Free to Belong Together

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[0:00] Thank you, Steve. And I have a little tickle in my throat, so I might drink a little tea from time to time when I'm up here. And we have a kind of a milestone here today because this is our final sermon on the book of Romans. So I guess we could celebrate. And I said, you know, the Romans series is going to continue until morale improves. And now morale has improved, so we're ready to be done. No, I'm kidding. But it's a good book. And I'll talk a little bit more about this at the end. But I think what I want us to be thinking is in our church, and this is a goal, and often realized, but not always, is that we try not to avoid texts that are difficult to understand or that are controversial, but we trust that the Spirit will guide us in interpreting them. And we try not to avoid texts like this one, which are long and complex and challenging to understand, but with time we can work it through. And so we've done that with Romans, and it is a challenge. Now, if we were to try something, really, really ambitious, we would try to preach through all of Isaiah or all of Jeremiah, but that could take a long time. What I will say is that you've been blessed, I hope, if you've been here every week, that by now we'll have read out loud in worship every chapter and

[1:11] every part of every chapter of Romans up until now. And one caveat is that we're ending it here at chapter 15. There's actually a chapter 16 of Romans, and we're not going to read that. That's your homework for home is to read that part of the book. And it mostly consists, insists of sort of some bookkeeping and greetings that Paul sends along to various people. And it's actually quite interesting to read. If you kind of imagine all these people that he's thinking about, you could find it quite interesting. So we're reading all of 1 through 15, and 16 is your homework at home, some time to read. And then you'll have heard, if you've been here all this time, that you'll have heard the entire book of Romans read to you, and that's no small thing. So a quick review, because this is our last one, is just, this is going to be a little bit, more of review. The reason for that is that chapter 15 sort of restates a fair amount of what was said in chapter 14. So we don't need to belabor it, but it also sums up the whole letter up until now. And so that's my goal today is to bring us to a place where we can, as complex as it is, come to a place where we understand what Paul was trying to do when he wrote this letter

[2:19] to the church in Rome. And so let's go to our reading, and then I'll begin, I'll begin, the review. And I think you'll find it to be refreshing and interesting, and a good refreshing of your memory. So our reading is the first half now of Romans 15, 1 through 21. The Apostle Paul writes this. He writes, You have fallen on me, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

[3:09] May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[3:26] Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God, in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles, and sing praises to your name. And again he says, And again, And again, Isaiah says, I myself feel confident in about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. Nevertheless, on some points I have written to you rather boldly, by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God, 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. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as

[5:13] Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ. Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.

[5:38] Let's take a moment to let that sink in. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this good word that you give us from the Apostle Paul. Thank you for this book of Romans. And we pray now that your blessing will be added to it in what comes next. In Jesus' name, amen. So I'd like to go back, and we can make the screen, we can make the text disappear if you want, Nathan, that we don't. That's okay. All right.

[6:14] Doesn't matter. So we're going to review and what this means for us. We're going to go back, to our theme verse, but in its fullness, because we leave a few parts out in our call to worship. Did you know that? The call to worship is actually Romans 1, 16a and 17a, which the a means it's the first section of 16 and the first section of 17. That's kind of a shorthand for when you describe a Bible verse and you don't want to quote the entire thing. You say a, b, or even c sometimes if there's three parts to a Bible verse. So our call to worship is just, I believe, I'm not ashamed of the gospel as the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith. That's part a, but part b of chapter one, verse 16 is this, to the Jew first and also to the Greek or also to the Gentile. Did you guys notice how many times the word Gentile showed up in this reading for today? You think Paul was trying to say something? Not only was he talking about the Gentiles almost nonstop, he then proceeded to make a list of all the places in the Bible. Right yes, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. So Paul telegraphs very early on in his letter that this has a lot to do not just with salvation and faith, which it absolutely does,

[8:02] but it has an awful lot to do with the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. And as we saw, especially in chapters 9, 10, 11, and then onward, that this question of Jews and Gentiles getting along and becoming one large community of faith together is really where Paul's heart is. That's the core and soul of the letter. Now, let me ask a question, and this might help you kind of frame it because it might help you look at your own background with this letter. And I'll talk about my background in just a moment. And the question is this, is Romans primarily about salvation by faith? Is it primarily about salvation? Salvation by faith. Or is Romans primarily about the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the Roman church? And my younger self would have said the first one, because I grew up Lutheran, and that's what we were taught, that this is the main message of Romans, is that it's about salvation by faith alone. But trying to read it and set aside my background and my past, and to read it afresh, we see over and over again here in 15, chapter 1 verse 16, and everywhere in between that Romans is really about the relationship between Jews and gentiles in the Roman church, and Paul's hope that

[9:28] they together would form a beloved community. The evidence is really stronger for the second view, that Romans is about the relationship between Jews and gentiles in the Roman church. And Romans is about Paul's desire to see the church alive in the church itself. And he says he's alive in the church itself. the church in Rome unite across all these lines that are in the community. So one line in the community is ethnicity. There's Jewish people and there's non-Jewish people. And among the non-Jewish people, there are several, obviously, there are several other ethnicities as well. But the two that Paul is interested in is the Jewish ethnicity. I'm just talking about ethnicity now. And in that, you could find culture. Culture, that's also their practices around food, their practices around how they dress, how they talk, all sorts of things. Language, challenging, right? Jewish people probably speak Hebrew, but they probably speak Greek. Many of them probably speak Latin if they're in Rome. So there's some challenges there. And then finally, about faith. It's about what do they believe? A Gentile may have grown up with a whole pantheon of Greek and Roman gods and a lot of sort of. Almost superstitious views about the universe, whereas Jews have grown up in an intensely

[10:46] monotheistic faith. And so how do you set aside all these things, right? So Paul's strategy for uniting these two groups is to tell, in one sense, to tell the Jewish people that what makes them distinct. What makes them distinct is now something that makes them have something in common with the Gentiles. And it has to do with justification by faith. So like I said, I grew up Lutheran, and this still shades my views of books like Romans and Galatians. Because for Lutherans, this is always about justification by faith and not works. And that's a formulation that you'll hear. And you know, you might hear it often in some covenant churches, too, because the covenant churches does descend somewhat from the Lutheran churches, right? So for the Lutherans, it's about the fallen nature of humans. There's original sin, how there's no saving ourselves. And so I should be reading this book, and I have been reading this book as I've been preparing all these sermons over this time, to see in this book an invitation to unlearn that part of my Lutheran background. Not that it was bad, but to be open to a new way of understanding what God is up to, at least in this book. And just as I... Quick background. I know some of you know this.

[12:09] The Lutherans and Martin Luther, they had their own battles, right? And for them to find the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that was the doctrine, in Romans and Galatians and a good number of other places in the Bible, that was incredibly important for them because it allowed them to separate themselves from the Roman Catholic Church. And that was super important for all sorts of ecclesiastical reasons and ways of even governing their own countries. And it was actually about life itself. And so for them, that was the battle. That was the battle. We're justified not by works. We're not justified by buying indulgences. We're not justified by all these things that you might do, these external things. We're justified solely by faith in Jesus Christ, and his work is sufficient. And that in itself is the gospel. That's the good word. We don't lose sight of that. But where does it actually belong in context in Romans? And the answer to that... is that that's not the main theme of Romans. It's more like Paul understands that as a given, that he maybe even assumes that the people in Rome know that, not all of them, but a fair number of them, that this was the teaching of Christianity, that you're not saved by faith.

[13:23] And but Paul has to say it so that he can help the Jewish believers let go of that part of their upbringing so that that eases their way into a community with Jesus. And that would be the teaching of the Gentiles, because a Jewish person will have grown up with the teaching that, yes, people are fallen. Yes, there's sin. Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. All the covenants have been broken on the human side. And the answer, though, is in the covenant at Sinai. The answer is in the law and in the keeping of the law. And that's what will make us acceptable in God's sight. And so you keep the law and you memorize the law. And you memorize a lot of laws, hundreds and hundreds of laws. And there's dietary laws, and there's all sorts of other laws about what you can touch and what you can't touch. And as Wendy said last week, I watched her sermon. I thought it was excellent. She said, you know, the meals, it was impossible to have table fellowship, you know, Gentiles and Jews together, because they wouldn't eat the same foods, they wouldn't eat in the same way. And so Paul was telling the Jews, in Jesus, all the covenants of God are now fulfilled, and he has set aside the requirements of the law. They still are binding on you because they still tell you that you're a sinner.

[14:41] That's what Paul says in Romans. But keeping the law will not save you, and indeed it is impossible for you on your own power to keep the law. And so this, he's hoping, this teaching about justification, by faith and by the faithfulness of Jesus, is something that will help Jews to unlearn this old part, this old tape. You know you have old tapes? Who has old tapes in their house? You probably have, hopefully you've thrown them away. But you can erase part of your tape. It kind of feels weird to do. You can erase old tapes and put new recordings on them. You can do that on your computer and your iPod and all, you can do that. We do that now without even thinking about it. Things are erased all the time. But in actuality they exist forever now in the cloud. So be careful what you put on Twitter because it's there forever. You know, it's just there forever. Like I say, Twitter is like this marvelous invention that allows people to get fired quickly from their job. This is basically, it seems to be its only function is to help people get fired. And maybe they really want to get, maybe they want a new job. And they're like, I'm going to say something dumb on Twitter. And the next day they're fired. And they're like, oh that was good.

[15:54] That was so much easier that way. It's like, I don't even have to tell my boss I'm quitting. It's just, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But so you can re you can erase an old tape and you can put a new recording on it. And our lives are a bit like that. And I think that's the invitation from Paul to the Jew. Now he has another invitation to the Gentiles, but the invitation from Paul to the Jews is erase that part of the tape. And that's not easy because you grew up with it. This is your identity. Erase that part of the tape. Your righteousness. Your righteousness does not depend on your keeping of the law. Because the more you think that that's true, the more impossible it will be to join with the Gentiles in your same city, in the same church, and form a beloved community with them. Because that's what Paul cares about. This community of Jews and Gentiles in the church in Rome. And holding on to the thinking that you can earn your own salvation by working for it. Is going to get in the way of community. Right? So now we're putting things into perspective. But for us, it does still mean that that teaching about justification by faith is true and valuable. And it was important for the Lutherans to learn that and understand it and to differentiate themselves from the Catholics.

[17:14] And it led to the Protestant Church. And for all of its flaws and all of its splinters all throughout time, it's still a word of good news to us. That you can. You cannot earn your salvation. I'm going to just tell you. I'm going to look at each person in the eye right now. You cannot earn your own salvation. And that sounds like bad news, but it's incredibly good news. Because Jesus has earned it for you. You are forgiven and free and new. And you have a fresh start every day with Jesus. You do not have to earn it. You do not have to keep track of all your sins. You can confess them and they are gone and God forgets them. And Jesus. Pays the price for them at the cross and you are free. This is the good news. A corrupt or corrosive church would keep track of all of that stuff for you and remind you of it all the time and use it to get you to do things or give them money. But that has to end. You know, that had to end in history. That had to end.

[18:15] And now we have this understanding. But that wasn't the main theme of before. If we're reviewing Romans, that's not the main theme of Romans. The main theme of Romans. Is. Is this community that Paul wants to see happen in Rome. And the question of how you're justified is the way of getting to that community.

[18:35] So I'm not going to go through every other thing because as I said, he had to remind the Jews of that and of the Gentiles. He had to say a few other things to them. Said, you know what? You're not first. Just because you understand this better than the Jews and they're still trying to catch up. You're not first. You're grafted in. If they if they get it, they can be grafted back into the place where they were cut off. They can supplant you in a sense. Now, there's there's room in the tree for everybody. And that's kind of the point. But he's saying, don't be too proud of yourselves because you got this. It's harder for them to get this because they have to erase their tape and put a new recording on it. That's hard to do. So don't be too proud. Don't be too haughty, he says to the Gentiles. So here's some of the things that Paul says all throughout this letter. I'm going to start. Summarizing now, because otherwise we'll be here, you know, for, you know, I could summarize Romans and it would take the same amount of time just to read Romans. This is such a big book. OK, but here are here's the Cliff Notes, right? If you like Cliff Notes, here are some things that Paul says all of these geared towards this will make your community better.

[19:41] So he says to them, don't be too proud because you're Jewish. You may have the patriarchs and all the rest, but that doesn't matter. Jesus is what matters. Don't be too proud of yourself because you're a Gentile. You were grafted in second. You were grafted in. Somebody else who was really original could take your place. Don't be too proud because everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Do you know that verse? It's in Romans. All have sinned, fall short of the glory of God. You are all on the same level and it's pretty low. It's like at the basement. You are none of you are up here because you're all down here. Don't be too proud because you cannot work your way out of the basement, out of condemnation. Only Jesus. Can save you. It levels everything. If only Jesus saves you, not your effort, not your background, not your race, not your language, not the food you eat. If none of those things save you, but only Jesus saves you, then you're all you're all equal. And if you're all equal, you can form a community of mutuality and love for one another. And nobody can lord anything over anybody else.

[20:46] Don't judge each other. Don't judge each other. I mean, could I say that like a hundred times? Don't judge each other. Don't judge each other. I'm not. Sounds judging, though. I mean, but this is what Paul says. Don't judge each other. Community doesn't work that way. God will judge. He's got it. He's got it. He'll figure it out, you know. And may the Lord. You know, I was talking with George. We were talking the other day and.

[21:10] There's some. It's scant right now, but there's some comfort that the dictators who have started wars just to preserve their own power. And have seen millions of people killed all throughout history. And it's happening now. Those people will stand before God someday. And we may get to witness it. We may not. I don't know how it's going to work, but they're going to stand before God. And God is going to say, this is the record.

[21:39] Of what you have done. And now you will be judged. And that's a bit comforting and it's a bit terrifying. And that will not happen to you if you believe in Jesus Christ, because the record will be gone. But if but but God will judge this world. We do not judge each other, but God will judge this world. And if there's no justice now, there will be justice in the future. It's sobering. It's heartbreaking. But at least it's somewhat comforting. Is anyone comforted by that? OK, thank you. I'm not alone.

[22:12] And and to be comforted by it, but not triumphant about it, because we we should not also we should not judge, but also our. Common sense should tell us we should speak up against injustice. And so there's there's there's always a little bit more complexity to things. But but for the sake of community, don't judge each other. God will judge. And now and just in recent chapters, what what we've preached on and Wendy preached on some practical advice on how community works. Some of you are further along in the faith. He's talking to the Gentiles and the Jews or people who know more about the faith than others. Be patient with those people who aren't as far along as you also set aside your freedoms as you understand them in God's grace, your freedom to eat certain foods, because another person who's not as far along as you may stumble because they don't think that food should be eaten. Right. One might be able to say, set aside your privilege because the person who is not as far along may lose their faith because of how you exercise your freedoms. What if we put it this way? What's more important? You getting to exercise your freedom, which is important or the eternal soul of a sister or brother in your community?

[23:31] Well, when you put it that way, isn't this one heavier? If you had a scale, the eternal soul of your brother or sister not falling away because you are giving up some of your freedoms. Right. So those are some of the practical guidelines from Paul for what community how community can work well.

[23:51] But. But one, you know, one big takeaway for us is this. And maybe you've noticed it. Being in community is hard. Have you noticed? Or do you all have like perfectly harmonious families and perfectly harmonious relationships with your neighbors? You know.

[24:11] You know, all it's a Dostoevsky that said all happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in their own unique way. You know. I think that's brothers Karamazov. I'm probably wrong. Somebody can look it up. I'm sorry. But it really is. It's like community is hard. It's hard to be in Christian community. Even when we have all these beautiful guidelines for how we're to treat each other, we end up kind of goofing it up.

[24:38] So it's hard not to be proud. It's hard not to judge. It's hard not to earn want to earn things for ourselves and thus feel like we are better than other people. That's the that's the temptation of the earning it for yourself. Because if you think you've earned something. For yourself, then you can compare yourself to somebody who hasn't earned as much. It happens in the financial world all the time. Why wouldn't it happen in this sort of meritocracy of accumulating righteousness by my works? I would always if I if I thought that that earned me something, I would definitely be comparing myself to other people all the time. But that doesn't work in community. Community doesn't thrive in that kind of environment. Right.

[25:19] Churches have a hard time with community. And. And I like to think. A little bit of the serenity prayer. And if you don't know the serenity prayer, it's a very simple prayer. It goes like this. It says, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things that I can. And finally, the wisdom to know the difference between what I can and what I cannot control. Right.

[25:43] And I think what's challenging for Paul, and I think that's why his passion comes through in Romans so much is that he can't control these people. Do you get. That. I mean, there's this is like he's like, please, please be good to each other. You know, I implore you to get that word quite often. I implore you. I really want you to get this. I really want this community in the church in Rome to work. And I'm going to give you a zillion reasons why it it should work. And I'm going to give you a zillion ways that you can make it work. But in the end, Paul had to say, I, I can influence them. I can write them letters. I may show up at some point and be with them and and and maybe a little rub off on them. But in the end, it's up to them. I have to let go of that outcome, you know, and they have to either make a good community or not. And I've done my part. You know, I've done my he could say I've done my part. So all he could do is write and visit and encourage. But he can't make them get along. He can't make them into a beloved community. If you have children. If you have more than one child and they're fighting with each other and you were ever to say you must now get along.

[26:59] That's just like a failure. It just doesn't work. You can't tell your kids to get along. This they do their own thing. You know, you can't make anyone else in this world get along with anyone else. We can't control each other. And here's the thing. We can't control ourselves most of the time or some of the time. Or maybe even a little bit of the time. Can we really control ourselves? We can sometimes. Right. I really think, though, that if we left ourselves, we we won't really make community work. I'm talking about about us now. So that's the final theme of Romans. This is how we're going to end. And this is definitely for us is that we don't have the power to not sin and we don't have the power to build beloved community. But there is one who does. And Paul touches on this over and over. So sprinkled in between.

[27:51] And permeating all of Romans between salvation by faith alone and the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and this desire to build a beloved community between Jews and Gentiles and the church in Rome. Is the mention of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit shows up everywhere in Romans. And for a reason. Because we can't do it. We can't learn it. We can't have faith without the spirit. We can't do the right things without the spirit. It all fits together. So the spirit is almost like this. This membrane or matrix that undergirds the whole letter. This is this is all only possible. If the spirit's at work in you. And I think that's one of the challenges of the Protestant church. Is that it doesn't know what to do with the spirit. But Paul sure does. Paul says the spirit has to lead you. It has to guide you. It has to enable you to believe. It has to enable you to make community possible. It's this power that directs us into that community. So we can't build beloved. Community even here at Foothill.

[28:54] Unless the spirit leads us and guides us. And we're open to the spirit's promptings to do what the spirit does. And to operate in the spirit's power. So it's also good news. Is that this very tough task of building community. And it's tough because we're human. Is possible.

[29:14] If we let the spirit do it through us. That's also the message of Romans. So. I'm glad we went through this book. Like I said we try not to avoid. Things that are too difficult to understand. Or too controversial. Or too hard to understand. Or too large and complex. And so.

[29:33] Next week we'll probably lighten the load a bit. And we're going to preach about butterflies and puppies. It's going to be great. I'm kidding. I don't know what Victoria is preaching next week. It's up to her what she preaches on. But we're done with Romans. So you can go woo.

[29:46] But it's good stuff. It's powerful stuff. It has a lot to say to us. Right? And. I'm going to just say. I'm going to sum it up this way. And this is. If you want to. You don't write it down. But just take this last one in. And I'm going to say it twice. If you want to sum up Romans. In a sentence. It goes like this.

[30:11] Because we are fallen sinners. And we cannot be justified by our keeping of the law. But by faith in Jesus. We have the freedom to enter into beloved. Community. With people who are not like us. And we do it by the spirit's power.

[30:27] That sums it up. There's more. But that's. That's the highlights. And I'm going to just read it again. Because this is going to be the end of it. Because we are fallen sinners. And we cannot be justified by our keeping of the law. But instead by faith in Jesus. We have the freedom. To enter into beloved community. With people who are not like us. And we do it by the spirit's power. Let's pray.

[30:56] Father thank you again. For this word. Father help us to live in your spirit's power. To build beloved community here. And in our neighborhood. And in our city and beyond. As the spirit leads us. Amen.