Romans Chapter 7
“The Battle”

Introduction

First off, two disclaimers:

• This chapter is controversial in Christian scholarship, for reasons we’ll see. I realize you aren’t aware of all the problems with the chapter – but I’ll try to help you as I go along. And if you decide you disagree with my conclusion, that’s OK. I’d love to talk with you about it. But know that my sermon today will be based on my understanding of the passage – and it’s the “minority opinion.”
• This chapter, controversial as it is, really has to be taken as a whole to be understood. And it REALLY has to be taken with chapter 8 as well. But we don’t have time for all that this morning, so I’ll try to tie things together and we’ll have to wait for another week.

Previously (ch. 6) Paul has asserted that we are now free to choose whom we will serve – sin or God.  But that doesn’t end the story, unfortunately.  It’s not that one master has been destroyed and there is no longer a choice as to whom we serve.  Just because we are no longer enslaved to sin doesn’t mean that we are unable to sin.  It simply means that we have the choice now.

Old Law vs. “New way of the Spirit”

An Illustration From Marriage

(1) Do you not know, brothers-for I am speaking to men who know the law-that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? (2) For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. (3) So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.

Paul now gives another example to illustrate his point.  He’s not giving any kind of teaching about marriage… in fact, this passage really has nothing to do with marriage.  He’s simply referring to Jewish law to make a point.  And his point is this: death brings about a change in the circumstances of the law. Under Jewish law, if a woman is with another man while her husband is still alive, she is committing adultery.  While her husband is alive, she is bound to that contract and “law,” and the consequences for breaking it were severe.

But once her husband dies, the commitment to the old contract dies with him.  The death signaled that the woman was free from one law and is now free to choose.

(4) So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. (5) For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. (6) But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

In a similar way, when we decided to place our trust in God and Jesus, we “died” to the old law that once bound us.  Jesus was like the husband who died – except Jesus did it WILLINGLY.  He died willingly so that we could be free from one law to be bound to another.  Since Jesus died, we can be free from the old way of living, and we can follow “the new way of the Spirit” and not the old written Law.

Struggling With Sin

(7) What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” (8) But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. (9) Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. (10) I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

(11) For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. (12) So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. (13) Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

Using rhetorical argument again, Paul recognizes that we could use this reasoning to think that the Law is a BAD THING – after all, if we are bound to it, it produces death.  And this is a common misconception.  We’re used to thinking: “Old Law is bad, new life is good.”

But he asserts that this is far from true – rather, the Law has always been a pure and holy thing, but like a bright light it shone on sin and revealed sin for what it really was.  As Paul points out in Galatians, the Law was kind of like a “teacher” that helped move us toward God and toward Jesus.  If not for the Law, we would not have known what was right and wrong to God – nor would we have known of our need for God.

The Battle Begins

Now here’s the part that’s controversial.

(14) We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. (15) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. (16) And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. (17) As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. (18) I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. (19) For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing. (20) Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

(21) So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. (22) For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; (23) but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. (24) What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (25) Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

The controversial part is this:  How is Paul speaking here?  There are a few ways to look at it, and they can be boiled down to two:

• He’s speaking as himself and other Jews, but before he placed his faith in Christ. This is the “majority view.” Paul is showing his predicament BEFORE he became a follower of Jesus.
• He’s speaking of himself at the current time – an in-between time, AFTER Christ has set him free from the old law, but BEFORE his own death has abolished the old law all together.

I hesitate to go against modern scholarship here.  These men and women are much wiser and much more educated than I am.  But my own life experiences have forced me to see things in a different way.

My assertion:

• Much of Christian scholarship seems to operate under the assumption that sin will no longer be a problem for us – as if it is erased from our current experience.
• Far from it, I believe that we now have the power not to sin, and that the real battle between flesh and Spirit has now begun.
• So what Paul describes here is not the viewpoint of an unregenerate sinner or Jew, but rather his own experience of the battle between flesh and Spirit that rages within us until the day we truly die and shed the sinful nature.

Think about it.  Many of us had no inkling of what was right or wrong before we had a desire to look into God’s Word and to follow it.  But the battle wasn’t won then – many people think this and even act according to it.

But to say the battle was won when the Spirit enters our life is like saying D-Day was won before the soldiers ever set foot on the beaches of Normandy.  The battle didn’t begin until those soldiers set foot in France and fired the first shots.

It’s the same in our lives.  The battle had not even begun until that point when the Spirit came into our lives and began the process of rooting out our sinful habits.

Sin is Still a Powerful Foe

So Paul finds the crux of the matter – sin is still a powerful force to reckon with.  Once God’s light has shone in us, we have the desire to do good and to follow his commands.  We want to do the right thing.  But, UNTIL WE FINALLY DIE, there will still be a battle between our old way and our new way.

Once we accepted Christ, we were given the power to reject sin.  But it didn’t mean that we automatically stopped sinning all together.  In fact, now we see even more clearly why our sinful actions are painful to God!

So still the battle is there – we want to do what is good, and yet our old habits and our tendencies to sin sometimes overcome our desire to follow God.  And the closer we get to God, the greater becomes our desire to please him and serve him.

What Can We Do?

If we had to leave things here, we would indeed have to say with Paul that we are “wretched creatures.”  Because of our new life in Christ, we have a new desire to love and serve him.  But we also have a clearer and deeper picture of our own sinfulness.

This would be a wretched life indeed if the story were to end here!  We have once been under one law, that bound us to specific actions that even now we are not able to keep perfectly.  If we are still bound to that old Law as Christians, then we are no better off.  In fact, we might be WORSE off, because of all people we can see our sin even more clearly.

Thankfully, the story doesn’t end here.  And thankfully I’m not going to leave everything for next week.  Let us read this word with thankfulness:

Life Through the Spirit

(1) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, (2) because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. (3) For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, (4) in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

©2010 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.

©2010 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

Romans 5:9-21
“The Great Disease”

Greater Than / Less Than

As we read the passage for this morning, we may notice that Paul is using a certain kind of logical argument here.  Do you remember, from early math, the “greater than” and “less than” signs?  Paul’s making an assumption from the start, and we can use these signs to describe grace and sin.

Paul’s logic:  GRACE > SIN – that is, “grace is greater than sin.”

Is this true?  We know it theologically – God’s love and grace will conquer in the end.  But sin and death are awfully powerful forces.  Last time anyone checked, there was still a 100% mortality rate for sin.  Can it really be true that grace is greater than death?  That forgiveness is greater than sin?

It’s true on a theological scale.  And we can prove it by looking at our own lives.

Pretend someone does something to hurt you (not hard to pretend, is it?).  The wrong done (we’ll call it a “sin” against you) always has consequences, it’s true.  It hurts, and very little if anything can be done to take the hurt away.

We have all kinds of possible reactions to this wrong against us.  We could retaliate and get revenge – that’s a popular response.  But that doesn’t make things right – in fact, it usually just leads to more revenge and more hurt.  We could simply choose to remove ourselves from that situation or relationship – this is also a popular, and much easier response.  But this doesn’t solve the problem either – it just allows the hurt to fester, eventually turning into bitterness and hate toward most everyone and everything.  Again, more hurt results.

Sin and wrong seem very powerful indeed, don’t they?  Nearly every response to a “sin” against us only serves to bring about more hurt and more wrong.

Every response except one:  Love.

Love the “Anti-Virus”

What if, in response to the wrong you’ve suffered, you decided to offer forgiveness to that person and restore the relationship?  It’s not easy, that’s for sure.  But notice what can happen as a result.  The bitterness and anger you feel are released.  The person who has wronged you may or may not want to be forgiven, but chances are they’ll be VERY surprised at your response.  The cycle of wrong and hurt is broken.

Grace and forgiveness are difficult – but they can AWAYS overcome the wrong.

Remember the old expression, “never bring a knife to a gun fight?”  No matter what we do in life, we want to have the most powerful weapons and resources.  If you’re a football team, you want to have the best plays and players.  If you’re an army, you want to have the best soldiers and weapons.  If you’re in business, you want to have the best product and the best plan.  It’s true of nearly every endeavor we undertake as human beings – it’s always wiser to use the best resources when we have a choice.

That’s why Jesus consistently tells us to sow love and grace, instead of wrong and hate.  That’s why he told us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek.  That’s why he didn’t speak in anger when he was falsely accused, or strike out at those who were trying to hurt him.  That’s why he always tells us to FORGIVE, FORGIVE, FORGIVE…

Because he knows that forgiveness is more powerful than wrong.  He wants us to use the most powerful resource available to us.

This is where Paul’s logic works its magic.  If sin is powerful enough to work its way into every human being and every human undertaking, if sin is powerful enough to lead to death… and if grace is more powerful, then how much more powerful must be the effects of grace?

If it’s true that sin and death entered and poisoned the world through one man (Adam), how much MORE true is it that GRACE and FORGIVENESS will enter the world through one man (Jesus)?

Spreading the “Anti-Virus”

As I prepared for the sermon this week, I did some research on viruses and infectious diseases.  I ended up finding out a lot more than I’d wanted to know.  I learned about how viruses can work to find weaknesses in our immune system, and there are some deadly viruses that can even turn our immune systems against us.  I learned how there are hosts – people or animals who are infected with the disease and can infect others – and vectors, people or animals who are not infected themselves, but can still carry the virus and infect others.

I read about outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.  I learned how doctors and scientists must proceed in order to deal with these problems – identify, treat and prevent.  And it made me think of what Paul’s talking about here in Romans, and how the disease of sin has spread.

[Here, in the service, I had everyone get up and shake hands, with directions to remember all the people whose hands they shook.  Next, after everyone was seated, I asked everyone to check under their pews and look for a piece of paper I'd taped there.  One lady found the green paper, and I asked her to stand.  "Now imagine," I said, "that she has one of the worst new viruses ever discovered and she didn't know it.  And one of the ways you transfer it is by shaking hands.  Who here shook hands with Mrs. Thompson?"  I had these stand, and then those who shook their hands, and so on - so that eventually, nearly the entire congregation was standing.]

See how easily a virus can spread?  And all we have to do to contract the disease of sin, is to be born!

If I were to ask, “What kinds of things do we do in order to keep from getting a virus?”  I’m sure I’d get a lot of good ideas.  We can wash our hands, take plenty of medicines and vitamins to boost our immune system.  We can take vaccines and use measures to avoid specific illnesses.  In extreme cases, we might even avoid contact with other people.

But now imagine someone had a virus that attacked and killed the other virus, and did not harm the host.  If we had that virus in this room, and we knew that the world was dying out there, what would we do?  We’d act exactly the opposite from before – we’d go out and try to see as many people as we could, to give them the “anti-virus.”  We’d take steps that would insure we’d “infect” everyone we came into contact with.

It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is going…

©2010 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!

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