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Romans 1:7-15
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Alright. Welcome. My name, if we haven't met before, is Jeremy. And it is great to have you here with us because we are in the middle of a series in the book of Romans. And our goal this year is to work through the first couple chapters of this book verse by verse over the course of a six week series.
Speaker 1:And then we will pack Romans up, and we will put it away until next year when we will bring it back out and we'll pick up wherever we left off. And so far in this series, we have made it through six verses in this book so far. Now that might not sound like a lot, but considering that we made it through a total of one verse in the first week, I think we're on a roll now. It was five verses last week, which is a 500% increase, which I think means we're on our way here. However, before we look back at last week, it is Mother's Day, and we have already had a few elements in the service to celebrate moms, but I wanted to take a second to add my piece as well.
Speaker 1:It's one of the benefits of being the guy with a microphone is that you get to do that from time to time. But as a man who has had the benefit of being shaped by some incredible women and mothers in my life, I want to acknowledge the fact that I was raised with the benefit of a strong, confident female role model in my mom. My mom is a woman who can gather the attention female of a room and taught me not to be afraid of strong women. I have the benefit of a wife who has been able not only to support my ambitions and goals, but she's been able to do that all while pursuing her own. She is a mother who runs her own nonprofit and who engages in this faith community not as my sidekick at all, but as a participant in her own right on her own terms.
Speaker 1:I have the gift of a birth mother in our family who has given Rachel and I the experience and the joy of our son Ethan, and who continues to engage with us as a family even as she walks into her own new experiences of family. And I say all of that to acknowledge a couple things here. First, that there has been a lot discussion of late, lament perhaps, about the loss of healthy masculinity in our culture. And I think to a large extent, that is true. But I also think that part of the way we recapture a healthy masculine identity is by celebrating and encouraging and actively supporting the equality of women in our society.
Speaker 1:Part of that means recognizing that across a community this size, there are all kinds of different experiences of motherhood. Mothers that have shaped and nurtured and contributed to each of our individual stories. So we have moms in nuclear families, and we have moms as single parents. Not moms as birth mothers, moms as mentors and step moms, and moms who are like a mom to us. Not moms who have lost and who have given away and who have experienced untold pain as they have invested in the stories of the people who define us here in this room.
Speaker 1:And so when I say we celebrate moms, we celebrate all of these stories today because this is the rich and beautiful tapestry that motherhood plays in our communities. And so, in whatever way you have been a mother, thank you. May God make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you this Mother's Day. Let's pray. To the God who teaches us what it means to be both loving father and caring mother, we offer our thanks for all of the role models and caregivers and influencers who have emerged throughout our lives.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, our relationship with motherhood has been beautiful and strong and life giving. And sometimes, it has been difficult or pained, perhaps even damaging in some ways. And yet, we acknowledge tonight your deep and abiding love for us. May we come to see your grace embodied in the mothers who appear in our lives, and may we work to live out that example as we care for others, as we shift our focus to your word tonight and back to this letter from Paul to the Romans, may we also see that you invite us into new and deeper expressions of community all the time. Relationships of mother and father and child and friend.
Speaker 1:And so may we in turn now point each other back to you. With all that you have given to us, may we invest in your kingdom. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Alright.
Speaker 1:Before we jump into verse seven tonight, because that's where we're gonna pick up, I do wanna look back back on last week briefly here. Because last Sunday, we looked at verses two, three, four, five, and six in Romans chapter one. And even though this section can be easy to skip past because it does feel very introductory, there's also something really important that Paul is setting up here because he knows he's about to do some heavy theology in Romans. He is about to dissect dissect and systematize and try to make sense of gospel. And so he begins very simply, very intentionally, I would suggest, by going back and telling the gospel story.
Speaker 1:And what's interesting to me is that when the greatest theologian in the Christian tradition wants to do theology, he starts with a story. Gospel for Paul is not primarily a set of propositional truths that we give our mental assent to. That may be important, incredibly important in fact. But before it is anything else, gospel is the story of Jesus. And so Paul says in the opening of his letter to the Romans that this is gospel.
Speaker 1:That everything has been leading to Jesus. The Jesus who is the Jewish Messiah. The Jesus who lived and died and lived again and is now lord of everything. The same Jesus who has now opened the door to God for everyone regardless of where you start from. That's gospel for Paul.
Speaker 1:And this is not an isolated example from Paul. Paul does some great theology in a lot of different letters. But when he wants to talk about gospel, it's always the story of Jesus he comes back to. So at at the letter, of first Corinthians at the end of it, he's been talking to this community about how to do church for 14 chapters now. But as he starts to get ready for the close, he says this starting in chapter 15 verse one.
Speaker 1:Now brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel because by this gospel you are saved. That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas, that's Peter, and to the 12. For Paul, the good news is a good story. And if we get too caught up trying to explain gospel without actually going back and reading the gospels or telling the story of Jesus over and over again to ourselves, then we have missed out on something important. Remember, as human beings, we are not actually shaped by our thought as much as we think we are.
Speaker 1:How's that for a recursive statement? But what I mean by that is this, the most powerful forces in our lives are the stories that we identify with. Take the Calgary Flames for example. Is there any good, rational reason why you and I should care about a bunch of millionaires skating around chasing a chunk of vulcanized rubber across an artificially frozen pond. And yet, who here would not give significant portions of your disposable income to go back to 2004 and the red mile and the underdog story and the undisputable fact in game six, that chunk of rubber did go across the line.
Speaker 1:Am I right? These stories that we identify with, they are far more powerful than we realize. Now Stanley Howard was and Will Willemont say in their fantastic book, Resident Aliens, our contention is that it does not just happen that God's people tell stories. Certainly, the penchant for storytelling has nothing to do with Matthew, Mark, and Luke being primitive, pre rational people who told simple stories. Whereas, we are sophisticated people who do not.
Speaker 1:Story is the fundamental means of talking about and listening to God. The only human means available to us that is complex and engaging enough to make comprehensible what it means to be with God. Paul is fascinated by theology, but he loves a good story. Love God, love people, tell the story. I know I've heard that before.
Speaker 1:Now, that was verses two to six, and that was last week. Today, the plan is to work our way from verse seven to 15. And so, we're gonna jump into Romans chapter one at verse seven here, and we are just gonna plod our way along tonight. So verse seven. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people.
Speaker 1:Grace and peace to you from God our father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. So grace and peace. This is something that Paul says over and over again in his letters. In fact, if you have known me for a while, it's probably something you have heard me say. Credit where it's due, I stole it from Paul.
Speaker 1:No shame there. All of my best material came from somewhere else. I can admit that. But this is sort of a catchphrase for Paul. Here in Romans, however, it carries extra significance.
Speaker 1:You see, grace is the central concept that shapes Paul's imagination of Jesus. Jesus is God's gracious love made manifest in in history. History. The divine finally and fully revealed. Remember, that's the story of Jesus.
Speaker 1:That's gospel. And peace, well, peace is the Greek word for the Hebrew idea of shalom. Now shalom is far more than the absence of war. It is the full thriving of human potential in concert with the God who intends to renew all things. Probably the best, simplest, most straightforward way I could describe the idea of shalom is wholeness.
Speaker 1:Everything made whole again. So no hunger in our stomachs, no holes in our relationships, no gaps between our self image and who we were created to be. Shalom is spiritual, psychological, emotional, economic, and environmental peace. As Paul says in another letter, this time Colossians chapter one, in Christ, all things were created. Things in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authority, for he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Speaker 1:Because God was pleased to have his fullness dwell in Christ so that through him all things would be reconciled to God. Whether things here on earth or whether things in heaven. That is shalom. All things, anything you can possibly think of, renewed and healed reconciled to God. And for Paul, that kind of peace, it comes through grace.
Speaker 1:The thing is, Rome had a catchphrase too, and that was peace through victory. You see, Rome had a son of God, and Rome had a savior of the world. And at the time of Paul, that was the emperor Nero. We have to realize that a lot of the language that Paul uses to describe Jesus, he stole from Rome. He's making a point about who really is the lord of the universe.
Speaker 1:But the way that Rome brought peace to the world, the way the emperor saved us was at the point of his sword. See, imperial theology. And we have to understand this. This was theology. Because in Rome, the emperor was not just a political leader.
Speaker 1:Caesar was a divine savior. But imperial theology said that the emperor had saved the world, brought peace to the nations by crushing his enemies. I'll paraphrase John Dominic Cross in here from his book God and Empire. He says that for the first Christians to use terms like son of God, Lord and savior of the world, they had to present a counter mantra, a counter program to Roman imperial theology's sequence of war, victory, and then peace. Is there any possible alternative to victory and then peace?
Speaker 1:Yes. It is this. Religion, non violence, justice, peace, or more succinctly, grace. You see, Christian theology theology says that Jesus has saved the world. And he has brought peace to the nations, but not through war and not through violence, perhaps counter intuitively by extending grace even toward his enemies.
Speaker 1:In fact, Paul will say a little later in this same letter to Rome that while we were still enemies of God, Christ Christ died for us. Now we're gonna talk more about the scandal of this as we walk through the letter and the way that Paul is building it. But we need to recognize that right here, right in this line, in this greeting grace and peace, this is Paul's counter mantra to the worldview of Rome. Rome Peace, shalom, and wholeness comes through the grace of God. And that grace is extended in the person of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Grace and peace is a really big deal. He continues though. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is being reported all over the world. K. So Paul is hearing good things about this church in Rome.
Speaker 1:And this is great because if you have read some of Paul's other letters, say the letters to the Corinthian church, Paul is not hearing great things about those churches. Some guy's sleeping with his mother-in-law, and the rich people don't wanna hang out with the poor people, and they're turning the Eucharist into a food fight. It's disaster over there. I mean, whatever we may think of the mess that we have made of church, at least it's always been a little bit of a mess. And so some good news for once, this is nice for Paul even if Rome isn't one of the churches that he planted.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we just need a win even if it's not ours. But here's a question. When was the last time you celebrated, really celebrated someone else's victory? Because that is a sign of maturity. Now I can admit, sometimes I don't like seeing other people win, especially when I'm having a tough time.
Speaker 1:Even if they're people that I like, somehow it just feels like there's less for me if they do well. And that is an immature, unhealthy response. I know that. I know that it comes from my insecurity and my inability to trust God well. Comes from the fact that I've become just a little too sunk into my own issues.
Speaker 1:But sometimes I still feel that. Right? Here's the fix that I found. Celebrate good wins even when they're not yours. Now if things aren't going well right now, I get that that's hard to grab ahold of.
Speaker 1:If you've lost your job, it's hard for someone else's promotion to get you excited. But I have to imagine that there were moments where Paul was neck deep in the nonsense of Corinth wondering why he even bothered to plant churches. And I bet he thought about Rome and the things that he was hearing in those moments. And maybe one day I'll get to ask him, but I bet there were moments where he was just a little bit jealous. I mean, look at the church that I started and how terribly it's going, and look at that one in Rome over there and how well they are doing.
Speaker 1:Moments where celebrating Rome was probably more of a discipline than a reaction. But I bet he did it anyway. And I bet that began to change things for him. And I bet that by the time he these words to Rome, they had become entirely, completely genuine for him. Because here's what I know.
Speaker 1:The act of celebrating is what makes something a celebration. And so when you see something that's good in your world and it's healthy and it's positive, then celebrate that even if it's not yours. That's a positive step. He says, I thank God for you, the God whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his son. He is my witness to how I constantly remember you in my prayers all the time.
Speaker 1:I pray that now, at last by God's will, the way may be opened for me to come to you. I long to see you, he says, so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong. That is that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. And I really like this part too. Because for Paul, investing in each other, sharing our gifts with each other, this is a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Speaker 1:Now sometimes that's really self evident. Right? I get to spend significant portions of my studying and reading and writing for Sunday. That's what I do. And just so we're all clear here.
Speaker 1:This is me with a lot of work and preparation behind it. When you and I have coffee, please do not be disappointed by how much less eloquent I am without notes and a week to prepare. It's just not gonna happen. The very managed version of Jeremy that we all see right here. But obviously, I get to study and I get to write and I do that for the community, for you.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, absolutely, of course, I am doing this for myself. I have no problem saying that my prep time and my research time for me, this is also my spiritual time. And not just in the sense of what I'm giving away, but also in the sense of what I'm being fed by this. You know, especially in a series like this, where really every week, I have no agenda when I sit to write the sermon. I'm just trying to communicate what I'm learning and I'm being taught by God through Paul as I read.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean by mutually beneficial. Now, there are easy examples like that, but what about when you share the Jesus story with someone? Or when you serve dinner with us at the drop in center? What about when you make coffee and you nail the latte art just right and you hand that cup to someone new at church? Like, who is that for?
Speaker 1:Think about the question of calling that we talked about last week. When you do your job well. When you discipline or you encourage your children. When you sit and you listen to a friend who just needs someone to talk to for the day? Are these mutual moments for you?
Speaker 1:Because they could be. And I think what Paul is getting at is that they should be. And maybe it's possible that part of the reason that you feel drained at times is because you have been looking at what you're giving, and maybe you haven't been looking at what you're getting. And maybe you have been pouring yourself out for someone. But maybe in the midst of that, you have lost sight of what you get in return.
Speaker 1:And then don't get me wrong. Sometimes we do need to rebalance things. You can't exhale continuously. You only have so much breath in your lungs, and at times, you will need to pause and inhale for a season. That's okay.
Speaker 1:But sometimes, the question is really as much about our perspective as it is about our capacity. And I will admit that at points this year, I have felt completely overwhelmed with work. There have been just so many people that have joined us here at Commons, people to connect connect with and services to do every Sunday, and people to talk to and serve in some way. It can feel like a lot. And yet when I stop and I breathe and I step step back, back and and I I allow the spirit to help me recalibrate, what I realize inevitably is that I was made to do this, and right now, at least for the season, I get to.
Speaker 1:That there is as much, if not more, being poured back into me by community. That's what Paul is talking about here. When you serve, when you care, when you mutual arrangement? For I do not want you to be unaware, he says, brothers and sisters that I have planned many times to come to you, but have been prevented from doing so until now. In order that I may have a harvest among you just as I've had among the other Gentiles.
Speaker 1:Now we don't know exactly what stopped Paul from coming to Rome. He mentions this again in chapter 15, which we will get to in about eight or nine years. But here in this verse and again in 15, he doesn't really give us any insight into what stopped him. So it could have been a logistical problem. Could have been capacity related.
Speaker 1:Maybe he had too much going on dealing with the nonsense in Corinth to leave and go to Rome. It could have been related to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Claudius in forty nine CE. Paul, even though he is Jewish by ethnicity, he was also a Roman citizen. And so he would not have been prevented from traveling to Rome in that time, but it's possible he may have simply concluded that it was not advisable to go to Rome. About six years ago, I went to the Democratic Republic Of Congo, and the Canadian government told me that there was a travel advisory.
Speaker 1:They said, we're not telling you you can't go, but we would advise against it. After being detained without my passport and then unceremoniously dumped across the border into Zambia about twenty four hours later, I understood what they were talking about. That said, I did get to go back to the DRC about four years ago. I had no issues whatsoever that time. Some incredible people there.
Speaker 1:But Paul says, I have longed to come to you. Why? Because you are my brothers and sisters. And this is something that I think we lose sight of far too quickly in Christian circles. See, we are a Protestant church, and we are part of the reformation tradition.
Speaker 1:But part of the sad legacy of Protestantism is that once we finished protesting the Roman Catholic church, it took us about five minutes before we started protesting each other. Now I'd happen to think that the multiplicity of Christian denominations and traditions can be a blessing. We try to pull from from and listen to and learn about many different streams of Christianity here at Commons. There is a rich and diverse history of worship in our faith, and it's beautiful. But when we forget that everyone who calls on the name of Jesus, even if they are different from us, even if we disagree about some things, even if they live across the world and have fantastically different customs, they are a brother and a sister even before we have met them.
Speaker 1:And if we forget this, then we have lost something of profound shared identity that Paul sees for us in Christ. Listen. You do not need to compromise the convictions that God has called you personally to in order to bless your Catholic, your Anglican, your LGBTQ, or your Baptist brothers and sisters. Because if they call on Jesus, then they are your family. And Paul takes this now, and he pushes it just a little bit farther into the uncomfortable range.
Speaker 1:He says, I'm excited to come to you because you're my brothers and sisters for I am obligated both to Greeks and non Greeks, to wise and foolish. This is why I am so eager to preach the gospel to you all who are in Rome. Now in English here, this is pretty easy to skip past. Not a lot going on. Right?
Speaker 1:Greeks, non Greeks, wise, foolish, whatever. But the word that Paul chooses here, the one that is translated non Greeks in the NIV, this is actually the word barbaros in Greek. Literally, barbar or barbarian. In other words, it is those unintelligible fools who babble on outside the borders without any concept of real civilized Roman culture. This is highly highly charged, culturally dismissive language that Paul is using.
Speaker 1:And he says, I am equally obligated to them as to you. A quote from Douglas Moo's commentary commentary here. Barbaros is an automatopaic word, mocking the way that uncouth foreign languages sound to Greek ears. Accordingly, it was widely used in Greek literature to connote the inferiority of these peoples. Even this wise foolish bit, sophos and in Greek, this was a Roman way of talking about Rome, the wise, versus the rest of the world, the foolish.
Speaker 1:So this is language that they used in Rome to set themselves above and apart from everybody else. And what Paul does so brilliantly in this section is that he starts building this new relationship with this church that he hasn't even met yet, and he subtly pulls them in. He says, I am so glad to hear how well things are going because your victory is my victory. And everyone says, oh, isn't that nice? He says, I'm so excited to come to you because to serve you, this would be a blessing for me.
Speaker 1:And everyone in Rome said, amen. For we are brothers and sisters even though we haven't met. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. We got church going on in Rome already.
Speaker 1:And then he says, for I care about you just the same way that you are brothers and sisters with all the barbarians that sit outside your borders. Wait. What now? See, this is the radical reinvention of humanity that Paul sees happening in Jesus. And later in this letter, it's all gonna be about the dividing line between Jews and Gentiles.
Speaker 1:But here, he sets it up with the line between Romans and barbarians. And really, the crux crux of the argument is actually the stuff he's already been alluding to. Can someone else's win become your celebration? Can serving another another become a blessing to you? Can you learn to see others as brothers and sisters and mothers and friends?
Speaker 1:Can you recognize that you will never never find peace by beating or defeating or measuring yourself against anyone else? Because if you can, then you will discover how grace changes everything. Grace and peace to you. From God our father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. May you come to see this week.
Speaker 1:Everyone you meet, even those you have yet to, not as a competitor or a barrier or a challenge to overcome, but as the brother and the sister that God imagines imagines in waiting. May you learn to celebrate their wins. May you serve them with joyful abandon. And may God bring new and unexpected unexpected connections into your life. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:God, help us to be moved by the words of Paul. The way that he builds this climax and invites his readers to take a look at the borders that they have built around themselves. Those who they see on the inside and those who they push to the outside. May we instead follow his example as he follows the heart of your son, Jesus. And may we learn celebrate each other's wins, to take joy and marvel at the goodness that you bring into this world even if it's not immediately directed to us.
Speaker 1:May we serve each other. May we serve people we don't even know with joyful abandon. And do it in a way that's not just for them, but actually becomes a mutually beneficial arrangement where it brings life and energy back into our hearts. May we come to see each other as brothers and sisters. Because if we can do that, then perhaps you can begin to transform our hearts so that the borders we place place around ourselves would slowly but surely begin to crumble.
Speaker 1:And we would invite more and more people into our hearts. God help us to see the world the way you do, as family in waiting. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.