Rev. Jon Jordan: In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. I'm taking a slight risk this morning by sharing an observation about a movie knowing that it comes with a major spoiler. It is not The Odyssey, I promise. The movie was released in theaters twenty seven years ago, so I don't feel too guilty about what I'm about to share. But in case you want to cover your ears, if you had plans to watch it tonight somehow for the first time, the movie in question is The Sixth Sense, one of M Night Shyamalan's greatest stories.
In the opening scene of The Sixth Sense, audiences watch as Bruce Willis is shot point blank by one of his patients. No screen magic, no trickery, it's a plain and simple shot and we see it happen. And yet by the very next scene, we have forgotten. We don't ask questions. We don't second guess ourselves.
We see Bruce Willis again on screen and instantly believe that he's alive. And then we are absolutely floored. I was twenty seven years ago, and I bet many of you were too, when we learned at the very end of the film that Bruce Willis was dead the entire movie. Perhaps you've heard comedian Nate Bargotze point out something about this movie that many of us in the room, perhaps those who have seen marriages or been in marriages, would resonate with. As we watched the movie for the first time, it was somehow more plausible for us to believe that Bruce Willis' wife could give him the silent treatment throughout the entire movie than to believe what we saw, what we witnessed with our own eyes in the opening scene.
Now life is like that sometimes. In fact, movies, especially movies like The Sixth Sense, only work because of something universally true of the human experience. It sounds silly when we describe it here in this room, but an entire generation was tricked for ninety minutes. Because we can know something to be absolutely true. We can experience it firsthand ourselves and yet for a time completely forget it, even deeply held beliefs.
And so what we need more often than new information is reminders, reminders of what we already know to be most true even when it seems like it should be obvious to us. Now, over the past several chapters of his letter to the church in Rome, Saint Paul has been outlining core realities of the Christian life. Things that are deeply true of who we are and especially of who we are in Christ. And up to this point, Paul has presented these things through a fairly logical step by step argument. That argument goes something like this.
You, Christian, died to the flesh in your baptism. You renounced the domain of the evil one, the bondage you had to sin and death was severed, and you were united to a new master, a good master, in order that your body, mind, and soul might be now used for things that lead to life and not death. Your old master has no claim over your life. He can tempt but he cannot force. He can try to draw you back to your former ways using your body and your mind and your soul for destructive things, but you're no longer at his command.
Your new master, rather than overpowering your will like some sort of grand puppeteer, has instead set you free from being animated by the evil one and has given you his very spirit so that you can grow freely into who you were called to be. Your will and your body and your soul have been given the freedom to grow. That growth takes time. And last Sunday, Paul reminded us that we are right now in the middle of that growth. It has begun but it is not yet complete.
Paul compares our current experience, our whole life to labor pains. This life, he says, is like the birth canal of the life to come. The pains we experience now, whether they're the sorrows of this life that we cannot escape or self inflicted pains from our own decisions, do not compare to the fullness of life we will experience in the end. And so Paul ends this very logical structured argument with a verse that we read this morning that I hope is already ingrained in your heart. We know that all things work together for good, for those who love god, and who are called according to his purpose.
Now, this is a compelling argument. It's a holistic vision of the Christian life and it's taken Saint Paul the past few chapters to make it and like a master teacher all along the way, Paul has anticipated and answered some questions that his readers might have had throughout this argument. Questions like, how do I make sense of the desire that I, a Christian, still feel at times towards evil? What do I do with the fact that even when my mind wants to choose the right, I still choose the wrong? How does suffering itself fit into all of this?
Now the answers to those questions can be found all throughout the past several chapters of Romans and here in the final paragraphs of Romans eight, Paul anticipates one more question. A question that his readers might have before he delivers what might be the most beautiful of answers contained in our New Testament. So here's the question Paul is anticipating you having and me having. I know that what Paul has been writing is what is most true about myself as a Christian. I can fully recognize that God has rescued me from the domain of sin and death in Christ.
I've seen it and experienced it firsthand. But I cannot shake the feeling that I am still not enough, enough to earn the love of God. That this is all good and true for many other people that I know, but not for me because I've made some mistakes. I've walked away from my baptismal call. I've done some things, and I've left others undone.
What about me? So if these are your questions, either right now in this moment or at some moment in your life, pay attention. Hear the answer God himself through his servant Saint Paul gives to those very questions. Allow this passage to wake you up, to see what is most true, to be reminded of what you have either accidentally or willfully forgotten about the love of God. Now because of my deep admiration for this passage, I'm simply going to share a couple of observations about the text and then close the sermon by simply reading it aloud.
So the first thing to point out is this, Paul changes his style dramatically for the final paragraphs of this section of Romans. What has been presented as a clear linear logical argument has now become in these final paragraphs more like a rhetorical symphony. And like all good symphonies, Paul will masterfully and beautifully draw in elements of his argument and weave them into the final movement. You'll actually be able to hear it. Listen to the way the tempo speeds up and reaches a climax in the grand finale.
The build up to that climax is actually a series of four questions that each of us have asked in one way or another. Maybe last year, maybe this week. First, is God for me or against me? Second, is there some cosmic list of charges against me? Third, do those charges condemn me now?
In other words, have I gone too far? And then finally, will god walk away from loving me? Can I do something or can I have something done to me that will undo his mercy? Now, the only reason Paul would address these questions in this letter is because these were pressing questions felt by Christians in first century Rome. They knew the answers but they had at times forgotten.
So you're not alone in asking them and you're not alone in needing to occasionally be reminded again. But you are presented this morning through the scriptures with the truest of answers to those questions. It's a reminder of something you already know. It's something that you've experienced but sometimes question. So hear that reminder this morning.
Remember what you already know. And if this passage that I'm moments away from reading resonates with you, then I would encourage you to begin to memorize it this week. Perhaps you want to follow along in your bulletin or close your eyes or open your Bible, but we'll close with this. We know that all things work together for good, for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.
And those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own son but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charges against God's elect?
It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It was Christ Jesus who died. Yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed even now prays for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? For it's even written, for your sake we are being killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered. No. In all these things, we are more than conquerors for him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Remember this. Remember this in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.