About What Christ Has Done
Notes
Transcript
Wrapping Up Romans
Wrapping Up Romans
I trust that you have had some opportunity to just read through Romans, or at least part of it, as we have been on this survey-series since June 11. While I have been preaching themes and lessons on Paul’s “BIG BOOK” of Christian theology and practical living, it’s really valuable for every believer to just sit down for a while each day or at least each week and read big hunks of Romans. Don’t try to pick apart every detail. Just soak it in, and be reminded and instructed by the Word of God on issues for faith and living out the hope of our salvation.
Yesterday, several of us were at the Annual Convention of the Association of the Church of God in Southern California and Southern Nevada in Long Beach. It was a wonderful morning of worship and inspiration and hope for the church as we welcomed our new Regional Pastor, Rev. Kerwin Manning and his wife Madeline of Pasadena Church as the head of the team to help lead the Association into a better future by God’s purpose and power.
Pastor Kris Reed and Park Church in Long Beach fed us all a great breakfast, and we had time for fellowship and connection, and then worship led by a coalition of worship leaders from San Diego, Whittier, Temecula, Pasadena, Long Beach and Los Angeles. After celebrating God in worship, we had an address from Pastor Manning which pointed out the problems we have faced in the church to this point and the possibilities of hope as we reset for the future for the Kingdom of God in Southern California.
Pastor Manning shared his own journey toward accepting the call to serve as Regional Pastor, and confirmed to us that this is God’s timing and God’s purpose. He shared that all of this was about the reality of what Christ has done to bring us to this point so we can have more impact for the future kingdom of God.
I set the the theme for today’s message several weeks ago in my sermon planning, and it is appropriate that today, from the book of Romans, we also have opportunity to see how Paul celebrates God’s work through his own life as Paul shares in Romans 15 . . .
About What Christ Has Done
About What Christ Has Done
Paul is coming the the close of his description of God’s work for our salvation through Jesus Christ, and the role of the law and even more the law of Grace. He has been applying those truths about Christ to how we live for Christ, and now Paul is winding down this treatise with a theme that is, basically, “All Because of Jesus.”
The church in Paul’s day was evolving from a work of mission to get the word out, into the beginnings of a world-wide network of congregations that would be used by God to bring spiritual truth and guidance to and army of saints. The message that the Messiah has come and all are invited to salvation through Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Christ of God, who has died for our sins and proved through his resurrection that everything he said was true has not changed.
Now, celebrating the spread of the church and the foundation of many congregations, and the future of even more, Paul is excited at what Christ Has Done, and he reflects on things that are important to us even today.
At the top of the list for us is that. . .
Hope Is Essential
Hope Is Essential
As a foundation and as a focus for the future. Without hope, we only see the sad side of stuff. But with hope that is based on faith in the continuing work of God in our lives, God’s work in the church, and in what God still wants to do in the world around us through us, His believers, we can face any challenge and find ways to continue to share the goodness of God in the world around us. For no matter what tries to bring us down, the God of all love, the God of all power, the God of all salvation and the God of all eternity wants to be for each of us the God of all HOPE so we can press on for what God wants to do in our world.
In a verse that is often described as a benediction, Paul prays and pronounces a blessing based on Hope: Romans 15:13,
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
I chose that one-verse prayer as a beginning rather than a benediction for the word I share with you today, for it is through hope for our future, hope for God’s help, hope in God’s joy and hope for peace, and faith, and the power of the Holy Spirit that abounding hope will fill our thoughts of the future for our lives, our families, and our church.
Sure of the foundation of hope, Paul takes a moment to celebrate the church by. . .
Confirming God’s Gifts
Confirming God’s Gifts
that are at work in the church. Now, Paul wrote this about 1,964 years ago, give or take, about the year 59. and yet, as he writes to the congregations of the Church of God in Rome, his words are for us today as well. Paul is confirming what God gives to the church through his Holy Spirit, to fulfil the Character of Christ in us, and to prepare us for the daily work of ministry.
You can go to several lists of the Spirit’s work in Christians that are provided in scripture, and most of those are from the experience of the Apostle Paul. Like the list of the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Those are gifts of the Holy Spirit that help identify the Christian’s submission to God’s work in their lives. Paul doesn’t give that same list here, but he does imply that he has seen those very gifts at work in the lives of the Romans, from the correspondence he has received and the Christians who have visited him from Rome when he was in Corinth, where he met Priscilla and Aquila, and in Ephesus where he probably was when he wrote Romans.
So he says of the church,
14 I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another.
That says a lot about the reports that have been coming from the field. It comes from the level of discipleship that Paul had witnessed in people like Priscilla and Aquila, and is a little different than the picture of a rough-and-rowdy crowd of barely Christians that he experienced from Corinth.
It is a good thing to be worthy of a good report. It is a good thing to be encouraged because of that good report, too. Yet Paul has let loose on a few things in the letter, because, like us today, we need reminders. We need accountability, we need fellowship, we need good examples and we need to be good examples for others.
That’s why Paul is
Confirming the Value of Reminders
Confirming the Value of Reminders
For we are never free from the need to remember, rehearse, restate, and respond to truths of God. As humans we have a huge tendency to rationalize our poor behaviors. It’s when we reflect on the goodness of God’s directives for our lives and rethink how to apply Grace to how we live our lives. We talked recently about avoiding spiritual pride, and even a one-size-fits-all error of discipleship, for we need to trust that God is at work in the lives of his children and his church.
It’s OK to be boldly clear on some things. We have to call out the stuff that is harmful to the lives of other Christians, we have to call out the stuff that is harmful to the life of the Church, and we have to be reminded that God has a different point of view on any situation than what we have. So Paul confesses,
15 But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Paul’s reasons for boldness are multiple:
-The Grace of God poured in
-The Call of God worked out
-The service of presenting Christ to Gentiles
-The priestly role of mediating the grace of God...
For the goal that all who come to believe in Jesus Christ for forgiveness, salvation and hope may be prepared to offer themselves to God as an acceptable and holy, or Holy Spirit sanctified, sacrifice.
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
And now, as he is wrapping up, he reflects on what God has done and what God is still going to do,
Celebrating Call and Ministry
Celebrating Call and Ministry
That brought him from a position of a zealous enemy of Christ and his Church to a point of surrender to the more perfect will of God for his life, to be transformed into the Apostle to the Gentiles for the glory of God.
So Paul, who often says things against being prideful, is still able to say,
17 In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God.
Proud because of Christ. Proud because of the track record of ministry. Proud because of how he has been able to teach and reach so many. Proud of the disciples and ministers that have benefited from his obedience to God.
Pride is OK if it is pride about what is important, and shows of the goodness of God.
Confident of Christ’s Work
Confident of Christ’s Work
18 For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed,
Confirmed by God’s Spirit
Confirmed by God’s Spirit
19 by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ;