Romans 8:12-17
I was looking on the internet for how long preachers have preached from just one book of the Bible and found this piece of satire.
24 April, 2007
Pastor Begins 35th Year of Preaching Through Ephesians
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
Expository preachers are often known for spending lengthy periods of time in one book of Scripture. The well-known British pastor, Martyn Lloyd-Jones spent almost 12 years preaching through Romans, and one noted Puritan spent over two decades preaching through the book of Job. But recently the Rev. Alvin Jones of Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church in Raleigh entered his 35th year of preaching through the book of Ephesians…and he’s still only on chapter one.
“When I began my pastoral ministry at Kirk of the Hills 35 years ago I had intended to spend one year preaching through Ephesians and then move on to some other books.” Said Jones. “I suppose I just got caught up.”
After 35 years of preaching through the book on Sunday mornings, Jones has managed to make it through verse 10 of the first chapter, and for some this is just too long.
“I understand that the truths contained in the first chapter of Ephesians are so great that we could spend the rest of eternity examining them.” Said Jack Miller, a member of the church. “But we need to be fed from some other parts of the word too. We need to see some things in context and know how they all fit together. A couple of years ago my Bible split and fell in half right on the page where Ephesians begins, and I had to get a new one.”
I have enjoyed preaching through books of the Bible over my eight years but have felt that a variety in our diet is a good thing. So I preach on Romans at the start of the year, then the Gospels for Lent, and Acts after Easter into the summer. The summer varies a bit but in the fall I preach from the Old Testament and then we end the year with an Advent theme. This will be the sixth year we have begun the year with sermons from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. 29 sermons over the past five years have taken us to the middle of chapter 8 which means we are on pace to finish this book in February 2011.
It is important when reading Romans to know where Paul has come from and where he is heading so the first Sunday of each January, I give a summary of what we have covered thus far in his letter to the church in Rome. This is especially important this morning because the verse on which I want to focus at the end of the sermon stands firmly on the truths that come before it.
You can see on the bulletin cover a young child holding his or her father’s hand. I know that not everyone has had a positive father experience and not all people feel safe holding the hand of their father. If you are one of those people, you will have to imagine that the father’s hand you are holding is not someone who beat you, abused you, was not emotionally present with you or perhaps deserted you when you most needed him. I pray for healing in your life that will help you to deepen your trust of your heavenly father who will never leave you or desert you and will be faithful in his care of you.
For many of us, our father is or was someone we could trust. A child holding her father’s hand knows her father will protect her and lead her into safe places. She walks forward, even into places too dangerous for her to be alone, because she knows he will protect her and keep her safe. She is eager to walk with her father because that is when fun and adventure comes.
The Message translation of Romans 8:12-17 carries this sense.
So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!
We don’t know what will happen in 2008. In another month I am expecting the birth of a second grandchild. Tracy Troxel is expecting to be here this summer to help me lead this church. But most of the eventful things that will happen this year are unknown to us now. Blessing could come. This could be the most glorious year of your life. This could be a pivotal year that you will look back upon and see as one of the most important years of your life. But it could also be that tragedy will strike. If we knew now what was going to happen in 2008, perhaps we would not want to go on. It might be too painful for us to consider.
We don’t know, but if we are able to hold on to God’s hand as a child with his father, then we are able to enter 2008 with excitement and anticipation. There are things to do and places to go! We may walk with God into places too dangerous for us to go alone. We may walk into great adventures that elate us. Whatever this year has in store for us, we hold on to God’s hand, look up and say with adventurous expectation, “What’s next, Papa?”
How do we get to that place of confidence and trust? How do we know that God can be trusted in that way?
Let me go back and start with the beginning of Paul’s letter and show you the foundation for complete, childlike trust in God.
Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome during his three month stay in Corinth, just before his departure for Jerusalem with the collection that had been gathered by the Gentile churches for the poor in Jerusalem.
As Paul contemplated his future, he felt led to take the Gospel to the Iberian Peninsula, what is today Spain. As he had used Antioch in Syria as a base for his church planting in what is today Greece and Turkey, so he needed a base for his church planting in Spain and decided that Rome would be the best location.
So Paul wrote this letter to the church there. The church in Rome had not met Paul but they had heard of him and what they had heard was not all positive. So Paul felt the need to explain his Gospel. He needed to set the record straight to defend himself and his Gospel from the accusations made against him. He wanted to establish a personal connection with the church in Rome so they would welcome him and support him.
This letter was one of great importance to him and so he put a lot into it. As a consequence, it stands as the greatest of his letters and the source of much of our theology.
The first eight chapters of Romans form the first big section of Paul’s letter in which he walks us through three giant theological concepts: justification, sanctification and glorification. In the process he leads us into two dilemmas, two traps where it seems there is no escape. And in each case, he triumphantly announces the resolution to the dilemma, the way out of the trap.
The first trap Paul leads us into concerns the doctrine of justification, the process by which we are made holy in the eyes of God.
Paul began his letter by writing of the wrath of God. Before he could share the good news of Jesus, the bad news had to be presented. And the bad news is that all of us, every one of us, deserves the wrath of God. Note how Paul presents this truth in his letter.
Romans 1:18
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
The reaction for most of Paul’s readers and most of us is that this is true and just, because there are a lot of wicked people in the world and they do deserve God’s wrath. And as Paul goes on, we are gratified that we are not like these people.
Romans 1:21-32
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 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.
28 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. 29 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, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 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.
Depraved, non-religious society deserves the wrath of God and we say “Amen!” to that. But Paul goes on. Critical moralizers who think they are basically good people, better than those around them, also deserve the wrath of God. Ouch! That hurts because that is exactly what we were thinking.
Paul continues. Self-righteous, religious people who think because of their religion and behavior they are good deserve the wrath of God. That is also us.
So when we think we are better than all the wicked people around us and better than others because of our religious life and devotion, Paul cuts off our room for maneuvering and we are trapped. And then just to make sure that there is no escape, Paul summarizes by saying that if we thought we escaped one of the three previous categories, the whole human race is sick and deserves the wrath of God.
Romans 3:10
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
There is no wiggle room. I am trapped. Although I am pastor of a church, help with charitable projects, pray for people regularly, do lots of good things, Paul has put me into a tight spot that I cannot escape. I, along with you and everyone else, deserve the wrath of God. God who created the world around me, who is all powerful and all knowing, who speaks and the mountains melt, thinks I deserve to be the object of his wrath. That is not a good position to find myself in. That is not a good position for you to be in.
And then just when we are trapped, stuck with no hope of escape, Paul delivers the absolutely marvelous news that sets us free.
Romans 3:21-24
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
We all, everyone of us, every single one of us, without exception, deserve the wrath of God but God has provided a way for us to get out of the trap we find ourselves in. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God but we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
We all deserve the wrath of God but then God made known to us a way of escaping the consequences of his wrath. Paul goes on to detail what exactly this righteousness is that is given freely to us and then in chapter 5 he begins to describe the benefits that come to the Christian who has been justified by faith alone: Because we are justified by faith, we have peace with God; we stand in grace; we have hope of the glory of God; and we rejoice in our sufferings.
Although we are sinners, we are viewed by God as being righteous, This is not because God has a problem with his eyesight, but because when he sees us, he sees us through the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf. God is holy and the purity of his holiness burns away any impurity. For us to exist in his presence means we must be pure. This purity cannot come from us because we are sinners, but it comes from Christ. The purity of Christ is given to us so we can be pure in the presence of God. We are not holy. We do not deserve to be saved. We are still sinners. The death of Jesus and the sacrifice of his blood and life for us is what makes us holy in the eyes of God. This is justification, the first stage of salvation.
Paul then moves to the second stage of salvation and the second great doctrine of his letter, sanctification. Scripture says we have been saved – that is justification, but Scripture also says we are being saved and that is sanctification.
Justification, being made righteous in the eyes of God is a momentary transaction that takes place when we submit to God and accept his gift of salvation. But sanctification is an ongoing process that will continue to the day we die our physical death.
God sees us as being holy because Jesus’ righteousness has been given to us but sanctification is the process by which we are made over time to actually be holy. This is the subject of chapters 5, 6 and 7. And once again, Paul shows that we are trapped because although we are meant to be holy and we even want to be holy, we are unable to do so. This was Paul’s struggle
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
I have been a Christian now for 37 years and I understand very well what Paul felt when he wrote this. We have the nature of Christ but we also have our human nature and the two are in conflict.
When I preached last year about this, I used the Robert Louis Stevenson story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This is a story of a benevolent doctor who gets tired of the struggle of doing good but being filled with conflicting desires of anger and selfishness. Finally he gives up on the struggle and develops a potion that transforms him into his other self, Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde strides through the night streets of London doing whatever he wishes without feeling guilty and then he is transformed back into the benevolent Dr. Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll tried to separate his two natures but this did not work. The story has an unhappy ending and Mr. Hyde takes over and Dr. Jekyll commits suicide.
This is the universal struggle and Stevenson’s story is a great illustration of the battle we face. It takes constant energy to resist our human nature and live as we know we ought to live and like Dr. Jekyll, we can get tired of the struggle.
Paul was tired of the struggle and he came to the climax of his frustration when he wrote at the end of chapter 7
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?
In this second great doctrine of Paul’s letter we are once again trapped, with no escape and once again it is God who provides for us a way out by doing what we cannot do.
Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
We are trapped because we deserve the wrath of God and we are rescued by God.
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
We are trapped again because we are unable to live the holy life we are called by God to live and once again we are rescued by God.
Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Because of what Jesus has done for us, we move into chapter 8 with the triumphal conclusion
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
When we had no hope because we are incapable of making ourselves pure enough to enter the presence of God, God rescued us by sending his son, Jesus, to die for us so we can live. We were stuck and God reached down his hand asking us to take hold and trust him.
When we despaired because of our repeated failure to live a holy life, the Holy Spirit never stopped working in us, encouraging us to try once again, to renew our efforts to work with him in our sanctification.
It is because of the consistently faithful work of God in our lives that we are able to hold on to God’s hand with confidence and adventurous expectation. This is why we look up and say, “What’s next, Papa?”
This is why we enter into 2008 with confidence. Our confidence is not that everything will be all right. Our confidence is not that everything will go our way this year. Our confidence is not that we will escape difficulties this year. Our confidence is that we are holding the hand of our heavenly father who will never leave us. He will be present with us this year, no matter what we face.
There is no place that will be safer for us in 2008 than to be holding his hand and going where he takes us.
2007 may have been a difficult year for you. You may have fear and apprehension about what will happen in 2008. Before you come forward this morning for communion, take some time to pray. We will not ask people to come forward row by row. Take your time and reflect. Close your eyes and imagine that you are holding the hand of God who takes care of you and protects you. Release your fears and feel safe in the arms of the all-powerful God who loves you and will lead you into adventures this year. When you feel safe in his arms, then come forward to take communion and receive from your God who loves you the spiritual nourishment you need.
Be encouraged. Don’t be afraid. You are not alone. You are safe in the hand of your strong God who loves you and protects you.
If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!
Blessing awaits us.
