved?  And all we’re really asked to do is to TELL them!

People of God, if we believe the hope we talked about last week, we have something to do about it.  We have to tell – everyone.  Not just the people we love… the people we tend to dislike as well.  That means people of other races, drug and alcohol addicts, prisoners, sex offenders… even people who don’t share our political or religious views!

©2012 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

Even though I’ve had to take a couple of breaks from the series on Romans, it’s still going – and going strong, it seems.  Our church folks are saying they have consistently enjoyed these sermons more than others I have done.

So this post continues into Romans chapter 6.  As some of the prior entries in this series, this post is more “commentary” than sermon – these were the notes I took in preparation for the actual sermon.

Intro: “Easier to Ask Forgiveness…”

(1) What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?  (2)  By no means!

Paul is picking up where he left off before – “where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (5:20).  Using a typical rhetorical device, Paul anticipates the questions and objections of his hearers/readers.  “So if grace is ALWAYS going to be greater than sin, then we can keep on sinning, right?  It will always be forgiven later, after all!”

Before we write this off as something we would never do, think about it.  Have you ever thought like this before?  I have.

And it’s not uncommon for us, as human beings, to think like this.  While we are here on this side of heaven, our nature will always be to work contrary to God.  And sinful ways are tempting – that’s why we want to go back to them.  It’s fun!  That’s just the way we are!

Paul’s answer, of course, is a resounding NO.  In fact, in Greek this phrase, me genoito, is something like “God forbid!” or “heck no!”

To emphasize his point, Paul uses two main images that help us understand what has happened to us when we choose to follow Christ.

Death and Life: Identifying with Christ

(2) How can we who died to sin still live in it? (3)  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  (4)  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  (5)  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  (6)  We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.  (7)  For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Two weeks ago we talked about how we must identify with Christ in our sufferings if we are to identify with him in his glory.  Here Paul says that we must also identify with Jesus in his death – not a physical death this time, but a spiritual one.  When we join with Christ, we “die” to our old selves – and just as one who dies physically is freed from slavery to sin, so are we freed from slavery to sin.  And then we are “raised to walk in newness of life.”

Again, this is not an “either-or,” but rather a “both-and.”  We must accept the death to sin if we want to accept the resurrection.

(8) Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  (9)  We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.  (10)  For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.  (11)  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Paul continues to follow his train of thought – this time comparing our spiritual journey with the physical journey of Jesus.

Jesus dies                                   =>       We die to sin

Jesus is raised                             =>       We are raised to new life

Jesus no longer subject to death    =>       We are no longer subject to sin

Jesus lives forever in new life         =>       We live forever free from sin

One of my favorite books to read with the girls has been Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. There are all kinds of lessons we can learn from the story of the butterfly, and there’s an important lesson for us in regards to this passage, as well.  Before he was transformed, the caterpillar had no choice but to crawl.  He didn’t have wings… he only had legs.  But once he became a butterfly, he didn’t LOSE his legs – he could still crawl if he wanted to.  But now he had a CHOICE – and the easier choice was to fly!

But imagine if the Very Hungry Caterpillar became a butterfly… and then wanted to go back to being a caterpillar?  He kept his wings, but he decided never to use them again.  The “Very Hungry Caterpillar” turned into the “Very Unintelligent Butterfly.”  How ridiculous would that be?

Freedom and Slavery

(12) Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.  (13)  Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.  (14)  For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

The next illustration might be more powerful still.  Paul speaks of our prior relationship to sin as one of master-slave.  “Slave” is a strong word today, and it accurately portrays Paul’s point.  Before, we were literally slaves to sin.  Like slaves, we had no choice whom to serve – we were sinful through and through.

But now we have been set free.  And we can freely choose which master we want to serve.  Will we continue to serve sin, even though it has no real claim on us?

Suppose we as Americans decided that even though we were free from British rule, we wanted to start paying taxes to Britain again and letting them tell us what to do.  Not only would it be ridiculous, it would be an insult to all the men and women who gave their lives so that we could live free!

So, now that we are free, we should present ourselves and our “members” – that is, our bodies, and our resources – to the one who has bought our freedom.  Our bodies, our lives, our talents and time have been redeemed.  We should no longer use them for sinful things, but for holy things… not just to our own designs, but “for righteousness.”

Choosing Our Master

(15) What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!  (16)  Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?  (17)  But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,  (18)  and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Paul’s tone here seems to indicate, “It doesn’t matter who you DECLARE as your master.  The one you serve is your REAL master.”

(19)  I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.  (20)  When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.  (21)  But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.  (22)  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  (23)  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Again, Paul chooses rich imagery – that of a person at a job.  The wages of doing the work of sin is death.  These are the wages we deserve – we’ve done the work, and we deserve the fruit of our labor.  We’ve served our master, and we’ve gotten our reward.

But notice that Paul doesn’t use the same terms describing what God has done.  He doesn’t say, “the wages of righteousness is eternal life.”  We didn’t work for this eternal life, and neither did we earn it.

Paul says, “the FREE GIFT of God is eternal life.”  Again, mercy and grace – we should have received the “wages of sin,” but we didn’t.  Instead, we got something we did NOT deserve – a free gift of eternal life.

©2012 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

Romans 5:1-8
“Rejoicing in Suffering?”

Last week we talked about the plotline of the story Paul is telling.  The exposition, the narrative hook, the rising action, the climax, and the falling action.  We also talked about how this is not just a novel or some story we’re reading – but that at the climax, each of our stories begin.  We hear the good news, we are confronted with the power and truth of the Gospel.  The rising action asks the question: How will we respond?  Paul assumes we will respond in true faith that changes our lives.

So Paul continues in chapter 5:

Rom 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  (2)  through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory.

This sounds good so far, right?  But Paul never leaves well-enough alone.

Rom 5:3-8 Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  (4)  and endurance, character, and character, hope.  (5)  And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

And why do we have hope?

(6) For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  (7)  (For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.)  (8)  But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Woah, Paul.  Why’d you have to go there?  Rejoicing in “the hope of God’s glory” from verse 2, that’s good.  Why don’t we skip a few verses?  There’s no need to talk about suffering, is there?

But this is not the only place this is mentioned.  Paul talks like this at least 11 times in his writing; James mentions suffering with Christ;  In Revelation, in the letters to the churches, it seems as if those early Christians must suffer for Jesus’ name.

Even Jesus himself hints at it a couple of times:

Mat 5:11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me.

And when Jesus talked about “taking up your cross,” people didn’t look at that as some symbol like we do.  The cross was a real, ugly and awful thing to them.  It would be like Jesus saying to us, “sit in the electric chair and follow me.”  There’s no mistaking what he meant.  For more on this idea, see 2 Cor. 4:11-12, Philippians 1:29-30, Phil 3:10-11; Colossians 1:24; 1 Peter 4:13-14.

What’s this about?  Why can’t we just stick with hope and not have to work through the whole theology of suffering?

First, it’s important to realize that Paul’s talking about REAL suffering.  He’s not talking about not being able to pray in school.  He’s not talking about being sad that the stores now use the word “holiday” instead of “Christmas.”  He’s not talking about seeing the Ten Commandments removed from a courthouse.

He’s talking about agony.  Betrayal.  Physical and mental suffering, like Jesus experienced.

And we don’t just ENDURE the suffering.  We aren’t just CONTENT with it… we REJOICE in the suffering.  How on earth could this be?  Why would anyone but a sadist want people to “rejoice” in their suffering and pain?

Other Reactions to Suffering

We don’t like to think this way – actually, we don’t like to think about suffering and pain much at all.  And it’s mostly because of who we are and where we live.  We’re so blessed to live in a place that’s relatively free of suffering and persecution.  It’s difficult for most of us to imagine actual “suffering” like Paul describes, because many of us have no idea what it’s really like.

Some Christians here in America have developed a different kind of theology that says we SHOULDN’T suffer.  It’s called “Prosperity Theology.”  They take passages from the scripture that talk about God’s blessings, and they translate that into everyday life.

“Are you suffering?  Are you poor or hungry?  It’s probably because you don’t have enough faith,” they would tell you.  God is placed as the middle-man in a greater system, whereby we receive blessings as long as we do things in just the right way.  We have to pray specific prayers, and we have to ask in faith.  We have to sacrifice in order for these blessings to come – especially if it means giving money to a certain person’s ministry.

To be fair, this is a caricature of these popular speakers and preachers.  Not all who teach the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” are this way.  But the root of their theology says that God doesn’t want you to be unhappy or to have to suffer.

To talk like this ignores all the teachings of the scripture about suffering.  And ironically, in the same way that it was necessary for Jesus to suffer and die in order for us to be saved, it seems that in some way we must also suffer and die in order to accept that salvation.

Another extreme is called “asceticism.”  If you read the book or saw the movie “The Da Vinci Code,” you probably remember the character of Silas – the albino assassin monk.  Whenever Silas committed a sin, he would whip himself, and would wear a collar with spikes that drove into his thigh.  One of the ideas behind practices like this is that if we are to “rejoice” in our sufferings, then we ought to spend our lives seeking out suffering.

The truth lies somewhere in between these two opposites.  I don’t think God ever promises us that life will be rosy if we act just the right way.  In fact, the amount of persecution and confusion we stir up seems to be the best judge of how well we’re living out the message of Jesus.  And if the Prosperity Gospel is true, there are a lot of wonderful Christian people out there who obviously have it all wrong – people who live in poor countries, or who have terrible diseases they cannot get rid of.

Neither do I think we’re called to inflict pain and suffering on ourselves.  We’ll get plenty of that if we truly act in Christ’s name.

Both of these extremes take God’s tools and put them in our hands.  We’re using these things as an end in themselves, when God sees them as a MEANS to an end.  When God gives material blessing in the scriptures, it’s usually for one of HIS OWN purposes.  When suffering occurs in the scriptures, it’s not just to make people feel bad.  God’s using it for something.

But WE are never called to use these things.  These are God’s tools, not ours.

Putting it Together

So how in the world can we make sense of this passage?  Psychologically, it actually makes sense, and Paul has given us the clues to understand it.

Rom 5:3-8 Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  (4)  and endurance, character, and character, hope.  (5)  And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Paul shows us a progression:  Suffering   ->   Endurance   ->   Character   ->   HOPE

I learned a lot about my body when we were trained for our first marathon last year – a lot about what my body needed for different tasks.  For a marathon, my body didn’t need extra strength.  I also didn’t really need extra speed – It wouldn’t matter if I could win a 400-yard sprint.  I could have the strongest and fastest body in the world, but I wouldn’t have been able to run 26 miles.  What I needed was ENDURANCE.

And you don’t buy endurance in a sports drink.  You don’t get it by sitting at home and thinking about it.  In order to get the endurance, you have to practice those LONG runs.  You have to do longer sprints and get your body used to the hard work.  And while I’m not calling it suffering, it certainly was not pleasant at times…

This is what Paul’s talking about with endurance.  Life is not a sprint.  We don’t just sit back and run our little bit and then hang it up.  We’re in it for the long haul.  And in order to develop the endurance to deal with the difficulties of life, we have to EXPERIENCE those difficulties and learn how to deal with them.

And this endurance is what produces CHARACTER.  We are the sum of our life’s experiences, and true character is not something that’s taught or gained by reading a lot of good books.  Character is developed as we deal with life’s difficulties and learn to overcome them.

And finally, character is what produces HOPE.  And HOPE is one of the most important things we have.

Paul’s saying, “You want to have the mind of Christ?  You want to be transformed into the image of Christ, just as God wants you to be?”  You want to live with the hope of God burning so brightly inside you that others can see it?  You want to be able to weather the storms of life, to bend but not be broken?

You can’t skip the first step – suffering.  There are no shortcuts.

This is why we rejoice in our sufferings, Paul tells us:  Not because we enjoy the pain, but because of what that pain will eventually produce – endurance, character, and hope.

©2012 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

Romans, Part 3:
“Exhibit A”
2:12-24

Following Paul’s argument thus far:

• No one has an excuse: everyone, no matter who or where we are, has some idea of a greater power, and some idea of what is right and wrong.
• Even though we have known God, we still turn away from him.
• Our sinfulness is a result of our turning from God – he allows us the freedom to choose obedience or disobedience.
• Because we have all turned from God in some way, the quantity or quality of the sin is not for us to compare or judge – only God can give judgment. We can give only grace.

Now Paul turns his argument toward the Law – a difficult topic, especially for us as Christians.  This has always been a sticky subject for us – in what ways are we still under the Law?  Paul could go off on tangents here about the meaning of the Law for us in the aftermath of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.  He certainly takes time to look at these ideas elsewhere…

But here, Paul will not be distracted.  He is bent on making his argument plain.  And it is specifically to Jews and Christians now that he is speaking.  Because no matter how we may want to point the finger at the “heathens,” we are the very worst because we KNOW the law, and yet we STILL disobey!

Paul uses imagery of the courtroom, and uses many terms from the courts of his day.  And as in any courtroom, the ultimate standard is the LAW.  Remember that Christianity came from Judaism, and these Jews had spent their entire lives trying to understand and to live by the Law.

Often, I think we have a negative view of the Law.  That’s unfortunate, because the Law – in its time and place – was really a wonderful thing.  God made a covenant with Israel – he would be their God, and they would be his people.  And he gave the people his Law to show them just how they could be his people.

While it seems difficult from our point of view, the Mosaic Law was actually easier and more humane than many other religions of the day.  God didn’t require child sacrifice and other awful practices that characterized the religions in the ancient Near East.

And because of this, the Jewish religion made them DIFFERENT – showed the people around them that they worshiped a God who was different: a God who cared about the children; a God who cared about the poor, the widows and orphans; a God who cared about inward holiness as much as outward holiness.  In this way, the world would know by the way they were living that God was real and leading his people.

But even knowing this, the people broke the Law again and again – sometimes subtly, and sometimes blatantly defying the God who had kept his promise all along.  God sent reminders, punishment – like a parent trying to teach his child the right way.

Finally, Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were sent into exile in Babylon.  It was one of the darkest moments in their history… and because prophets had foretold exactly what would happen, the people knew exactly why they had been punished.

When they returned from Babylon, many leaders arose who were determined never to let that kind of thing happen again.  Thus arose groups such as the Pharisees, the Scribes and teachers of the Law.  Their job was to live lives according to the Law, and to remind others to do the same.  Problem was, they became so obsessed that they forgot that God desired inward holiness more than outward holiness.

It’s not just what you say that defines your relationship to God – it’s who you are on the INSIDE.  They were practicing outside-in religion – what happens on the outside defines who you are inside.  Paul’s saying, “people are smarter than that.  You can’t fool them.”  You have to be turned INSIDE-OUT – let your inside change, and let your outside follow suit.  Then people will know something is different.

Paul’s saying that we are still obligated to do the Law (in a way) because it shows the world that we live differently.

That’s where this awful indictment comes into play.  In verse 24, Paul levels the charge against us all: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”  Blasphemy was one of the most serious charges one Jew could make against another, and here Paul says that WE are the cause of the blasphemy.  Why?

Because we’re not living what we preach.

When we talk about a mighty God, who is powerful to change lives… and then we don’t live changed lives, will others believe that God is real?

When we talk about a loving God, who wants us to care for others and love each person as a child of God… and then hurt others with our actions and words, will others believe that God is real?

When we talk about a God who cares for the poor and oppressed… and then we ignore the needs of the poor and oppressed right on our doorstep, will others believe that God is real?

Even worse, when we act this way, do we not turn people AWAY from a God, whose people don’t care enough for him to even act the way he tells us to?  As Mahatma Gandhi was famously reported as saying, when asked why he was not a Christian: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

If we go back to Paul’s illustration of the courtroom, a question is before us.  As the common question goes: “If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”  What proof is there that we are Christians?  What are my actions saying about the God I serve?  And if I were someone’s only link to God, their only living witness to Jesus Christ… would they want to love and serve him, too?

©2012 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

———————–

Casting the First Stone

Romans 1:24 – 2:16

Catching Up…

Two weeks ago, we started looking at Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Here are some of the things we learned about the book:

• Paul is writing to the church in Rome, which he did not start and which he had not visited.
• He is writing mostly to non-Jews, so he is forced to explain his arguments in ways that non-Jews (like us) can understand.
• Paul is also taking this chance to outline his understanding of the Gospel – our need for salvation and how God provided for that need.

Paul is using an argument that he has carefully thought out.  Paul is a highly educated man, and he is skilled at putting together arguments that are persuasive.  Here is the beginning of the outline of Paul’s argument.

• God’s anger is stirred up against ALL human beings:
  • No human being has an excuse – whether we have heard directly or only perceived in nature and in others, EVERYONE has some sense that there is a God.
  • So it is not IGNORANCE that stirs God’s wrath, but our deliberate rejection of him – especially when we know the Truth and ignore it.

We found encouragement in Paul’s outline of the Good News that God has done something about this already.  But we also found a challenge – especially for those of us who have HEARD the Truth and KNOW what it means to obey… but we CHOOSE to disobey anyway.

Moving Ahead – The Wickedness of “Them”

Now we’ll read 1:24-32.  It’s not an easy passage for us to hear:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

There are all kinds of things that we could latch onto here, and all kinds of things that might make us uncomfortable.  But let’s take things in proper order.

First, let’s notice the nature of sin and the judgment we receive.  Three times (v. 24, 26, 28) Paul says that God “gives us over” to the consequences of our sin.  God allows us free choice in whether or not we will obey him.  So when we do or do not obey, our choices make a difference.  And when we choose to disobey, our choice makes a difference.  When you get pulled over for a DUI, God’s not going to intervene and get you out of jail time and fees.  God does not remove the earthly consequences for sin.  This is part of the judgment we face.

So we see that judgment for our sin does not always come from God – it also comes from US.

The Controversial Question of Homosexuality

Now I debated whether or not to use these verses as I went through Romans.  The writers of the Lectionary left them out, and many preachers in our kinds of churches choose not to dwell on such topics.  There are some controversial things here, and some would tend to be sensational and try to stir up anger or righteous indignation.

But when we come to God’s Word, and we find something that is difficult, we can NOT run away from it.  We have to wrestle with it, try to understand it.  We have to pray that God would give us understanding, and that he would give us wisdom to know what to do with the things we DON’T understand.

And so I did a little wrestling, and I began to understand.  I still don’t understand the whole issue of homosexuality, and I don’t pretend to.  I have some ideas, just like all of us probably do.  But I also know we cannot turn off our brains when it comes to God’s Word.  Neither can we ignore all the other things that God teaches us in our lives and conversations.

I have known, and still know, many homosexuals – both men and women – who are Christians.  When I talk to them, I have no doubt that they are Christians.  Some of them HATE what they have become; some are merely comfortable with it; others are happy and seem to enjoy it.  I have sat and cried with a couple of my best friends who are gay, who grew up in the church and who denied for so long that they had these feelings.  They didn’t want to be this way, didn’t want to act this way.  And some are STILL tortured because of this thing they don’t understand.

They are human beings, just like you and me.  They have things they do that they don’t want to do – things they don’t understand – just like you and me.  I’m not making any kind of statement about the sinfulness of homosexuality – it’s not my place, and I’m not 100% convinced of anything.  But about one thing I am certain:  They are human beings, just like the woman Jesus rescued from being stoned.

There are churches so determined to be God’s judges in this matter that they have gone to great lengths.  You’ve heard about them in the news – particularly a church in Kansas that uses its church money to send members around the country to protest at funerals.  They go to these events, making sure the media are present, and carry signs that have all kinds of explicit language and pictures saying that God hates homosexuals.  They bring children to the picket lines, and give them the most explicit signs for shock value.  They have been at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, children killed in bus crashes, people who have died of AIDS – any event they can link as God’s punishment against this particular sin.  And they raise an outcry and wonder why families are beginning to keep the location of a funeral secret!

These kinds of actions, these motivations, I simply can’t understand.  Have these people ever actually talked to someone who’s gay, gotten to know them?  I can’t help but think they’ve focused on one portion of scripture to the exclusion of all others… and it’s the parts they’re excluding that we REALLY need!

Grace and Judgment

I understand that there is a constant paradox (at least for us) between God’s wrath and God’s grace.  But when we focus on one at the expense of the other, we miss the Gospel message completely.  Look at the Gospel story we read earlier in the service – when the people brought to Jesus a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery.  It was clearly wrong – no question about that.  The scriptures were clear.

But did Jesus respond with judgment, or with grace?  Both.  He made sure the playing field was even.  For the woman, who had already experienced “judgment” from the mob, he offered grace.  And for the mob he offered a kind of mild judgment.

But I’m not up here this morning to talk about the evils of homosexuality.  I’m not here to talk about how any sin is worse than another.  Come to me anytime, and I’ll be glad to talk with you about my understandings and studies on homosexuality.  But these two verses did not provide me with a revelation about the practice and state of homosexuality in God’s kingdom – Paul didn’t mean for them to.

In fact, I think Paul’s up to something

Paul’s Agenda

We can see what Paul’s up to by looking at the details in the passage.  First, note how Paul lines up the list of sins.  He starts with some of the “hard-hitters,” the ones everyone thinks about.  In Paul’s day, homosexuality was widely practiced and accepted in the Roman Empire.  And for Jews and Christians, there was an obvious conflict.  The homosexual question was just as “hot” in Paul’s day as it is today.  So he starts there.

But he doesn’t STOP there.  Look at some of the other sins he mentions… ones that come closer to home, perhaps:

Wickedness, Evil, Greed, Depravity, Envy, Murder, Strife, Deceit, Malice, Gossiping, Slandering, God-hating, Insolence, Arrogance, Boasting, Inventing new ways of sinning, Disobedience against parents, Senselessness, Faithlessness, Ruthlessness, Blatant disobedience of God’s decrees

And second, look at Paul’s use of a simple pronoun to make a point.  Throughout these verses he uses “they,” allowing us and his hearers to think that Paul was talking about someone else.  That’s one of the ways the Devil works most – is allowing us to compare ourselves to someone else and think, “at least I’m not THAT bad…”  You can almost feel the anger mounting as Paul mentions some of the sins, then the confusion begin as he gets down to things like “gossiping” and “disobeying your parents.”

That’s where he turns around and delivers the punch at the beginning of chapter 2:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?

5But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.

Nit-picking

We could dwell on these individual sins.  But if we did, we’d be missing the point.  Paul is not making theological statements about certain sins here.  In fact, just the opposite – Paul is saying that we have ALL sinned, and we are ALL under judgment.

My girls aren’t at this stage yet, but I know it well.  Two children get in a fight, and no one sees who really started it.  They’re rolling and scratching and yelling and punching, and you pull them off each other.  When you do, what’s the first thing they say?  “He started it.  No, SHE started it.”

And what’s the first thing YOU say?  Do you try to arbitrate between them?  Do you all sit down and try to get to the root of the problem?  No.  That’s useless, because the truth of the matter is that they BOTH had a hand in starting it.

Paul is reminding us of an important fact, one that today’s church around the world (but especially in the U.S.) needs to hear and pay attention to.  It’s useless to point fingers at one another, saying “look what he did” or “look what she did.”  GOD is the judge, not us.  We may see the outward action, but we can never determine the state and motive of someone’s heart when they do something.  Only God can do that.  And only God can say he’s never done anything wrong before.  So only God can pass judgment.

So what’s our job?  Grace.  God gives judgment and grace, and we are only capable of giving grace.  Because when we look at the ledger book of our lives, and see our sins written in red ink, the AMOUNT of red ink is not going to matter.  If we only sinned once we’d still be under judgment.  Fighting over individual sins is ridiculous – like arguing over how many bullets killed a man, or how many matches an arsonist threw on the gasoline.  The number doesn’t matter – it was the first one that tipped the balance.

All we can do is offer grace and love.

Closing

Paul’s headed somewhere with this, and we’ll see where that is in the weeks ahead.  If the first part of Romans offered us a challenge, this one offers even more.  Paul is not trying to differentiate between sins – he’s showing that ALL of us are equally under judgment.  Paul’s not trying to set himself or anyone else up in a place to judge the actions of others – he’s saying that NONE of us can judge another’s actions, no matter how bad they may seem.  Paul’s not handing out grace and forgiveness – he’s saying only GOD can do that.

But there’s more ahead – including some good news!

©2012 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.