Romans 9:1-5 Messiah Praised Forever!

Romans 9:1-5  I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.  For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel.  Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.  Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised!  Amen.

In today’s verses, Paul turns from describing our great position of security in Christ where nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39) to expressing his deep concern for his own people, the Jews, God’s chosen ones.  The depths of Paul’s love for them seemingly have no limits to the point he says he would see himself accursed for their sake.  He goes on to explain the heritage of the house of Israel, giving a brief history of their relationship with God.  He wants people to realize the Jews have been in the constant line of God’s blessing.  They have received the divine glory.  God made covenants with them and gave them the law.  They are the ones who have gone to the temple to worship God and believed in his promises.  All of the patriarchs of old were blessed by God as well as the prophets who looked for the coming Messiah, who is God over all.  Now Paul’s heart breaks for them, for they, who should be first in the family of believers, are outside of the sheepfold, believing Christ is not their long awaited King.  They have rejected God’s gift and his plan for salvation, just as they failed to enter the Promised Land so long ago through hearts of unbelief.  When the writer of Hebrews discusses the need to fully embrace Christ, he describes the children of Israel and says, So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.  (Hebrews 3:19)  Now, Paul see that this same lack of faith is keeping most of the Jewish people from entering the rest of God sent to them through his Son, Jesus.  He is the One who looked upon his beloved people and said, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.  (Matthew 11:28-30)  Such love and compassion poured out to a hurting people, yet they did not turn wholeheartedly to him, did not enter into his rest.

The nation of Israel was not looking for a Savior who would provide peace and rest.  The discussion in Hebrews of the Jews’ failure to enter the Promised Land goes on to tell the people not to harden their hearts but to listen to God’s voice: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.  (Hebrews 4:7)  With the coming of Christ, the same thing was happening.  People were not receiving what God had provided.  They wanted a king who would deliver them from bondage to the Romans.  They desired a strong leader who would take control of their lives and improve their situation.  When Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the people, they went looking for him on the other side of the lake.  He told them, Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.  Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.  (John 6:26-27)  He goes on to tell then that God wants them to believe in him, but Jesus knew they were not willing to take up the cross and follow him.  They were looking for earthly satisfaction—to have their fleshly needs met.  They did not recognize the Messiah because He did not fulfill their preconceived ideas.  He was not the warrior deliverer they expected.  He was the Son of God who opened the scroll in the temple and read, He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.  (Luke 4:18-19)  Jesus was always about doing the Father’s business.  He said, Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.  (John 14:9)  He came in the name of the Father to do the Father’s will, but the people did not understand or accept him.  Only those who called upon his name and received him found the freedom that He offered.  He did not come to war against the Romans, but He came to defeat sin and death.  After Christ’s resurrection from the grave, every believer can declare, Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?  (1 Corinthians 15:55)  This is where Christ fought his battle; this is where He won the victory over our enemies.  Jesus paid no heed to Rome except to say, pay Caesar his due at tax time.  He told the people, Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  (Matthew 10:28)  Jesus died to save souls from hell, to rescue the perishing.  This is our message, our anthem, our praise forever.

Paul was able to preface his declaration of love for his people with this phrase: I speak the truth in Christ.  He probably felt compelled to profess the honesty of his thoughts because his profession of love for his brethren was so strong.  How many of us could say that we willingly would be cursed and cut off from the family of God so that someone else could be saved?  This might be easier said than done: an eternity in hell to save another?  Yet Paul says, I am not lying.  Set aside giving your life for another, and just think about loving others for a moment.  What is it to really love one another?  Last week we used the scripture where Jesus said that people would know we are his disciples by our love for each other.  Is our love so obvious, so apparent, that people recognize us as Christians?  John wrote, We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other.  Then he goes on to say, This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  (1 John 3:14 & 16)  John is speaking of a total commitment, a total giving of ourselves to the wellbeing of others.  Is this a thought that is constantly before us or a desire we ask God to place in our hearts?  When we were raising our five children, we told them that the guideline for our family was to treat each other as we wanted to be treated.  This was a statement that we could have prefaced with Paul’s statement.  We could have said: I speak the truth in Christ that I want to treat my brother or sister as I want to be treated.  This statement covered just about everything that came up in our family.  God worked on our hearts as we considered each other’s needs.  We desired to treat our children as we wanted to be treated.  We tried to do to them what we hoped they would do to us and to others.  We might say, “I am sorry you felt so angry, but is that how you want to be treated?  How could you have done that differently?  Why don’t you think about what happened and pray about it.  The Lord will help you do better next time.”  Of course there was more than that involved.  Grace centered parenting takes time and effort.  But Jesus is the center and his Word is our guide.  We have seen a harvest of the fruit of the Spirit in our children’s lives and now in our grandchildren.  Jesus is our peace, and entering into his rest provides what we need in every situation.  When we come to him by faith, He is our Promised Land, our resting place, all we will ever need.  We leave you with these powerful words: There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.  Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.  (Hebrews 4:9-11)  As the Jews had a great inheritance and history before Christ, so do all who claim Jesus as Savior and Lord.  We trace our lineage from him when He gave his life for us at the cross.  He made us part of his family.  May we all enter in today.  

Romans 8:31-39 We Are More Than Conquerors!

Romans 8:31-39  What, then, shall we say in response to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Who then is the one who condemns?  No one.  Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Where and how does the love of God come to us?  In and through Christ Jesus remains the answer.  God approaches us through the merciful hands of the resurrected Jesus who reaches out to us.  A sinless, perfect God is approachable through Jesus Christ his Son.  We know no sinful man can look upon God, for He is too terrifyingly holy, perfect, exact, without sin or shadow of imperfection.  He is God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.  (1 Timothy 6:15-16)  We who are alive IN JESUS CHRIST have a nearness to God because of Jesus’ work at the cross.  Jesus the  precious, perfect lamb of God died on the cross for a destined place in the heart of God.  The perfect lamb without blemish was set upon the altar to be slaughtered in our place.  We who are imperfect, blemished forever by sin, were spared death by the sacrifice of the Perfect One.  The disciples gave their lives because of this reality of life in the spirit: the gift of God IS ETERNAL LIFE.  They knew the Lamb’s perfectness was forever their perfection, and that for eternity, they would hold a royal place in God’s intimate family.  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?   Because of Jesus we become co-heirs with him in the family of God.  We are hidden in his sacrifice, in his goodness.  We take on the characteristics of the Perfect One.  We have been predestined to be like the Lord.  No human being, even though made in God’s image, can enter into the presence of God without holiness.  Eternity will not tolerate sin that leads to disorder, chaos, and death.  God is none of those conditions, for He is organized, exact, and pure.  All of eternity falls under his will of perfection.  Humans are wobblers: good and bad, right and wrong; every inconsistency exists in us.  Because of our need and his great love for us, God gave us his Son who is perfect, righteous, and abides forever.  In Malachi, the people questioned whether God loved them.  This doubt did not please God.  “I have loved you,” says the Lord.  (Malachi 1:2)  Then He goes on to remind them of his love.  This message of love is exactly what John 3:16 says: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  God made us in his image, loves us with an eternal love, and allows nothing to separate us from this love.  Even our sins cannot separate us from the enduring love God has for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Of course, no one can separate us from God’s magnificent, eternal affection towards his creation.  Christians sometimes too easily say, I love the sinner, but not his sin.  We must be careful with that saying, for it can be very judgmental.  We might be saying, when he or she comes around to our idea of how to live an upright life, then I will unreservedly love him or her.  This limits God’s love.  He loved his creation so much that He gave his Son while we were all outside of his perfection, still in sin.  His love is unconditional.  Are we unconditional in our love?  A question we need to answer; for if not, we might have the wrong appraisal of ourselves.  We might not comprehend how we actually look through God’s lens of holiness.  Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  (1 Peter 4:8)  

The knowledge of God’s great love for us should change our lives.  If God is for us, who can be against us?  Nothing should interfere with our Christian lives because we know that God is with us in power and authority.  Our testimony should be bold, without retraction, without fear.  As Paul understood through his life of difficulty that God’s love for him was so secure that he could face anything.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  He lived knowing that he was more than a conqueror through the God who loved him.  Do we live the same life of fearless dedication to God, or are we more likely to hide our testimony when we feel insecure in who we are IN CHRIST, or who we are IN GOD’S LOVE?  Paul was confronted by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus.  At that time, Paul had been given the authority and commission to track down Christians in foreign cities such as Damascus.  He took these Christians as prisoners back to Jerusalem to be imprisoned, tortured, and even killed unless they cursed Jesus.  Paul’s commission to attack the church was changed by a bright light.  There on the road, he met Jesus.  In his testimony before King Agrippa he said, I obeyed that vision from heaven.  I preached first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that all must repent of their sins and turn to God—and prove they have changed by the good things they do.  (Acts 26:19-20, NLT)  His calling changed in a moment of time from tracking down Christians to do them harm to preaching the Good News: all must repent of their sins and turn to God and do good.  How do we turn to God?  By accepting his Son’s sacrifice for our lives.  We accept his life by surrendering ours!  But notice that in his testimony, Paul also talks about what our lives should be like if we really turn to God.  He says that we should be doing good.  Doing good proves that we have been changed, that we have been made new creatures.  So let’s not get tired of doing what is good.  At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.  Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.  (Galatians 6:9-10, NLT)  Our lives should reflect Jesus’ life.  He was baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit.  After his baptism in the Spirit, He went around doing good, delivering people from the oppression of sin.  We who know the love of God, who bask in this love, should be fearless in doing God’s will.  Our testimony should be one of praying for people and of helping people through the struggles of life.  God has given us his enduring love.  We should give this same love to others.  We are to love our neighbors, our enemies, and sinners as ourselves.  If nothing can separate us from God’s love, then nothing in this world should separate us from loving others with God’s love. 

We have been given great presents from God to give to others.  These wonderful gifts are not from our storehouse of grace and mercy, but from the eternal storehouse of God’s heart.  The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.  (Galatians 5:22-23)  When we turn to Jesus, when we discover the grace and mercy of God through the sacrifice of his Son on the cross, we discover the love of God in reality.  The Holy Spirit produces his gift of life in our hearts.  His gifts, the elements of the fruit of the Spirit that God harvests from our lives, are presents that we can unwrap and give to the world.  Paul says that we should prove ourselves as Christians by giving the above fruit to the world.  Every day, we should strive to reveal this fruit.  If we display the opposite of these characteristics to the world, we are dishonoring the work on the cross.  We are giving defiled gifts to the world, not the holiness that God wants the world to know.  We are his ambassadors.  We are to express his likeness, not the world’s likeness.  We are to give mercy and grace when people do not deserve such actions.  Jesus said, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.  (John 13:35)  Paul obeyed the vision of Christ on the road to Damascus and became God’s instrument of love.  Notice in his account, that Jesus came to him at noontime when the sun was the brightest, but Paul and the others saw a light brighter than the brightness of the sun.  This brightness that Paul saw should be in us, a supernatural brightness.  Jesus talks about this brightness in his sermon on the mountain.  If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.  (Matthew 5: 41)   When Jesus asked the Jews to go an extra mile with a Roman soldier who demands them to carry his pack, the brightness of God was being revealed.  When Jesus asks us to love our enemies, the brightness of God is being revealed.  When God asks you to display the attributes of the Holy Spirit, the brightness of God is being revealed in your life.  Yes, God loves us with an eternal love.  Nothing can separate us from that implacable love, but God asks us to love others in the same way as He loves us.  That kind of love can come only from a new creature, a new creation, made by God through the work of his Son on the cross.  We encourage you to remember what Paul wrote so eloquently in today’s scripture reading,  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8:22-26 A God of Hope!

Romans 8:22-26  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved.  But hope that is seen is no hope at all.  Who hopes for what they already have?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.  In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 

New parents often feel the challenge of trying to visualize the first baby that will be born into their family.  The prospective mother feels the life within her, but she cannot know much about the baby other than feeling it move and knowing it has a heartbeat.  She is a carrier of life, but her imagination has not fully comprehended this new person.  The mother holds life in her womb but lacks complete understanding of what that new life will be like or how the birth will change her world.  Likewise, we who are alive IN CHRIST do not fully fathom what the life that is developing within us will be like when manifested before all creation.  As the woman experiences pain during the birthing of a child, so does creation experience pain under the curse God has placed upon it.  As God said after the fall, I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.  (Genesis 3:16)  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Because of the curse, we too are experiencing the pain and suffering that has been placed upon all creation.  Violence, chaos, and all manner of troubles characterize the womb.  Paul tells us that not only is  the womb itself suffering, but we too, hidden deeply in the womb, surrounded by the protective amniotic fluid of the Holy Spirit, experience some of the hardships of this world.  However, no matter what the shocks and bumps we feel from the outside world, the power of the Holy Spirit maintains the life within the new creature inside of this creation.  We who are alive IN CHRIST have the protection of God surrounding our lives.  When Paul met Christ on the road to Damascus, the light that confronted him surrounded him, and he went forth a changed person.  We too who are IN CHRIST have that light surrounding us: front and back, side to side.  We are securely covered by the blood of Christ.  As Paul will write a little later in this chapter, For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 8:38-39)  Despite this powerful security, we remain in this finite, comfortless world, a lethal environment for the new creation if not for the protection of the Holy Spirit.  Without the Holy Spirit, we would die in this contaminating habitation.  We groan to be delivered from this temporary existence, for we know this present world is not our final home, a place of peace and harmony.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.  We wait with great hope, great anticipation of the day when we will fully be manifested as God’s sons and daughters, when the angels will rejoice at the beauty of the newly created.  We who have been developed in the glory of God will shine as stars.  As John said, Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  (1 John 3:2) 

All of our hope in Christ is garnered by faith.  We have a hope that will not fade away.  This expectation has not been realized at this time.  If so, it would not be hope.   But hope that is seen is no hope at all.  Who believes for what they already have?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.  In this world of suffering, we are aliens, just passing through.  We have a belief in a Promised Land.  God gave us this hope when we turned to him in faith.  Our faith resides in our breast.  We pray, read the Bible, and fellowship with each other to keep this hope alive.  As part of the body of Christ we pray for each other and build one another up in the faith, just as we pray for you today as Paul prayed for the Romans.  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  (Romans 15:13)  Nonetheless, sometimes we falter because of the trials and temptations of this wilderness.  We get discouraged—we wonder why we have to endure so much.  But through all the issues of life, the Spirit of God IS with his new creations.  He alone truly knows our situation; he knows how we were made; he knows our genetics; he knows how we were raised.  He guides us through this wilderness of life; strengthening us with food and water, often giving us a place to rest, an oasis from the winds of the desert.  We are never alone, abandoned.  We might not hear his voice because the cacophony of life fills our ears with useless noise, but He is always with us, and He is speaking words of peace and love.  He is our light during the night, our cloud during the day.  He is our hope of making it through the wilderness as we rest in his power and authority in our lives.  As today’s verses tell us, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.  We pray thoughts that we cannot even utter, for we do not know the direction through this life, He expresses the truth for us in wordless groans.  He knows our travails, our pains, our depression, our despair.  He knows when we are about to give it all up, saying it is too hard to hang on by faith.  He, who never abandons us, will beseech the Father Of All Things on our behalf with divine insight and wisdom.  As Moses interceded for the wayward Israelites in their rebellion, the Spirit of God always intercedes for us, no matter where we are in life or how difficult the journey.  He is also there with us in times of great victory and rejoicing to help us express our joy.  Peter describes the Spirit’s joy when he writes: Though you have not seen him you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of you faith, the salvation of your souls.  (1 Peter 1:8-9)  What an awesome thought to be so caught up in the joy of the Lord that we cannot express our emotions in words!  

Despite those glorious times of inexpressible and glorious joy, we all experience times when we feel everything in our lives is blowing up at once and obedience to God suddenly becomes difficult.  Under those circumstances, we might feel that we are alone in this desert of wind and heat, shriveling up under the adverse conditions.  How can this be God’s perfect plan for us?  How can what we are experiencing be God’s best for us?  Paul sermonizes often about obedience to God’s nature and his ways.  He instructs us to rejoice even in the most dire of circumstances.  How difficult that is, but we have the hope of a future much greater than what we are experiencing in this land of hopelessness.  Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 4:4-7)  The Lord is always near to us.  The Holy Spirit’s voice within us is a reality.  The Spirit of God’s direction in us is so important in living a victorious life; his avenue of life is where we should abide.  This avenue has many names: Servanthood, Dedication, Obedience, Commitment, Righteousness.  Along this avenue of life are addresses: temperance, moderation, kindness, gentleness, patience, long suffering, love, joy, peace, forbearance, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.  All of these addresses are written in blood, for Christ won the victory at the cross for their existence.  They are places where we stop as we journey down this avenue as the Holy Spirit leads us.  They are places of restoration, revival, healing; we pause a while for rejuvenation, restoration, instruction in how to act, think, spread the gospel.  Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice.  And the God of peace will be with you.  (Philippians 4:8-9)  As of now, we have not escaped the womb.  We still groan every day to be delivered.  We still wonder about the wilderness and how much of it we are yet to traverse.  Sometimes, we grow weary, but God says, “keep moving.”  Dear friends in your daily walk, listen to the Spirit of God within you.  You will have wonderful days of oasis habitations and you will have days when the sun beats heavily upon you.  But either way, you look toward your heavenly home.  You are like Abraham.  By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.  (Hebrews 11:9-10 KJV).  As we all await that wonderful day when we enter the City of God, may we place all our hope in our precious Lord!