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Romans 5:1-11
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 2:Welcome again to Commons this afternoon. My name is Joel, and I am still technically one of the pastors on staff around here. And if we have not met yet, too late. I suggest you go meet Scott or Bobby or Jeremy or Kevin. After next weekend, I will no longer be working here And I get the privilege of teaching one more time though, which is very generous and shows a lot of trust from Jeremy to schedule me for one last message right before I'm finishing a season of working here.
Speaker 2:Because what if this was my chance to say that thing that's been on my mind since the beginning, which is I'll just let you guess and it's more fun for me. In all honesty though, it is great to be up here and to teach one more time. This past week, my two year old daughter, Penny, woke up super super early and it was 05:30 and so I didn't know what to do. So we just went to Tim Hortons to share a bagel and some milk because I didn't know what else to do at 05:30 in the morning. And it's not dead of winter anymore, so you can kinda just get up and do that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So we went and we sat in a booth together. And so she sat beside me, and we sort of faced into the restaurant. And we were eating our bagel and drinking our milk, and every time someone came in and lined up, she would point and say, this guy? And I she did it like 40 times, and I didn't know if she was like meeting someone there that I didn't know. But she said it like, this guy, dad?
Speaker 2:And I was like, yeah, that's a guy. I don't know what you're trying to get at. But anyway, after last week, we announced that my wife Hillary and I both received an invitation to live and work at a retreat center just West of Calgary. And we're starting there in just over a week from now. And the nature of a community like this, and the one that's this size especially, is that hopefully there are a few of you that will be saddened by the news of me leaving.
Speaker 2:More than likely there are a ton of you who are like, well, I actually did like Scott and Bobby better. Now, don't have to choose. But then there are even more of you because of the nature of how many people come through these doors. There are more than enough of you who are probably like, this guy? Because maybe we've not met yet or not have the opportunity or just didn't want to meet me, and I can't say that I blame you.
Speaker 2:But if you are one of those this guy people, just relax. We won't ask you to help us move. So you're off the hook. Everyone else though, stay tuned. Jeremy and Bobby and Scott have been the main teaching voices these last couple years here at Commons.
Speaker 2:And that is great because I have not met anyone that can explain complex and meaningful things in the ways that Jeremy especially can. And I've been really grateful to learn from him alongside all of you these last few years. And the strength of our teaching team is really apparent in all of our series, but especially in a series like Romans. We get to see the complexity and the depth and the capabilities of the people who speak up here every single week. And last week, Jeremy introduced us into the third year of our series Through Romans.
Speaker 2:And he did the work of recapping two previous years and setting us up for this section this spring. And last week, he reiterated one very important piece. That Paul spends a lot of time talking about God's wrath. But the important distinction is that God is never angry or wrathful toward us, just toward the things that hurt and injure us. And that is really important for us to understand as we continue through studying this book together.
Speaker 2:And Jeremy also spent some time talking through Paul's backstory from the book of Acts, which is also important because it helps us form an understanding of why Paul says things a certain way, or why he seems to come across in a certain way. Because Paul's personality still has its DNA. Whatever his personality defaults are, regardless of which side of his life changing conversion he's on, those are still his personality defaults. I don't know if any of you have heard of or studied the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a personality test that depending on who you talk to is either a gift directly from God to us for us to use to help us understand each other better or it's just Christian astrology.
Speaker 2:Depends on who you talk to. I personally am in the camp that thinks it has quite a bit of value. But I am a number nine on this Enneagram test and I am so fully a nine. I'm 100% of the pieces of a nine that make up a good healthy person. And when I'm not functioning healthily, I am 100% the things they list as unhealthy as a nine.
Speaker 2:That test just nails who I am when I'm healthy and unhealthy. But it's good information for me to know. Because it's part of my backstory and it helps me understand how I default to read or understand the story of Jesus. And it helps me understand how I function among people. And so as we continue to read through Paul and his story, both now when we study Romans and this summer when we talk through the book of Acts.
Speaker 2:Knowing some things about how Paul functions, that maybe helps us get a handle on the why with some of what Paul says and how he interacts with some of these other characters in the unfolding story of the New Testament. But today, we're gonna work through chapter five of Romans, the first eight verses specifically. So I'm gonna read it and then we'll pray together. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have a peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Speaker 2:Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, cause we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And hope doesn't put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, or for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this.
Speaker 2:While we were still sinners Christ died for us. Let's pray. God, in these moments together, as your people we gather in this space and we prepare our hearts and our minds to engage with you. To engage with your story and be shaped by it. God, would you use these words of one of your first radical converts To bring us deeper into the conversation that you are hoping to have with your people.
Speaker 2:Would Paul's story become part of our story today? And as always, would your story continue to welcome each of our own stories as you do the work of renewing the world. Amen. So once I am officially gone from here, it is going to be a lot less funny around here. Also, everyone else on staff is so skinny and so healthy.
Speaker 2:So like the balance is like, right? But when it is appropriate and after a season, I still hope to attend commons when I can. I think my wife and my kids will be here a little more regularly too once we all get settled. But, just a heads up, that if I'm ever back here on a Sunday in the future, I am definitely not talking to most of you if I'm not being paid to. There's some of you that I won't even make eye contact with unless I'm getting some sort of honorarium or something.
Speaker 2:Okay. This is obviously my way of deflecting what will surely be something that's not easy for me. I genuinely like people and it's hard for me to say this version of these goodbyes these next couple weeks. I was thinking about how in December, I gave what I am calling my flu sermon. So like Michael Jordan had his flu game, where he had this great game of basketball and he was super super sick.
Speaker 2:And I opened the Advent series in December, but I was so sick that I don't even remember what happened that day. And someone told me that since this is my last sermon here, it's sort of like my hall of fame speech. And Michael Jordan's flu game was epic, but his hall of fame speech was something else entirely. He was so petty. And he just used his platform to dig and take shots at all of his peers.
Speaker 2:And I I won't do that. I won't do that. But how am I supposed to help myself? Scott's the best. Anyway, I was also encouraged by some people who know me to do this whole sermon like stand up style.
Speaker 2:Like hold the microphone and like have a mic stand here and like step and do this. And while I appreciate that some people recognize how funny I think I am. That's not what we're doing here. As much as I'm gonna take some time to weave my story and some funny stories into studying this passage today. We don't wanna abuse this platform that you all give us here every single week.
Speaker 2:It's an honor and a privilege to earn your trust up here and say the things that we say. These things that are being formed in each of us as pastors, as we allow ourselves to be shaped and reformed by the Jesus that we're following and studying. And the first thing I wanna say today is how careful and intentional we are about everything that we say from here. Everyone that walks through these doors and engages with us in this space, they're on their own individual journey. And so everything we say from this stage has to be invitational.
Speaker 2:It has to invite every one of us into more of God. And as members of this community, we get to take what is said very seriously and we get to hold what is said. We get to think about it, and we get to try to understand it ourselves, and hold it seriously and thoughtfully. But also, and I don't say this lightly either, there's a lot of us around here that probably have room to take ourselves less seriously. I feel like maybe my middle name is, everyone just take yourselves a little less seriously.
Speaker 2:Joel, everyone just take yourselves a little less seriously, Braun. And it's ironic that I make this point today because my middle name is more appropriate for the apostle Paul than for many other people. At least I feel. Last week, Jeremy said some of you may connect easily and automatically with someone like Paul. And I am one of those people who reads Paul very, very carefully.
Speaker 2:Because there are a lot of times where I just wanna write Paul off as an angry intellectual. This is my hall of fame cheap shot at Paul, but I feel like if Paul were around today, he'd spend his whole day trying to win arguments on Facebook. That's pretty mean. That's pretty mean. But, as a tried and true avoider of conflict at all costs, you wouldn't catch me dead engaging in an argument with many people.
Speaker 2:Let alone Paul. Intense Paul. I'm actually just gonna hang out on the other side of Jerusalem with the apostle John and just talk about how God is love. God is love. God is love all the time.
Speaker 2:But to me, Paul seems defensive. He seems argumentative and ready to engage in battle. And if you look closely at this historical painting, it's a little bit hard to see in the light. Yes. You do notice at first he's holding a sword, but that's actually pretty symbolic in a lot of some of this medieval art that's made of Paul.
Speaker 2:But, if you study arts like I just kidding. I don't sit here. If you look closer, he's actually standing in a kickboxing stance. K? Knee is pointed forward, toes are pointed forward, he's protecting the groin.
Speaker 2:But regardless of if I think and believe that Paul wants to kickbox me, I do believe that he knows and loves Jesus. See, Romans is not one of the letters that is corrective like a lot of the other letters that Paul wrote. He hasn't even visited this church in Rome. So this letter is different than all the other letters he wrote like to places like Corinth or Ephesus. Places that he would have spent a lot of time at and known well.
Speaker 2:Places that he would have been to. He would have aware of maybe a conflict here or a dispute over there. But it sounds like he's preparing to go to Rome or he wants to go and visit the church in Rome. But this established church is potentially unsure about the authenticity of Paul's story. They're unsure of his authority, maybe even his character.
Speaker 2:And so he spends the book of Romans essentially giving his arguments to how he knows the gospel and he preaches that gospel and how his understanding of Jesus as the Messiah has changed him and it's changed history. And we read in verse one, There are two significant words there. The word therefore and the word justified. And these signal that this is an extremely important transition moment in this book between all of Paul's arguments in chapters one to four, and then everything he's gonna say from chapter six on. Chapter five is this hinge point where Paul actually paints this picture of the new humanity in Jesus.
Speaker 2:The reality that as he stated in verse two, we all now just stand in grace. Period. Because Paul gets it. He uses this important and all too often churchified word justified. In the Greek, justified comes from the chaos, which means righteous and innocent.
Speaker 2:But what Paul says is that we are found and made righteous and innocent and justified not because of anything that we've done, but because of what God has done through the faith and grace of Jesus. And it's this simple beautiful reality that you are enough already right now. All of us are already invited, already accepted, already loved deeply, already welcomed into the family and the kingdom. And there is nothing that you can do to make God love you more, and there's nothing you can do to make God love you less. Instead, here we are at the center where we are justified.
Speaker 2:We are innocent and we are made right. We're enough all because of his faithfulness. But this is why the invitation toward God is so amazing. Because while grace says that we're enough in this moment right now, hope says that there's also more. There's more for us if we want it.
Speaker 2:More ways for us to be transformed and remade into God's image if we want it. But as always, it is an invitation. It's like accepting an invitation and being greeted at the door of the most extravagant party that you could imagine. So grace gets us there and in the door. And the lobby is beautiful and you sense that you are just so welcome, that there's purpose here and there's comfort in just being there.
Speaker 2:But what if you went in? What if you ventured further into the rooms of this great party called life in relationship with God? I wonder what is in there. Probably some pretty amazing things. But I bet there's also some tough things.
Speaker 2:Some things that would make us struggle and some things that might hurt and some changes that we might not be ready for. It's one of the questions for today is what does it look like to follow God through change? And it's an important question, because I don't know if you've heard this, but somebody once said that the only constant is change. And whether or not you believe that God orchestrates change, or whether or not you believe that things happen, they just happen, but God is present in them. Change just happens.
Speaker 2:And venturing through this life means that we will experience loss, we will experience suffering, and we will experience change. That's just how this is. Things change and we change. And then things change again and then we change again. Three years ago, I taught a very infamous sermon where I essentially said that I knew grace was real in community because I could exist in community with people who liked pugs.
Speaker 2:Yes. And I went on in detail, A lot of detail about how awful I thought pugs were. I even used science. And that wasn't received well by everyone. Quite controversial actually.
Speaker 2:I saved all those angry messages I got. Anyway, this whole pug thing just wouldn't die. Sorry. The sermon. But you know, I've had some time to think about it.
Speaker 2:I've had time to think about it and like really think about it. And you know, I stand by everything I said. Those things are gross and vile. They're the worst. There's a picture of one in a toilet.
Speaker 2:I think this is how they're made or created or something or born. I don't know, whatever you wanna call it. In the end, I'm actually not even sure that it was worth messing with my algorithms to search for this picture on the Internet. Maybe I haven't changed that much in one area. But the reality is that we shouldn't be the same person after real genuine change, After persevering through something painful or suffering?
Speaker 2:And why would we want to be the same? And I think that's what Paul is getting at when he moves us through this famous verse about suffering producing perseverance, perseverance producing character. Because on one simple truthful hand, you can never say to someone's face in the midst of that suffering that they will be stronger or better after experiencing that suffering. But it's true. Right?
Speaker 2:If you lost your job or relationship and the first thing I said to you was, yeah, but through this experience, you'll learn things about yourself, and your strengths will help you in your next job or relationship. In that moment, you should just look at me and tell me to shut my mouth. Or if you lose someone, and I immediately say to you, yeah, but think about how much stronger you'll be after suffering through this. You should just look at me and maybe slap me in my mouth. But maybe in time, Paul is right.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we have a part of our heart that has been broken into either a couple or a million pieces. But then as you heal and as you are restored into a new version of yourself, that same renewed heart actually has so much more to offer yourself and to offer someone else who might be going through something similar. And if we follow this trajectory in a practical sense, if you experience loss and suffering and you persevere either through strength of your own, your community, or relying on God, and hopefully it's all three of those things, your character is forever changed. Your character has different depths and angles to it that you wouldn't have had before. And so we get to this part of the passage where Paul says in verses three and four that there's glory in our sufferings because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope.
Speaker 2:Yes. Even grumpy, kickboxing, argumentative Paul talks about hope. Even though he has to get there by talking about suffering first, but I still just classic Paul. But he's probably a lot more in tune with what real life is actually like. Because if I were to offer you a kind of light, flippant hope, and a true deep meaningful hope that's been derived from your character experiences.
Speaker 2:I would want you to have the hope that's been derived from your character. Even if it meant going through some real change or pain to get there. And this kind of hope is not just a feel good idea. It's wide and deep and strong and full. Do you know how we often catch ourselves talking lightly and using the word love lightly?
Speaker 2:Like, I love pizza or I love hating pugs. Those kinds of things you say all the time. I think there is as much weight to the word hope. As we too often say things like, man, hope I get a good parking spot at church. Actually, that's very true for Kensington.
Speaker 2:It's very hard to park around here. But for Paul and for us in real life, hope comes from trusting God's faithfulness. Because we've noticed and we have tried to welcome his presence in the suffering. And we paid attention to God while we were persevering and relied on him when our character was being transformed. And Henry Nouwen says, hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown.
Speaker 2:Hope makes you see God's guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments, but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness. It's just so powerful that this same kind of real hope is offered to us. It's the same hope that God created and shares himself. Because hope is derived from God's character in the first place. And ultimately then, it's directed at us.
Speaker 2:And then our hope that's founded in God helps bring about the kingdom of peace in the world. Martin Luther says that everything that is done in the world is done by hope. And Luther's idea points to this beautiful partnership between God's hope in us and for us and our hope acting in the world. And it's great that Paul is the one who writes about this path towards genuine hope because Paul is such a great example of this. Because what kind of hope did God have for Paul?
Speaker 2:Especially while he was still Saul. That he would risk welcoming him, making him blind to everything else so that he could open up his eyes to that invitation to be known. And what's most beautiful about this whole hope thing is that God hopes for us and still hopes for us. Is the ultimate picture of hope derived from character? Is the fact that humanity nailed Jesus to a cross?
Speaker 2:And before and after that part of the story, God still hopes for us. And that's true on a large scale in terms of all of humanity. That's also true for each of us as individuals. And it's incredible. It's this power of verse eight that we read.
Speaker 2:While we were still sinners, while we were still actively moving and working against God, he died for us. God moves towards us always. God is always moving toward us no matter what direction we are moving. Because God's character is to be for us. God's character is loving kindness, and God's character is hope.
Speaker 2:And if I had my way, I would just say that over and over and over again while just telling jokes and stories in between. That's kind of what I did anyway this morning. And when, but not if, we're experiencing change, and that change causes pain or discomfort, or makes us feel like God is maybe distant. Please remember the kickboxing, groin protecting Paul from Romans five. Paul is saying that God is loving kindness.
Speaker 2:God welcomes us through his grace and invites us toward more with his hope. I love my kids, which you're supposed to, but I also like them. I like to hang out with them. My son, Frank, is just really fun to be around. And it's weird I'm leaving being on this stage as part of my career right around the time when his stories are still golden.
Speaker 2:But it's just before he can start to ask me to not tell stories about him in church. So maybe the timing is good on that sense. He also is just a super super sensitive kid. Emotionally, especially. He's a very sensitive guy.
Speaker 2:And like all kids, he has a really vivid imagination. And so while there's a lot of kids his age who are maybe watching the Avengers or Jurassic Park. I don't if that's too far. I'm not a very good parent. Anyway, he's five.
Speaker 2:I don't know which movies. Anyway, the point is we are still just telling him these stories as these movies as stories. So we haven't let him watch these yet. Because he will literally not sleep for weeks and months if he watches something like this. The things that we don't think are scary, he's just super in tune with.
Speaker 2:He's in tune with these emotional thing, tensions between characters that I am not paying attention to. It's just impressive for a five year old. And it's a gift and I think that will come in handy for him at some point in his life. But not right now in terms of what we can let him watch on Netflix. It's hard.
Speaker 2:Anyway, Star Wars is one of these movies that were turning into stories for him. And so one afternoon, Hillary was telling Frank the whole story of Star Wars. And it shouldn't be a spoiler at this point, but when she gets to the part where she tells him it's been like, takes forever to tell this story. She gets to the part where she tells him that Darth Vader is actually Luke's father. He was like, what?
Speaker 2:He just couldn't believe it. It just blew his mind. It blew his mind and he asked Hillary. He said, what did you feel? What did it feel like?
Speaker 2:What did you feel in your bodies when you heard that? What did you and dad and Kevin feel? He assumed we saw it with Kevin, which was beautiful, kind of sweet. Maybe you're not in a season where you are intending to leave a job, or move, or start or end a relationship, or start something new and risky. Then maybe you hear something like an invitation to a retreat center.
Speaker 2:And it's something that you have talked about with the most important person in your life for a really long time, and then you feel something in your bodies and you know that it's right to move towards that. And then the people in your circles, the people that you trust with the deepest and scariest parts of the choices that you are considering, and the potential pain or change that you are walking into. Those people become even more important. And just like Frank didn't want to just know what Hillary felt, she also want to know what Kevin felt and what I felt. Everyone in the theater.
Speaker 2:There's just this trust and reliance and hope in community and faithful relationships that even a five year old inherently understands. And please keep that in mind as you navigate change together. Here at Commons, have the most incredible opportunity to hear teaching regularly that is so well put together and studied and researched and cared about so much as it engages our minds so very well. And my hope in moving on from here is that every one of us will see this place as the most unique opportunity to have both our minds and our hearts shaped and reformed and renewed by what God is doing here. That while our brains interact with it on one level, at the same time we would let our hearts genuinely feel what it means for us on that level.
Speaker 2:Together as a community of faith, as you continue to read and study these scriptures, what do you feel in your body? What do you feel in your body when you read that God is so enamored with us and is so hopeful for us that he has spent our entire existence trying to move closer and closer and reveal more of himself to us. What do you and dad and Kevin feel in your bodies when you hear that? Let's pray. God of hope, you give hope, you are hope.
Speaker 2:Help us to not settle for an airy flippant kind of hope that might fade. But instead, would you give us some real hope? Give us hope in you to learn to trust your faithfulness because we have noticed and tried to welcome your presence in pain and suffering. We have tried to pay attention to you while we are persevering. No.
Speaker 2:We have tried to rely on you while our character is being transformed. Help us to see through these powerful words from Paul that we all stand in grace. God, we pray that you would engage our minds with your story and that that would shape how we think and act and live. And we also ask that you would engage our hearts with that same story and that that would shape how we feel and act and live. God be with each of us, your children that you created and that you love.
Speaker 2:Amen.