BY GLENN PEASE
CONTENTS
1. THE CALL IS FOR ALL Based
on Rom. 1:1‑7
2. VOLUNTARY SLAVERY based on Rom. 1:1‑7
3. GOD'S HUMAN NATURE based on Rom. 1:1‑7
4. THE GOSPEL OF GOD'S PROMISE
Based on Rom. 1:1‑7
5. CALLED TO OBEDIENCE based on Rom. 1:1‑7
6. ESTABLISHED BY ENCOURAGEMENT
Based on Rom. 1:11‑13
7. THE DUTY OF BEING IN DEBT
Based on Rom. 1:14‑17
8. SHIPPING OUT SHAME Based on
Rom. 1:14‑17
9. AN ACT OF OBEDIENCE 2 Based
on Rom. 6:1‑10
10. WITNESS WITH WATER Based
on Rom. 6:3‑4
11. THE ONLY WAY OUT Based on
Rom. 7:18‑8:2
12. LIBERTY IN THE LORD Based
on Rom. 8:1‑2
13. THE INDWELLING SPIRIT Based
on Rom. 8:9‑13
14. BLESSED ASSURANCE Based on
Rom. 8:14‑18
15. ABSOLUTELY PERSUADED Based
on Rom. 8:28‑39
16. THE HARDEST CHAPTER IN THE BIBLE
Based on Rom. 9
17. ANTI ANTI‑SEMITISM
Based on Rom. 9:1f
18. JEWS AND CHRISTIANS Based
on Rom. 9:4‑5
19. GOD HAS NOT FAILED Based
on Rom. 9:6f
20. HOW TO KNOW GOD"S WILL
Based on Rom. 12:1‑2
21. THE CHRISTIAN MIND Based on Rom. 12:2
22. HOW HIGH CAN WE GO? Based
on Rom. 12:3
23. DOING YOUR OWN THING Based
on Rom. 12:3‑8
24. UNITY IN DIVERSITY Based on Rom. 12:4‑5
25. THE GIFT OF TEACHING Based
on Rom. 12:7‑8
26. THE GIFT OF EXHORTATION
Based on Rom. 12:8
27. CONTROL IS THE GOAL Based on Rom. 12:9‑21
28. THE REVERSAL OF REVENGE
Based on Rom. 12:19
29. CHRISTIANS IN CONFLICT
Based on Romans 14:1
30. STRONG AND WEAK CHRISTIANS
Based on Rom. 14:2‑3
31. A GOOD QUESTION Based on Rom. 14:4‑5
32. PHOEBE THE DEACONESS Based on Rom. 16:1‑16
1. THE CALL IS FOR ALL
Based on Rom. 1:1‑7
Dr.
Paul Brand was called by God to become an expert in treating the deformed hands
of lepers. This Christian doctor has
done more for restoring the hands of lepers then anyone in history. It all began in 1947 in a leprosy sanitarium
not far from Madras, India. He was
being shown around the hospital by Dr. Robert Cockrone the renowned skin
specialist. He noticed so many of the
patients had twisted, gnarled and ulcerated hands with some fingers
missing. He asked how they got that way
and what they were doing for them. The
answer was that they didn't know, and that nothing was being done.
Dr.
Cockrone explained that not one orthopedic surgeon in the world had yet studied
the deformities of the 15 million leprosy victims. Dr. Brand was applauded.
That was more people than had been deformed by polio or in auto
accidents world‑wide. Yet there
was not a single surgeon to serve this desperate need. He walked up to one of the patients and
pride his fingers open. He put his hand
in his own and asked the person to squeeze as hard as you can. He was shocked at the power, and had to ask
the patient to stop for he was hurting him.
He realized that the muscles in this deformed hand were still good, but
the patient could not feel the force.
At that instant he knew the Spirit of God had called him to find the
answer. With that hand shake his
vocation for life was determined. He
went on to become the leading surgeon in the world for lepers hands.
Dr.
Brand's call was as clear to him as was the call of Moses at the burning bush,
or the call of Paul on the road to Damascus.
Dramatic calls like this are very personal, and they may mean little to
others. Paul's call was doubted,
questioned, and fought by many. He had
to defend his call all his life. The
same was true for Moses. A call from
God does not mean that even godly people will recognize it as God's call.
One of
the greatest missionaries to China was the little British lady named Gladys
Aylward. She was converted at a
Salvation Army street meeting, and as a cleaning lady she got to reading the
books of her employer who had a large section of them on China. She felt God wanted her to go to China to
share the Gospel. When she applied to
the Mission Board they gave her an intellectual test she could not pass, and
they said no. She did not measure up
and could not go. She went anyway, and
she became so successful that years later a motion picture called "In Of
The Sixth Happiness," was made about her ministry. God's call is above man's approval.
We
could go on endlessly telling stories of calls like this, for there are
thousands of them. But because they are
amazing and dramatic they are the only calls that we hear about. The result is that the greater call of God
to all His people is obscured and terribly neglected. The very Greek word that Paul uses in verse 1 to describe himself
as called to be an Apostle is the word he uses 2 more times in his introduction
to the Romans to describe the call of all Christians. The word is kletos, and it is used in verse 6 of those called to
belong to Jesus, and in verse 7 for those called to be saints. Every Christian is called to belong to Jesus
and to be saints. This is a universal
calling and one that would be more history changing than any other calls of God
if God's people would heed the call. We
have so exalted the special call to the few that we have ignored the general
call to the many. This is so even
though the calling of God to all His people is the primary emphasis of the New
Testament.
This same
word kletos is used by Paul again in Rom. 8:28 where he writes, "And we
know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have
been called according to His purpose."
All Christians are just as called as Paul. He does the same thing in I Cor.
He uses the word called twice as often for all Christians as for
himself. We tend to think of Paul as
somewhat conceited because he is always telling people he is called to be an
Apostle. But Paul exalts all
Christians, even the poor ones of Corinth, to the level of the called. He begins I Cor. with, "Paul, called to
be an Apostle," but in the next verse he refers to the Corinthians as
those called to be holy. They are just
as called of God as he is.
We do
not have time to study all the related words that show that every child of God
is a called one. Let me just read the
last use of this word in the New Testament from Rev. 17:14. "...the Lamb will overcome them because
he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings‑and with him will be his called,
chosen and faithful followers." To
be a Christian is to be called. There
is no special class of Christians who are called and others who are not called. All Christians are called. They are not all called to be Apostles, or
pastors, or surgeons, but every Christian is called into the ministry. Any Christian not in the ministry is missing
their calling.
This
Greek word also means invited, and some translations have it as, "You are
the invited ones of Jesus Christ."
The Gospel carries with it the invitation or calling to follow Jesus and
be like Him. The goal of God is not
just to save people for eternity, but to produce Christ‑like people in
time. The call of Gospel is two
fold: Come unto me and be saved, and
then come with me and be sanctified. We
are called to be saved and then called to be saints. This calling may not be as dramatic as a burning bush, or a
blinding light and voice from heaven,
but the fact is, it is just as authentic. This universal calling means no Christian has to worry about his
or her gifts and abilities, for regardless of their abundance or scarcity every
Christian has a calling to be a saint.
Paul
makes it clear that anybody can be a saint.
In I Cor. 1:26‑29 he writes, "Brothers, think of what you
were when you were called. Not many of
you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of
noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;
God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and
the despised things‑and the things that are not‑to nullify the
things that are, so that no one may boast before Him." Paul is saying that if you are a dime a
dozen, no big deal, and a commonplace nobody, you qualify to be called t be a
saint.
The
problem is that the Christian world has so copied the secular world that we
have lost this biblical truth, and instead we have magnified the super‑gifted
and talented Christian to the level of stardom, and we assume that only these
special people are called to reach the world and accomplish God's purpose. This is why the will of God is not done on
earth as it is in heaven. You don't
have ten percent of the angels doing the will of God while the other ninety
percent watch them do it. All in heaven
do the will of God, and when all of God's people on earth will recognize they
are just as called as the super star Christians, then God's will will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
One
pastor asked another how many people in his church are willing people. He said that all of his people are
willing. Ten percent are willing to
work, and ninety percent are willing to let them. This is very common because Christians do not realize they are
called. Paul was a super star who was
called of God to write this letter to the Romans that has changed the course of
history. It has been the key influence
in the conversion of other major super stars like Augustine, Luther, Wesley,
and Bunyan. This is Paul's longest and
most influential letter. Luther called
it, "The true masterpiece of the New Testament." It has been called, "The Cathedral of
the Christian faith."
Ray
Stedman expresses the conviction of many when he says, "It is safe to say
that Romans is probably the most powerful human document every
written." Everyone agrees that to
know the book of Romans is to be theologically educated. Godet, the famous Swiss commentator, wrote,
"The reformation was certainly the work of the Epistle to the
Romans....and it is probable that every great spiritual renovation in the
church will always be linked, both in cause and in effect, to a deeper
knowledge of this book." Everyone
knows that Romans was not Paul's first letter, but it is the first one in the
New Testament because it is the most important.
All of
this just seems to support the idea that God's plan is to get his will done
through superstars. But we need to read the rest of the story. How did this
wondrous letter get to Rome? Paul did not take it there. It was carried by
someone , and that someone is one of histories most important mail delivery
persons. No plane; no train, no pony express rider ever carried a letter with a
greater impact on history than did the carrier of this letter to the Romans.
But this obscure servant is practically unknown to all of us. It was Paul's
faithful female friend by the name of Phoebe. She was an active member of the
nearby church in Chenchrea, and Paul asker her to help him out. She did by
carrying this letter from Corinth to Rome.
Renan
said that when Phoebe sailed away from Corinth she, "Carried beneath the
folds of her robe the whole future of Christian theology." Paul the superstar wrote it, but Phoebe the
mere helper got it to the people it was destined for, and thus to the rest of
the world. Phoebe is only mentioned
once in the whole New Testament, and Paul tells us her gift was that one
everybody chooses when they feel like they have none, and that is the gift of
helps. In Rom. 16:2 Paul writes of her,
"She has been a great help to many people, including me." Here is superstar Paul commending obscure
star Phoebe, for Paul has the mind of Christ, and he knew that Phoebe was just
as called as he was, and just as vital to getting the will of God done with
this letter as he was.
Paul
and Phoebe were a team, for Paul's gift of apostolic authority would have no
impact on Roman Christians without the gift of helps to get the message to
Rome. Billy Graham knows that his
impact on the world would be minimal without the help of masses of people
nobody will ever know. They are just as
called to ministry as he is. This is
true in every ministry, and in every church.
Every Christian who is a part of the ministry and the church is called.
Keep
in mind that Paul did not start the church at Rome. He had never been there.
The Christians who began this work are so obscure that nobody knows who
they were. They are even less visible
than Phoebe, but they are the ones who made it possible for Paul to write this
famous life‑changing letter. If
they had not started the church, there never would have been a body of
believers who needed this message of Paul like they did. These persons will never be known in time at
all. They get no recognition whatever
in the great plan of God for this letter, but they were just as called and a
vital part of the plan as was Paul.
Paul
would have loved the honor of having started this strategic church in the
capital of the Gentile world. But God
gave that honor to people we do not know.
Being called does not mean having special gifts, or getting special
notoriety or fame. The obscure and
unknown are just as called as those who get the limelight. Paul knew this and he was applauded that the
church at Corinth was setting up superstars for special honor, and the people
were saying, "I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, or I am of
Paul." Paul fought the superstar
mentality, for he knew the facts. God
calls all His children to be a part of His plan, and every one of them is just
as important as those who get the center stage. The behind the scenes helpers are just as called and just as
crucial for success.
In
verse 11 Paul may sound like a proud superstar when he writes, "I long to
see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you
strong." But he no sooner wrote
that, and then continued in the next verse to write, "That is, that you
and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith." Paul was saying that he needed their help as
much as they needed his. Paul was no
self‑sufficient superstar who had no time for the little guy in the
church. He needed the gifts of the
common Christian just as they needed his special gifts. In a truly biblical value system every
Christian counts because every Christian is called. There are no non‑called
Christians, and the sooner we all grasp this, the sooner we will realize that
all of us matter to the success of God's plan.
All of us can help fulfill the will of God. This is not for the few, but for the all.
Now the
question is, what in the world is a saint?
This is our calling as Christians.
This is the universal vocation of every child of God, and yet most saints
would be hard pressed to define exactly what it is they are. Many try to force the word into some canned
idea of what a saint should be, and it scares the daylights out of most of us,
and we figure we must not be saints.
You cannot define a saint by any system of theology, or any pattern of
religious behavior. Abraham married,
but Jesus never did. Paul spoke in
tongues, but Jesus never did. Peter
wrote inspired Scripture, but Jesus never did.
Barnabas helped start Gentile churches, but Jesus never did.
We could
go on and on revealing that the saints of the Bible did many things that Jesus
never did. Yet the essence of being a saint is being like Jesus. But this is
not helpful, for there are so many ways that no saint is like Jesus. We don't walk on water; we don't change
water into wine; and we don't weep over Jerusalem, or ride into it on a
donkey. We don't fellowship with
prostitutes and tax collectors, or take a whip to religious leaders who corrupt
the temple. We can go through the life
of Jesus and find so many ways we are not like Him. It makes you wonder what it means to be Christ‑like. If most of what Jesus did we can't do, and
many saints do what He never did, how can saintliness and Christ‑likeness
be the same? It is no wonder one
child's definition of a saint was, "A dead Christian." The dead you can wrap in legend and mystery,
and build and illusion, but how can living Christians who are so unlike Christ
be saints?
Alexander the great had his portrait painted with his face resting on
his hand as if in contemplation. The
true purpose was to hide the ugly scar that creased his cheek. The Bible does not so paint the saint. The great heroes of the Bible have their
scars in full view. The saints are not
portrayed as sin free at all, but they are seeing as sinful like all. Every saint in the Bible is also a sinner,
and not just in his or her pre‑saint days, but also in their sainthood
days. John tells us that if we say we
have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So a saint is one who knows he is a
sinner. The concept of a saint being a
holier than thou self‑righteous judge of all others is not biblical at
all. A biblical saint is one who is
fully conscious of his sinfulness, and so is one who is humble rather than
judgmental.
To
many Christians interpret humble to mean they are not important, and so they do
not get involved. They know they are
sinners and that they are not superstars, and so they conclude that they are
not called to an active role in the church.
They are of the people of God, but they see themselves as the little
people. It is as if God has different
categories like the Bantam Baptist, or the Midget Methodist, or the Puny
Presbyterians, or Liliputian Lutherans.
What they fail to see is that these so‑called mini saints are the
foundation for the success of God's plan.
The
church at Rome and every church in the New Testament was composed largely of
these mini‑saints who were unknown and not greatly gifted. Remove these
from the church and you have no church for the superstars to minister to, and
to minister through. The point is, every Christian in important to the
successful working of the church. All are called to be saints.
Paul
never even met these Roman Christians he is writing to, but he is sending them
the most important letter of his life, and it is because he knows that God's
purpose for history involves the average church member. They are all called,
and only when all realize they are called can the church be all it was called
to be. In Eph. 4:11‑12 Paul makes it clear that the whole purpose of
specially gifted people like Apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor‑teachers
is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Every Christian is in the
ministry, and it is the gifted people who are to help them do their job more
effectively. The gifted are God's gift to those less gifted. Gifted people are
to help all the other believers be able to rise to a higher level of
effectiveness.
It is
folly to feel that because you do not know the Bible well enough, or because
you do not know how to witness effectively, or because you have not learned how
to overcome certain temptations, that you are not qualified to be called a
saint. The Romans who received this letter did not know the Bible at all, and
in fact, they did not have any of the Bible but this letter. They were inferior
in many ways to the average believer today, but they were saints. All
Christians are saints and called to be better ones. You do not work your way up
to sainthood. You start the Christian life as a saint, and as one called of God
to live for His glory, and to do his will on earth as it is in heaven. When you
trust in Jesus as your Savior you are born a saint. Being saved and becoming a
saint are the same thing.
We are
all called to be saints, and that just means that we are called to be all we
can be for the kingdom of God. We are to be willing to expose ourselves to the
Word of God and be growing in the knowledge of God and His will. We are to be
more and more conformed to the likeness of Christ in the way we think and
behave. We are not expected to be superstars, but to just be who we are seeking
to use what we have in ability to serve the cause of cause of Christ. We are to
be growing and making ourselves available on any level to be of benefit to the
body of Christ. We do not have to be like anyone else at all, but we need to be
willing to become the more that we can become by the grace of God. The point
is, the calling of God is not just for the few, it is for all of us, for all
are called to be saints. That means all are called to be set apart from the
secular world to be a part of that group of people who are serving God and His
cause in the world in order to bring others into the kingdom of God by faith in
Jesus Christ. The call is for all.
2. VOLUNTARY SLAVERY based
on Rom. 1:1‑7
In the
early days of Israel if a man got into debt and could not repay he was not sent
to prison, but was allowed to become the slave of his creditor. But it was not
to be a permanent situation. When the 7th year came he would be liberated and
be free to be his own master again, and begin to rebuild his life. Some of
these free men would soon find that their chances of making it on their own was
near impossible. They had no future as a free man, and if they liked their
master and felt well treated by them they could go back to him and volunteer to
stay as his slave. The master would then take him to the tabernacle where the
priest would bore a hole in his ear lobe as a sign that he was the slave of his
master.
Here was
slavery that was not the result of war, or even debt, but a voluntary slavery
by choice because it was the best option available at the time. This might seem
crazy to give up your freedom to be a slave, but it is not a lot different that
what we have today. Unemployed people have the freedom to stay at home, watch
T. V. and go for walks and shop whenever they please, but this can only last
for so long. So they go around looking for a place where they can give up this
freedom and volunteer to be a slave for 8 hours a day for the sake of a
paycheck. We use different terms, but
the end result is not all that different. We just get a number today instead of
the hole in the ear. It is not all that bad to be a slave to some degree for
the sake of the benefits.
Paul was
happy to be a slave to his Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing he says
in this letter to identify himself is that he is a servant of Jesus Christ. The
word for servant is doulos, which is the word for slaves all through the New
Testament. It is one of the paradoxes of the Christian life that the way to the
top is to be a servant. There is no greater title than that of being a servant,
and that is why Paul even puts it before his office as an Apostle. He does it
again in his letter to the Philippians and his letter to Titus. The top of the
totem pole is not chief, captain, kings, or President, but servant or slave of
Jesus Christ.
Jesus
established this value system when he said in Matt. 20:26‑27,
"..whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and
whoever wants to be first must be your slave." Mark 10:43‑45 repeats it with this added slant,
"..whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and
whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not
come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for
many."
In the
Old Testament in Isa. 52:13 God calls the coming Messiah, "My
Servant." Jesus establishes the way by which Christian status will be
determined. It will not be by in heritance or by riches or by honor or by power
or by any of the methods that the world determines status. The Christian status
symbol is a towel that symbolizes the Head of the church wiping the feet of His
disciples. The Head serving the feet is the way Jesus wants us to see true
greatness. The more needs a Christian meets in others the greater the status of
that Christian. That is why Paul is proud to wear the title of slave of Jesus
Christ, for his greatest joy is to sever the Head of the church by serving the
church which is his body.
Paul
knew the teaching of his Lord that the servant is the greatest of all and that
the servant will be the one greatly rewarded in eternity. Jesus used this same
word for slave in Matt. 25:21 where he said, "Well done, good and faithful
servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of
many things. Come and share your master's happiness." If you want the best
that heaven can offer, do not seek to be a king or a noble, but strive to be a
servant, for these are the people most pleasing to the Master of all.
The
final use of this word doulos is in Rev. 22:6 where we read that God,
"..sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take
place." There is no higher honor than to be a servant of God, and this
will be an honor for all eternity. Three verses before this we see heaven
described as a place where "his servants will serve him." When you
become a Christian you are volunteering to become a slave forever. Once a slave
to Christ, always a slave to Christ. Voluntary slavery is what the Christian
life is all about.
Paul did
not hesitate to call himself a slave, for he was sending this letter to many
who were actually slaves. If you go to
the last chapter you read in 16:11, "Greet those in the household of
Narcissus." Before this in verse
10 he writes, "Greet those who belong to the household of
Aristobulus." Paul is referring to
slaves. Rome was filled with slaves,
and many of them became Christians.
These who were slaves by necessity became voluntary slaves of Christ.
Even if
one was not a literal slave when he became a Christian, he became a slave for
Paul says in I Cor. 6, "You are not your own, for you are bought with a
price." Like a slave purchased
from a market, so you have been bought out of slavery to sin by the precious
blood of Jesus to become His slave.
There is no escape from slavery, for everyone is the slave of some
master. But not all masters are alike. Some are so brutal, and it is miserable
bondage to be in their service. Others
are kind and benevolent, and it is a joy to serve them. One does so freely so that it is a choice of
voluntary slavery. Paul spells this out
clearly in Rom.7:20‑22. He
describes the Christian life as escape from slavery to the freedom of a new
slavery.
"When you were slaves
to sin, you were free from the control
of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from
the things you are now
ashamed of? Those things result in
death!
But now that you have been
set free from sin and have become
slaves to God, the benefits
you reap lead to holiness, and the
result is eternal
life."
Everyone is either a slave to sin and death, or a slave to holiness and
life. The choice is not, should I be a
slave or free, but whose slave shall I be, for all who are not slaves of God
are slaves of sin, self, and Satan. We
tend to think the slavery issue is long past, but the fact is, it is always
relevant and contemporary, for every person on the planet struggles with it continuously. We are ever in an age of slavery. People are slaves to every form of addition
on a grander scale than ever before. In
our great land of freedom we have people in bondage to alcohol, drugs, sex,
cigarettes, TV violence, and abuse of every kind. Until Satan is in the lake of fire slavery will be a major issue
of life.
The New
Testament answer to all forms of bondage is freedom in Christ. If the Son shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed. But the freedom in Christ is not a
form of total independence, for this will just lead to some other kind of
bondage. Freedom in Christ is a
liberating form of slavery which is voluntary slavery. It is a choice to be committed to Christ as
Lord of one's life. No man can serve
two masters Jesus said. But every man
has to serve one. Every man has to have
a master. The choice is of one that
destroys and diminishes the self, or one that enriches an exalts the self to
become what it was meant to be. The
Prodigal Son wound up as slave to pigs, but he chose to go back home and be a
voluntary slave of his father. He made
the wise choice, and that is a choice all of us must make.
There
is no third choice of being independent and free from all commitments to either
good or evil. There is no such ground to
stand on between good and evil. You
have to make a choice, and so in a very real sense every person is in some form
of voluntary slavery. If the Prodigal
would have stayed feeding the pigs, that too would be a form of voluntary
slavery. When the Gospel is heard one
can choose to follow a new master, and by the help of the Holy Spirit come out
of bondage to the old master. This is
the ministry of the body of Christ in the world. It is to help people be delivered from on form of slavery, and be
set free to choose another form of slavery so radically different that it is
called coming out of darkness into light.
The
whole book of Romans is about slavery.
Paul stresses that Jews and Gentiles alike are slaves to sin. The Jews are slaves to the law also, and the
Gentiles are slaves to their evil desires.
The result is that the world is full of judgment on the folly of man.
The only solution is the Gospel which is the power of God to liberate both Jews
and Gentiles. It is hard for us to think in these Biblical terms, but the fact
is, the battle with slavery is the crucial battle of life. Paul was a slave to
the law and self‑righteousness. He had to be set free from salvation by
works, and become a slave to Christ by faith.
The journey from slavery to slavery is the journey all must take if they
are to be used of God to change the world.
In the
13 volume set called 20 Centuries of Great Preaching, most of the names are
well known by those who have studied the history of preaching. But one name is
very unknown and obscure, for though he was a great preacher John Jasper was
born a slave in Virginia in 1812 as the 24 child in his family. At age 22 he
married a slave girl, but when his master found he had spent a night away from
his plantation he forced them to separate, and he never saw her again. He went
on a wild rampage of rebellion as he lived a sinful life.
Then at
age 27 he came under conviction and was radically converted to Christ and began
to preach. He was so eloquent and full of fire that he soon became the most
popular preacher around. Whites as well
as blacks would travel long distances to hear him. He was soon preaching to several thousand people every
Sunday. So many whites came to the
Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church of Richmond that they had to rope off a special
section for them. For forty years he
was a slave, but then the Civil War set him free, and he lived forty years more
as a free man. Here was a man who had
no training and was terribly ungrammatical, but he became so famous that his
sermons stand along side of the most brilliant preachers of the centuries. Was there ever a slave who set so many
people free?
Yes
there was, for all of the great preachers in that set of books from Paul to
Billy Graham were also slaves. They were not literal slaves like Jasper, but
they were real slaves before they were set free in Christ to be slaves of a new
master. All of this might seem like a
trivial play on words, but when you study the history of the word doulos or
slave you begin to realize just how serious a biblical issue this is. The word doulos was a nasty word until the
New Testament cleaned it up and glorified it.
The Greeks use the word often as a despised word. Plato and Aristotle used it in a derogatory
way. We still do today when we say who
was your slave last year, or I'm not your slave. Seneca said, "The foulest death is preferable to the fairest
slavery."
In the
Old Testament you have the concept of a noble slave developing, but the Hebrew
mind despised the slave just as much as did the Greek and Roman mind. A Jewish
proverb said, "A dog is more honorable than a slave." This kind of
thinking entered into the Christian world and many came to believe that slaves
were less than dogs, and that they were sub‑human. There was a time when
calling your neighbor a slave could lead to excommunication from the
church. It has been universally
despised to be a slave. The only place where the term and idea become on of
honor is in the New Testament.
Paul
describes his whole ministry as that of a slave. In I Cor. 9:19 we read,
"Though I m free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone,
to win as many as possible." Notice how Paul stresses it is a voluntary
slavery. He does not have to do this. He is not forced against his will, but he
chooses to be the slave of everyone. He goes on to say he become all things to
all men in order to win them to Christ. He is a slave to what others want him
to be in order to win them. He did not try to be anyone's master and win them
by authority, but he became their slaves to win them by service. If you can catch the spirit of Paul as a
slave, you will never judge him again as a proud or arrogant man trying to
impose his will on others. He was a humble servant of Christ and a slave to all
men.
It was
Paul's writing about literal slavery that led eventually to the abolishment of
slavery in the Western world. When Paul wrote to Philemon about his run away
slave Onesimus he said in Philemon 15 and 16, "Perhaps the reason he was
separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good‑no
longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear
to me but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the
Lord." These words were the nails
that finally put slavery in the coffin where it belonged. But it took centuries
for Christians to grasp the implications of Paul's words. If it was not for servants
of God fighting slavery we could still have millions today being treated like
animals rather than like persons made in the image of God.
Paul has
some powerful words in I Cor. 7:21‑23, "Were you a slave when you
were called? Don't let it trouble you‑although if you can gain your
freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the
Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is
Christ's slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men."
The whole point of Paul is that Christians are to be free from all forms of
slavery except slavery to Christ. Our job as slaves of Christ is to be rebels
against all other forms of slavery, and to help people escape from all other
forms of slavery.
The
exodus out of Egypt was the great deliverance of God's people out of slavery.
Salvation in the New Testament is also an exodus out of bondage to sin. Slavery
is the number one problem of man, and freedom is the number one goal. The only
adequate answer is a transfer of ownership. The slave to sin has to find a
master who will purchase him. That is what the Gospel is all about. Jesus is
the new Master who bought us with His blood. We are now free to come under his
ownership and be slaves to Him rather than slaves to sin and all of the masters
of the flesh. The Gospel revolves around the idea of voluntary slavery. We are
freed by faith in Christ to choose a new master, and like Paul, become slaves
to the Lord Jesus.
3. GOD'S HUMAN NATURE based on Rom. 1:1‑7
Superman has always been popular as a comic book character, and I can
remember racing across the snow in a blizzard to trade comic books with a
friend in order to get some new adventures of this heaven‑like hero of
humanity. In our day now the movies of superman have made millions because they
appeal to the universal human fantasy that man can be God‑like, and fly
on his own power, be invincible as he fights the forces of evil. We love to
have our super heroes. This is true in every culture.
Some of the
early Christians exalted Jesus to the level of a superman. It is understandable
why they did, but the majority of Christians got together and declared these
Christians heretics by making Jesus a superman. They were guilty of thinking
too highly of the deity of our Lord. This seems very strange to us, but the
world is full of strange things. There is a rare metal called gallium which
melts at 86 degrees, so that if you held it in your hand for awhile it would
begin to melt. That does not fit our image of a metal, but it is a fact. It
seems equally unlikely that anyone could think too highly of Christ's deity.
How could this be possible?
The
Christians who were called heretical were saying that Jesus was so divine than
he could never be truly human. They so exalted the deity of Christ that they
denied his humanity. They said he could not have been a real man for human
nature is evil, and a holy God could never take on a human nature. These people
were called Docetists from the Greek word meaning to seem. They said Jesus only
seemed to be human.
Their
theology has come down to us in the Acts of John which was written in the
second century. In it Jesus does come down from the cross and does not suffer
at all. That would be totally unworthy of the Son of God. The people saw him
suffer on the cross, but that was only an illusion. Jesus appears to John and
reveals to him that he is really not suffering at all. It is all a trick, and
it is like superman acting weak when he is not. This superman image of Jesus
became popular, and we have Gnostic documents from the third and fourth century
that tell us Jesus did not really die. It was all an illusion and Jesus was
really laughing as he watched them nailing him to the cross, for it was not
real. The church declared these writings heretical for they rejected the real
humanity of Jesus.
The New
Testament does not give us this superman concept at all. The Jesus of the New
Testament could not stop bullets, for he could not even stop whip on his back. It cut through his skin
and made him bleed, as did the crown of thorns on his head. The spear went
through his side and the nails through his hands. He had to endure the pain a
suffering of a fully human body.
The
battle raged for centuries between the two groups with one saying it was all
illusion and the other saying the pain was real in a real human body. Orthodox
Christianity said Jesus was not a fake man, but he was totally real as a man.
One heresy after another tried to deny the full humanity of Christ, but the
church stuck to the Scripture and said he was fully real in his humanity. The
battle goes on yet today, for many believe Jesus was fully God, but not fully
man. They say his humanity was only a disguise. Charles Colson in The Struggle
For Men's Hearts and Minds tells of a survey by Christianity Today in which
people were asked if they believed Jesus was fully God and fully man. Among the
general public only 26 percent said yes. Among evangelical Christians only 43
percent said yes. That means that the majority of believers are still rejecting
one of the major doctrines of orthodox Christianity. They do not realize that
they are heretical in their beliefs.
All of
this brings us again to the introductory paragraph of Paul's letter to the
Romans. In it he spells out the essence of the Gospel which centers in the two
characteristics of Jesus, which are his humanity and his deity. Like the two
ends of shoelaces, these two realities tie up the Gospel package. If you cut
one side off you lose it all. Paul says in v. 3 that the Gospel regards God's
Son as to his human nature and then in v.4 he says it regards God's Son as to
his divine nature. Only a man could come from the seed of David. The word used
here is spermatos. Jesus had a human nature that came from the very sperm of
David. He is called the son of David because he was a physical product of
David's body. But then in v. 4 Paul says Jesus was declared to be the Son of
God by his resurrection from the dead. Only one who was God could raise himself
from the dead.
So we
have here in these two verses the basis for the two main Christian holidays of
the year, which are Christmas and Easter. On Christmas we celebrate the
humanity of Jesus, for he was God come in the flesh. He was totally human and
had to grow in wisdom and knowledge and stature. On Easter we celebrate his
deity, for he did what no man can do, as he defeated death and rose from the
grave. The full Gospel is Christmas and
Easter, and that Jesus was fully man and fully God. He was the God‑Man.
If you take either one out of the church year you have destroyed it, and if you
take either of the natures of Jesus out of him you have destroyed the Gospel
and the Jesus of the New Testament.
It can
be hard to grasp how Jesus could be both God and man, but this is the clear
revelation of the New Testament. Paul could not have made it clearer than he
does in Rom. 9:5 where he writes of the Jews and says, "...from them is
traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever
praised." There are numerous examples of the dual nature of Jesus. God
does not sleep, but Jesus did. God does not get tempted, but Jesus did. God
does not pray, but Jesus did. God did not die, but Jesus did. The list could go
on and on because Jesus was fully man and experienced life as all humans do. He
was one with us and felt all of the human emotions.
A little girl said to her mother, "I just
love Marjorie more than anybody else." The mother asked why she loved her
more than her other friends and she replied, "Because when I cry she cries
with me." That was the kind of friend Jesus was. He wept with those who
wept. He could feel what they felt, and he still does have these human feelings
so that he can identify with all who call upon him. Paul says in I Tim. 2:5, "For there is one God and one
mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." His present and
eternal manhood is one of the major teachings of the book of Hebrews. If we did
not have a human Savior and mediator how could we have any confidence that he
can really understand where we are coming from in our weakness? He says in Heb.
4:15‑16, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to
sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every
way, just as we are‑yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of
grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us
in our time of need." Some poet has written‑
O glorious truth that my High Priest
Who bids me tell him all my need
Is sympathetic with my plight
For He's the Son of Man indeed!
If Jesus
is just a fake man and never really felt the power of temptation, and never
really felt the weakness of the flesh, and never felt the pain and limitations
of the body, then he could never really understand us. We could never identify
with his example, for it would be meaningless to have an example of one who was
God only, and had no limitations. He would be no more an example for us than
superman flying an explosive device into outer space where it can explode
harmlessly. This is no meaningful example for our behavior in dealing with the
forces of evil.
The only reason we can follow Jesus and go about doing good, loving people
where they are, and sharing the good news is because these are all things that
people can do. His deity would be no example at all, but his humanity is powerful example that we can follow. We
cannot walk on water or turn water into wine, but we can do those things he did
in his humanity, for we can love and serve and encourage. William L. Stidger
said it in poetry.
My Master was a man who knew
The rush of rain, the drip of due;
The Gentle kiss of midnight air
Upon his face upraised in prayer.
He was a man of lakes and stars;
He knew the Pleiades and Mars;
The silver of the Milky Way
The night, the light, the dawn, the day.
His skin was bronzed like that of one
Who traveled under wind and sun;
His feet were stained by dusty ways;
His cheeks were brown as autumn days.
All men and their need were in his thought.
This man, God‑bred, star‑led, shy‑taught.
It is so
important that Jesus had a complete human nature that it was to be an anti‑Christ
if one denied it. This sounds strange, for it means you can say that Jesus was
very God of God and yet still be anti‑Christ by a denial of his human
nature.
II John 7
says, "Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in
the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and
the anti‑Christ." We do not really have a choice in the matter. We
either acknowledge that Jesus entered into a complete human nature, or we cease
to be for the Christ of New Testament revelation.
The
Arian heresy said Jesus did not have a human soul. The Apollinarian heresy said
the human soul of Jesus was replaced by the Logos, of the divine spirit so that
Jesus was only a partial man. He was a brilliant theologian, and he forced the
church in the fourth century to struggle with the issue. In 381 A. D. at the
Council of Constantinople the church condemned the idea of Jesus being only a
partial man. If he was not totally man he could not be a substitute for man.
Just as animals could not be an adequate substitute for man, nor could an
angel, so it was not possible for a partial man to be so. Jesus had to be a
complete man with a human body, mind and soul. His human nature had to be just
as complete as his divine nature. He was one personality with two natures. He
was complete man and God joined in perfect unity.
Every
attempt in history to somehow modify the human nature of Jesus so that it was
not totally and completely human has been condemned as heresy. Every
conceivable bit of biblical data was weighed for centuries, and the end result
was that every hint that Jesus was somehow not a complete man was rejected as
anti‑Christian theology. This is
not an easy concept to grasp that one can be equally God and man, but as Robert
Capon writes, "The rule of theology is: when you've got two truths which
you can't hold in harmony, you don't solve the problem by letting one of them
go. You hold on tight and hold them both in paradox."
The only
way you can understand how Jesus could be God and still pray "not my will
but thine be done" is to recognize that Jesus had a human will. His human
nature had a will of its own, just like ours has, and he had to surrender that
will to the will of the Father, just as we do. This is a major truth and we see
Paul beginning this letter to the Romans by asserting this doctrine as the very
foundation of the Gospel. You do not have to know that Jesus preached the
Sermon On The Mount to be a Christian. You do not have to believe that Jesus
took a towel and washed his disciples feet. There are dozens of facts about
Jesus you do not even have to know to be a Christian, but you do have to
believe that he was fully God and fully man to be an authentic Christian.
This has
profound implications for the Christian view of man. Your view of human nature
will have an effect on all you are and all you believe as a Christian. Those
who have a low view of human nature have a hard time loving lost and sinful
people. A police officer was
complaining one day when it was dull and nothing was going wrong in society. He
was griping because their was not robberies or fights of murders, and not even
a stolen car. He said, "If this keeps up they will be reducing the force
and we will be out of a job." The chief responded, "Don't worry Pete.
Something will happen. I've got faith in human nature."
He was
right, and you can count on human nature to be doing something evil and illegal
very soon. Crime, war, greed, and folly of all kinds is never far away because
of fallen human nature. Jeremiah said that the heart of man is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Paul says in Rom. 8:7‑8, "The
sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do
so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God." The Bible
repeats this often, but Christians have applied this truth to life in a way
that is misleading. They say that since man is such a miserable sinner that
means he is worthless. This is not so, for God gave his Son and Jesus gave his
life because of a high view of the worth of man.
Man was
the crowing work of God in creation, and he said his work was, not just good,
but very good. Human nature was his best work for he made man in his image. Man
fell and filled the creation with great evil, but God never gave up on this
great work. He was determined that man would be restored to the goodness in
which he was made, and that he would spend eternity in that state with God.
God's view of man is to be the view that we have, and that is that sinful human
nature if worth a great price to save and restore to its state of goodness.
We do
not look at a rotten tomato and conclude that is what tomatoes are. They are
soft and slimy, black and moldy worthless fruit. That may be what a rotten
tomato is, but that is not the nature of tomatoes. The tomato as God made it is
a firm and brightly colored fruit with hundreds of delicious uses beneficial to
man. The rotten tomato is just as real
as the ideal tomato, but the ideal one is the one that is what a tomato is
meant to be. The rotten one is the product of decay and death. If you apply
this illustration to man, you need to see man for what he was meant to be, and
what God can make him to be, and not what he is when he is filled with decay
and death. Man fell and filled the
creation with great evil, but God never gave up on this great work. He was
determined that man would be restored to the goodness in which he was made, and
that he would spend eternity in that state with God. God's view of man is to be
the view that we have, and that is that sinful human nature if worth a great
price to save and restore to its state of goodness.
We do
not look at a rotten tomato and conclude that is what tomatoes are. They are
soft and slimy, black and moldy worthless fruit. That may be what a rotten
tomato is, but that is not the nature of tomatoes. The tomato as God made it is
a firm and brightly colored fruit with hundreds of delicious uses beneficial to
man. The rotten tomato is just as real
as the ideal tomato, but the ideal one is the one that is what a tomato is
meant to be. The rotten one is the product of decay and death. If you apply
this illustration to man, you need to see man for what he was meant to be, and
what God can make him to be, and not what he is when he is filled with decay
and death. You do not define anything
by its worst example, and so you should not define man that way either.
So when
we look at man and ask what is man?‑ we do not go to the drunk in the
gutter, or to the sophisticated scoundrel who rips off widows. They are men
alright, but they are poor specimens of the species. Even so they are worth
saving because of what man is. He is not just a drunk and a scoundrel, but he
is one made in the image of God. He can become a being that is so good that a
holy God can be pleased with him. Man is always far more than the sum total of
his sin and folly. He is a being who can become a child of God. You do not define man by looking only at the
first Adam. You need to look at the second Adam to get the real and true image
of man. Jesus is what man was meant to be, and he is what man will be again by
the grace of God.
You can
say all you want about the depravity of fallen man, and you will be right, for
it is all true, but the final word about man is not his fallen nature, but his
redeemed nature. Satan did his best to spoil the second Adam too, but he
failed, and the result is Jesus and his perfect human nature will be the final
word about man. We are not to define
man by the worst examples. We don't do
that with anything else. We don't
define a lake as a weed infested swamp unfit for human pleasure just because
such things do exist. A lake is a
beautiful body of water full of potential for human pleasure. We don't define milk as a soar, bacteria
infested liquid that can make you sick.
No matter how much of this there really is, that is not what milk
is. You define things by their best
example and not their worst, and so it is with human nature. What is it?
It is the greatest work of God known to us in this world. It is a channel of all that is good and God‑like
in this world, and the proof of it is the manhood of Jesus Christ. He is what man is.
You
cannot look at any other man and say this is the best God could do, and this is
what He made man to be. But you can
look at Jesus and say that, for He is man as God meant man to be. This changes the entire Christian
perspective on what it means to be human.
We can get so down on the depravity of man that we come to despise being
human, and this is folly. The more
human we become, the more Christ‑like we become. The goal of God is that all His children
become as human as His incarnate Son.
The point of redemption is not to take man out of his manhood and make
him angelic, or some other creature.
The point is to restore him to full and complete manhood. The destiny of the redeemed is to be as
fully human as Jesus.
R.
Lofton Hudson wrote a book called, Helping Each Other Be Human. The point of the book is that the purpose of
the Christian life is to be more human.
We call it being sanctified, or being Christ‑like. Paul says it is being called to be
saints. But all of this, in the light
of who Jesus was, means we are called to be as truly human as He was. Christians sometimes get all bent out of
shape over whether we are God‑centered or man‑centered, and they
forget that if we are Christ‑centered the distinction evaporates, for He
was God and man. The human and the
divine are of equal importance in a Christ‑centered theology.
The
Psalmist asks, "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" And the answer is Jesus. That is what man is, and that is why God is
mindful of him, and why he pays the ultimate price to save him. He is for sure a rotten apple, but God has
His own proverb about apples. Our human
proverb is that one rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel. God's view is just the opposite, for He says
that one perfect apple in a barrel of rotten ones can restore them to what
apples were meant to be. Only a real
and perfect man could do it, and that is why Christians have fought off every
attempt to minimize or modify the manhood of Jesus.
Only man
could offer a sacrifice to please God, but only God could provide such a
sacrifice, and so the only hope of man was a God‑man, and so Jesus is the
only answer. To know Jesus is to know
all there is to know of God, and all there is to know of man. He is the best of both. He was man as God intended man to be as one
imperfect fellowship and obedience to his creator. How human can God be? The
answer is Jesus. How divine can man
be? The answer is Jesus.
David
Read, the contemporary preacher and author, quotes the Christmas Carol: "The cattle are lowing, the baby
awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying He makes." Read says, "I don't believe it. Jesus was a real baby and He cried like all
other babies. He wept as a man and He
cried as a baby." We dare not deny
any aspect of the reality of His humanity, for He was totally human. He is the one perfect apple that will
restore the barrel of rotten humanity to what God intended man to be. We are all spoiled apples, but by faith in
Jesus Christ we can be assured of enjoying forever a perfected human
nature. May God help us to be
biblically intelligent Christians who not only enjoy Christmas and Easter, but
know why we do, and acknowledge that our Lord Jesus Christ was fully God and
fully man.
4. THE GOSPEL OF GOD'S
PROMISE Based on Rom. 1:1‑7
Paul Robeson
was a famous American Negro singer back in the 30's and 40's. It was announced in London that his great
singer would broadcast a concert from Russia where he was then living. The people of London filled the large
concert hall to standing room only waiting to hear this broadcast. It was to begin right at noon, but as that
moment came and announcer came on the stage, and people could tell by his face
that he had bad news. "My
friends," he said, "I have a very disappointing announcement to make
to you. You have gathered here to
listen to the beautiful music of Mr. Paul Robeson. But at the last moment word has come that the Russian authorities
have decided not to permit him to make this broadcast."
A
murmur of disappointment echoed across the hall from these expectant
listeners. They were shocked by this
announcement. But then the stage door
opened and Paul Robeson himself walked in.
The announcer was just as puzzled as the people. But then the crowd burst forth with
delighted applause. Robeson explained
in these words: "The Russian
authorities refused to allow me to broadcast, and, rather than disappoint this
audience, I hired a plane at my own expense and flew to London. I just landed at Croyden Field, got a taxi,
and here I am. I never break a promise
or disappoint an audience if it is humanly possible to keep and
engagement."
In the
world of entertainment where the theme is, "The show must go on," I
am sure there are numerous stories of sacrifice and super‑human efforts
to see that promises are kept. Whatever
the motive, many have said with Robert Frost:
The woods are lonely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Samuel Johnson commended Duke William III
back in 1777 by saying of him, "If, for instance, he had promised you and
acorn and none had grown that year in his woods, he would not have contented
himself with that excuse; he would have sent to Denmark for it." We know politicians are notorious for
breaking promises, but it is good to face the reality of the other side, and
see that it is also true that many have been famous for keeping promises. Emperor Charles V promised Martin Luther
safe conduct to his trial at Worms. His
enemies tried to persuade the emperor that a promise to a heretic does not need
to be kept. He refused to buy this and
said, "Whatever promise has been made must be fulfilled."
The
point of all this is that it can be established that even on a human level men
can be faithful to their promises. How
much more will God be faithful to His promises? An elderly Christian was in distress as he lay dying. He said to his pastor, "I have relied
on God's promises all my life, but now in the hour of death I can't remember a
single one to comfort me." The
pastor knowing that Satan was trying to rob him of his faith said to him,
"Do you think God will forget any of His promises just because you
do?" A smile came over his face
and he said joyfully, "No, no He won't!" He fell asleep in Jesus with peaceful assurance that God would
keep all His promises.
One of
Satan's most powerful weapons is to get Christians to doubt God's
promises. One of the most dramatic true
stories I have ever read of spiritual warfare over the promises of God is that
of Roger Simons. He was hitching a ride
home after he got out of the service. A
big black Cadillac finally stopped and he hopped in. The driver was Mr. Hanover, a business man from Chicago. They
talked about many things, and Roger felt the Holy Spirit urging him to
witness. He resisted because this man
was obviously rich, sophisticated, and worldly, and could care less what Roger
thought about life and religion. But as
they came closer to where he would be dropped off he felt the impulse to
witness so strongly that he could not remain silent. He began to share his faith and what Christ had done for him, and
to his surprise Mr. Hanover pulled off to the side of the road, and he prayed
to receive Christ as his Savior.
Roger
was soon let out by his home, and Mr. Hanover gave him his card and told him to
come and see him if he ever came to Chicago.
Roger had a lot of joy in being home and seeing his family, but no joy
was greater than that of being used to lead another into the kingdom of
God. Roger married and got into his own
business. It was 5 years later when he
had an occasion to go to Chicago. When
he packed he found the card that Mr. Hanover had given him, and he decided that
he would look him up.
When
he got to the Hanover Enterprises Building he asked the receptionists if he
could see Mr. Hanover. She said she
would call Mrs. Hanover. He thought
that was strange for he did not know her.
Her first question to him was, "Did you know my husband?" Roger said, "Yes. I met him when he picked me up 5 years
ago." She asked, "What day
was that?" He thought for a while
and remembered it was the day of his discharge. "May 7th," he replied.
Mrs. Hanover was nervous and asked, "Did you talk of anything
special?" Roger said, "Yes we
did. I talked with him about his
soul." Her lips began to tremble and she asked, "What was his
response?" He said, "He
pulled to the side of the road and gave his life to Christ."
Explosive sobs gripped Mrs Hanover and she let loose with a flood of
tears. Roger was puzzled. Finally she got a grip on her emotions and explained
that she had prayed for her husband for years, and she felt God had promised
her he would be saved. Roger asked, "Where is he now?" She went on to
tell him that he was dead, and that he died in an accident shortly after he let
him out of the car. She said, "I thought God had not kept his promise, and
I have been living for 5 years feeling that he let me down." God had been
faithful to his promise, but she did not have the faith to believe. This has
always been man's major problem. They will not believe God's promises. Adam and
Eve were assured of the best possible life if they obeyed God, but they did not
believe and that was the beginning of the problems of mankind.
God
promised Israel the land flowing with milk and honey, but they did not believe
and had to march in the desert for 40 years until all the doubter were dead. All through the Bible men are seen missing
God's best because they do not believe his promises. The biggest and most
central promise of all is the one Paul deals with in this introduction to the
book of Romans. This one is also often missed, but Paul is called to take this
promise to the Gentiles so that they might get in on it, and not miss out on
the greatest promise ever given. It is the Gospel. It is the Gospel he promised
through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
The Gospel
is not something new. God's good news is as old as God's heart of love for man.
He was promising man all through the Old Testament that He was sending a Savior
into the world. No matter how awful life was in the Old Testament, the saints
then had a foundation for optimism because God gave them a promise of good
news. And when you can anticipate good news, you can handle almost
anything. One of the first things Paul
establishes is the continuity of the Old and the New Testaments. God never
expected anyone to ever be saved by the law. It was faith in his promise that
was always the basis for salvation. Salvation by faith has always been God's
plan.
You
cannot have faith without a promise. Faith has to have some ground to stand on,
and that ground is the promise of God. Standing on the promises of God is the
theme song of the saints of all time. God promised Adam and Eve that a seed
would come from them that would crush Satan's head. God promised Abraham that a
seed from him would be a blessing to the whole world. God promised David that
his seed would rule in righteousness, and all the prophets pointed to the
coming seed who would save the people of Israel, and the Gentiles as well. The
entire Old Testament hope was based on the Gospel of God's promise. It is this
promise that makes the Old and New Testaments one book. They are different in
many ways, but the thread that sews them together as one is the promise of God.
The New is in the Old concealed.
The Old is in the New revealed.
The New is in the Old contained.
The Old is in the New explained.
After
Jesus rose from the dead the first teaching he did was with the two on the road
to Emmaus. Luke 24:27 says, "And beginning with Moses and all the
Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning
himself." Jesus said that he was the focus of the Old Testament promises,
and that now he had fulfilled them. Jesus said to the unbelieving Jews in John
5:39, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them
you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me."
Jesus claims that the focus of the entire Old Testament was on him, and that he
was the Promised One of God's Old Testament Gospel. Paul preached this to Jews
and Gentiles alike in Acts 13:23 where he said, "God has brought to Israel
the Savior Jesus, as he promised."
People
often ask how people were saved in the Old Testament, and the answer is that
they were saved the same as people in the New Testament. All people are saved
by faith in the promise of God, which was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The great faith chapter of Hebrews 11 ends
with these words in vv. 39‑40, "These were all commended for their
faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned
something better for us so that only together with us would they be made
perfect." All the Old Testament saints were saved by faith in the promise
of God that he would send a Savior, and all New Testament saints are saved by
faith that Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise.
Two
little girls were playing together and one said, "Lets count our
pennies." The one counted and said I have five. The other put down the
same number and said I have ten. The first girl protested and said, "You
have the same number that I do." "I know," said the girl,
"but my daddy promised he would give me five more when he came home from
work, and so I have ten." She was counting what was promised to her, for
she had faith to believe that she already possessed what was promised. This is
how people were saved in the Old Testament. They had faith to believe the
promise of God, and so they possessed the salvation he promised, even before it
became an historical reality.
Now why
does Paul make an issue about the Gospel of God being promised beforehand in
the Old Testament, and why does he stress throughout the letter the continuity
between the Old and New Testaments? The
reason is clear as you to through the letter. Paul was writing in a context
where racism and prejudice was even greater than they are today. Why would Paul
in v. 16 say "I am not ashamed of the Gospel?" I was because many saw
the Gospel as a Jewish religion, and they despised the Jews. And the Jews saw
it as a perversion of Judaism and designed for the Gentile dogs. Paul's whole
stress in this letter is that God does not have different strokes for different
folks, but that all people are the same. All have sinned and come short of the
glory of God, and all have only one way to be saved, and that is by faith in
the promise of God.
One of
the major purposes of this letter is to make it clear as crystal that all men
are in the same boat, and that all are equally lost and all have an equal
chance to be saved by faith. There is no special plan for the Jews, or some
modified plan for the Gentiles. There is only one Gospel, and there is only one
way for all men to get in on this good news, and that is by faith in the
promise of God fulfilled in Christ. We enter the Kingdom by faith, we live by
faith, we walk by faith, we work by faith, and we worship by faith. Faith in
the promises of God is the foundation of all in God's plan.
When we
cease to live by faith we become poor, negative Christians, and we lose the joy
of our salvation. D. L. Moody said, "...if you would spend a month feeding
on the precious promises of God you wouldn't be going about complaining how
poor you are. You would lift up your head and proclaim the riches of his Grace,
because you couldn't help doing it."
The Old Testament not only reveals the
perpetual failure of man, but the perpetual faithfulness of God. He never
forgot his promises, and he remained faithful to his people no matter how
rebellious and disobedient they were. We need to keep in mind that there were
also negative promises, and if they disobeyed they would be severely punished.
These were also kept faithfully, and they suffered much judgment. A young boy was asked, "Did your father
promise you something if you cut the grass?" He responded, "No, but
he promised me something if I didn't." We will focus on the judgment later
in Romans, but now we are focused on the positive promise of the Gospel.
Gen.
8:22 says, "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night will never cease." God promised to be
faithful just as surely as they could count on the seasons. Alice Mortenson
wrote,
Like Seasons faithful in their change,
God's promises stand out
To cheer the earth‑bound traveler on
That none may make him doubt.
Like A Rainbow in the eastern sky
When wind and cloud are still,
They span God's Word with beauty
And our whole horizon fill.
Like Stars upon a lonely night,
When hope seems almost dead,
They shine upon the Christian's path
And point to heaven ahead!
This
theme of God's faithfulness to his promises is a major theme of Romans, for
Paul is stressing how the Gospel of God was promised beforehand in the
prophets. He is calling our attention to the fact that the New Testament has
its roots in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is a crucial document that
establishes that everything has been tried, and the conclusion is conclusive
that man cannot save himself. He cannot even do it with God's help and God
given tools like the law. Man just cannot do it.
If we
did not have the Old Testament we could always wonder what if we had an all
wise, powerful, and rich ruler? What if such a person could solve all the
problems of man. Surely with such a leader we could save ourselves and
establish a utopia. The fact is that Solomon was just such a man, and he did
bring about a golden age to Israel. It was as good as it gets. But the bottom
line is that it did not work. Solomon fell into idolatry and the whole kingdom
was soon crumbling and again under the judgment of God. The best that man could
produce, even with God's blessing, could not save man. His house of self‑salvation
came tumbling down like a house of cards in a storm.
If there
is a lot about the Old Testament that you do not like, do not feel bad, for God
did not like it either. His judgment was almost seasonal so frequent was it
needed. All that man did failed, and even all the God did failed in the Old
Testament. Nothing was able to save man from himself. The law, the sacrificial
system, the ministry of priests and prophets, it was all to no avail in saving
man. The only hope of the Old Testament was the promise of God to send a Savior
into the world, and man's faith in God to keep this promise. God had to let man
get all of his theories about saving himself out of his system before he sent
his Son. Man in his stubborn pride thinks he can do it on his own, and so God
had to give him every chance to do it his way to see how futile it was.
If God
had not given his promise of a Savior there would have been only despair in the
Old Testament. The only Gospel they had was the promise of God, and that
promise was fulfilled in Jesus. Paul stood up in the synagogue at Antioch and
said to the Jews in Acts 13:32‑33, "We tell you the good news: What
God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up
Jesus." Paul goes further in I
Cor. 1:20 and says, "No matter how many promises God has made, they are
yes in Christ." In other words, every promise of God ever made is
fulfilled in his Son the Lord Jesus.
In Jesus
the age of promise became the age of fulfillment. But let us never forget that
the promise was potent enough to save all who believed it. This is still
relevant today because to live by faith still means to stand on the promises of
God. J. Richie Smith said, "The
Bible opens with the promise of the first coming of Christ and ends with the
promise of his second coming, and all the way between is strewn with promises as
sky is studded with stars." All of
God's people of all time live on the same principle, and that is by having
faith in the promises of God.
5. CALLED TO OBEDIENCE based on Rom. 1:1‑7
Colonel Wilbur
Rogers was ordered to let loose an artillery barrage in a World War I battle.
He was right there on the battlefield, and he could see what the commander
could not see. If he fired as ordered he would shell 10,000 American infantry
just ahead of him. He refused to obey an order that would have killed his own
soldiers, and the result was he was immediately removed from his command and
arrested. Charges were preferred against him, and he was reduced to a class B
status, which means he was deemed unfit to hold commission in active service.
Colonel Rogers fought in court for 14 years to prove that there are
circumstances where disobedience to orders is a manifestation of common sense.
Finally in 1934 he was vindicated and President Roosevelt signed a bill that
reinstated him to class A status.
Blind
obedience to orders that you know are based on ignorance of the circumstances
is not a virtue, especially when you do know the circumstances and can make a
wiser decision. On the other hand, when you are the one who is ignorant of the
circumstances it is a virtue to give blind obedience to those in authority over
you. This is illustrated by the Eastern King who hired two men to pull water
out of a well and pour it into a basket. After awhile one of them said that it
was foolishness. The water runs through the sides of the basket and the labor
was in vain. The other one said that they were being paid good to do it and so
it is the master's business. The first man was not satisfied and just threw the
basket down and quit. The other man went on doing the job, and when he got to
the bottom of the well he learned the purpose of his labor. There was a
precious diamond ring that had fallen into the well. Had it been brought up
before they got to the bottom it would have been found in the basket. It was
not useless labor at all. The worker who remained faithful to the task was
greatly rewarded because he worked on when he did not understand the purpose of
it.
The king
had planned the whole thing, for he was looking for a reliable servant who
would obey him even when they did not understand his plan. This has been God's
search all through history. He has ever sought for servants who would obey him.
Abraham was one of his best servants and we read in Heb. 11:8, "By faith
Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his
inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was
going." In blind obedience he did what God ordered, and became the number
one example of a man of faith. He even obeyed God when he was asked to
sacrifice his own son Isaac. It made no sense, for God had promised him a great
host of descendants as vast as the sand of the seashore. But he had faith that
God would keep his promise, and so he was ready to do what made no sense to
him. God, of course, did not let him do it, and provided the substitute lamb
for the sacrifice.
If you
study all of the heroes of the faith, you discover that the virtue they all had
in common was the virtue of obedience. They were different in many ways, but
they were all obedient to what they knew was the will of God. Obedience was the
key virtue in the Bible and still is today. The first sin in the Garden of Eden
was the sin of disobedience, and this is the essence of all sin. It is those
who obey who will have access again to the tree of life in the eternal kingdom.
Some may
be thinking that love is the supreme virtue, and this is correct. But the Bible
so links love and obedience that they are married and become one. You cannot
have one without the other. Jesus said in John 14:21, "He that hath my
commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." Then two verses
later he says, "If a man love me, he will keep my words." We make a
distinction between a professing Christian and a possessing Christian because
it is not words buy obedience that makes a true believer. In Matt. 7:21 Jesus
says, "Not every one that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom
of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." It
is in obedience to God that we demonstrate faith and manifest love. Without
obedience all the lovely language and professions are mere stubble that will
quickly perish in the fires of judgment.
We do
not grasp the goal of God at all unless we see that the bottom line is
obedience to his will. F. B. Huey Jr. wrote an article for Christianity Today
that was titled Obedience A Neglected Doctrine. In this article he tells us
that obedience is so practical that we would rather focus on other doctrines
that are merely intellectual groping for the truth. Obedience is hard because
it demands that you act and back up your profession with behavior. He wrote,
"If we are completely honest, we will admit that obedience is the biblical
doctrine most difficult to put into practice. We preach, teach, give a tithe or
more, go to the mission field, may even be willing to die for the faith; but
how many of us will at the end of this life be able to say: 'I led every
thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.' (II Cor. 10:5)? Total
surrender is often talked about, but it is far easier to preach than to
practice."
Because
we do not like to submit to be a slave to God's will we tend to let obedience
slide. Professor Huey wrote again, "The alarming statistical decrease in
conversions in recent years is partly explained by the lessened insistence upon
obedience of children in the home. A well‑known evangelist has pointed
out that it is very difficult to win to Christ people who as children never
learned obedience. If a person does not respect his earthly parents, how much
more difficult it is for him to obey the Father in heaven. Parents who teach
their children the importance of obedience are preparing them for
salvation." Obedience on any level has eternal implications.
We are
spending a lot to time looking at the first few verses of this great letter
because it is universally agreed upon that Paul gives us a mini‑outline
of the entire letter in this introduction. John MacArthur is one of the most
popularmis Bible teachers of our day and he says, "...the entire thrust of
all 16 chapters of Romans is distilled into the first seven verses‑Paul
is so thrilled by what he wants to say that he can't wait to say it. He
capsulizes his foundational thoughts in Rom. 1:1‑7. It is as if the seed
of the Gospel is sown in the first seven verses and then fully blooms
throughout the rest of the epistle."
It pays
to go slow when you are panning for gold, for those who go fast are sure to
throw away nuggets with the pebbles.
Some lost is inevitable for no man has ever gotten them all. Martin Lloyd Jones preached on Romans for 8
years. Donald Gray Barnhouse preached
on it for 3 and a half years, and greatly influenced Chuck Swindoll who
preached on it for nearly a year. None
of them claimed to cover the subject thoroughly, for it is a lifetime
task. John Calvin in his commentary on
Romans wrote, "...when anyone gains a knowledge of the Epistle, he has an
entrance opened to him to all the most hidden treasures of
Scripture."
Most of
us usually skip through the introduction and miss the treasures. So far we have looked at 1. The Preachers Of The Gospel. 2.
The Promise Of The Gospel.
3. The Person Of The
Gospel. And now we are looking at
4. The Purpose Of The Gospel. Paul spells it out in verse 5 where he says
the whole purpose of his receiving grace and apostleship was to call people
from all the Gentiles to the obedience which comes from faith. This is just another way of stating the
Great Commission of Christ who said in Matt. 28:19‑20, "Therefore go
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you." The bottom line is
obedience, for the finished product is to be obedient disciples.
Walter
Isenhour tells of the English farmer who saw a party of horsemen riding toward
a field that he did not want trampled. He
sent one of his boys to shut the gate and not let it be opened. He got there just in time. When the horsemen came they ordered the gate
to be opened. The boy refused stating
his orders. Threats and bribes failed
to move him. Then one of the riders said,
"My boy, I am the Duke of Wellington.
I command you to open that gate that I and my friends may pass
through." The boy removed his cap
to honor this man all England delighted to honor, but he said firmly, "I
am sure the Duke of Wellington would not want me to disobey orders. I must keep the gate shut and not allow
anyone to pass but by my master's permission." Greatly pleased, the old warrior lifted his own hat and said,
"I honor the boy or man who can be neither bribed nor frightened into
doing wrong." Handing the boy a
sovereign, the old Duke put spurs to his horse and galloped away.
The
purpose of the Gospel is not just to save people for heaven, but to produce
people on earth in all nations who will be that kind of obedient servant, and
be loyal to Christ above all others.
But notice carefully what Paul says about this obedience in verse
5. It is obedience that comes from
faith. There is obedience that comes
from force and from fear also, but this is not the kind of obedience that Jesus
wants. He wants obedience that is by
choice and not by coercion. The purpose
of the Gospel is to get people of all nations to be voluntary slaves of Christ. These are people who choose to obey His
commands because they want to, and because they belong to Him, and they believe
His promises.
Obedience that comes from faith is not an I have to obey attitude, but
it is an I want to obey attitude. I
want to please my Lord. We have not
arrived at God's goal for the Gospel until we do His will because we love Him
and want to do His will. If we obey
because we feel guilty if we don't, or feel pressured by the need to conform,
or by some other external motive, we have not yet arrived at Christian
maturity.
A rich
man had a son that he loved dearly, but
who died at a young age. The father
died not long after, and he stipulated in his will that all of his art
treasures were to be auctioned off, and to begin with the portrait of his son. He had many treasured paintings, but the
portrait of his son was by an obscure artist, and so most just waiting for this
to be out of the way. In fact, there
was only one bid, and that was by the servant of the wealthy man who had also
loved the son and wanted to possess his portrait. The auctioneer handed the portrait to the servant, and then went
on to read the net portion of the will.
"All the rest of my treasures will go to the one who loved my son
enough to purchase his portrait."
The parallel is not in the purchase, where there is no price on the
Gospel. The parallel is in the love for
the Son. Those who love the Son God
gave to fulfill His promise will receive with their choice to love Jesus all
the riches that go with the inheritance of Him who is a perfect portrait of the
Father.
You do
not come to Jesus because you have to, but you come because you want to. You do
not obey Jesus because you have to, but you obey because you want to. This is the obedience that comes from faith,
and this is the goal of the Gospel. It
is the very purpose for which Paul is writing this letter, and why he longs to
go to Rome and preach the Gospel. The
Greek word here for obedience is used 14 times in all of the New Testament. Seven of them are used right here in this
letter to the Romans. Obedience is a
major theme of this letter.
The
entire plan of salvation revolves around obedience. Paul writes in
Rom. 5:19, "For just as through the
disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the
obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." Obedience is a major New Testament doctrine
because by it Jesus became the perfect man, and so was the perfect sacrifice
that made it possible for God to save us.
We are saved, not just by the sacrifice of Christ, but by His
obedience. His sacrifice would have
been worth nothing had He not first been obedient. His death on the cross was His supreme act of obedience.
Phil.
2:6‑9 says, "Who, being in nature God, did not consider equally with
God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature
of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a
man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death‑even death on a
cross! Therefore, God exalted Him to
the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name." Jesus made it to the top by obedience. It was not by force, by deeds, or clever
maneuvering, but by obedience. To be
like Christ is to be obedient to the Father's will. To be a disciple of Jesus, and to be a saint, are just different
ways of describing the call to obedience that comes from faith.
Paul
makes it clear in this letter that the whole purpose of his ministry was to
lead people to obedience. In Romans 15:17‑18 he writes, "Therefore I
glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of
anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading Gentiles to
obey God by what I have said and done." Paul would be very please if his
epitaph read, "Here lies the man who led Gentiles to obey God." This
was his glory and in the final chapter of this letter he says in 16:19,
"Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over
you." Paul's joy was not based on the numbers, as is so often the case in
our culture, nor on the amount of money given. Paul's joy was in their
obedience, for that is the very purpose of the Gospel, and the purpose of his
ministry.
In the
next to the last verse of this letter in 16:26 Paul sums it up again by
writing, "That all nations might believe and obey him." Nothing, and
I mean nothing is more pleasing to God than obedience. God said to Abraham in
Gen. 22:18. "Through your offspring all the nations on earth will be
blessed." Then he tells Abraham why: "because you have obeyed
me."
A. W. Tozer wrote, "The church of our day has
soft‑pedaled the doctrine of obedience, either neglecting it altogether
or mentioning it only apologetically and, as it were, by the way. This results
from a fundamental confusion of obedience with works in the minds of preacher
and people. To escape the error of salvation by works, we have fallen into the
opposite error of salvation without obedience. In our eagerness to get rid of
the legalistic doctrine of works, we have thrown out the baby with the bath
water and gotten rid of obedience as well."
There
are two basic things the Bible gives us, and they are promises to believe and
commandments to obey. We tend to favor the promises and neglect the commands.
This is like trying to plow with one live and one dead horse. It will not work,
for you need a team of two live horses to get the job done. Many stress the promises to be believed as
if this was the same as obedience. But you do not obey a promise. You believe
it and trust it, but you do not obey it. Others will stress the commands to be
obeyed and give the impression that you can save yourself by obeying the ten
commandments and others. This is legalism and salvation by works and misses the
need for faith in the finished work of Christ, and living by faith in the
promises of God. You do not have faith
in a command, but you obey it, and so they miss out on the need for faith in
the promises of God and dependence on God's grace. Both are half right and all
wrong, and they produce incomplete Christians.
We all
need to listen to Paul's stress on obedience that comes from faith. He agrees
with James that faith without works is dead, and also that works without faith
is dead. You need both to have a true Christian theology. One without the other
is Laurel without Hardy, or Abbott without Costello, or salt without pepper,
and a horse without a carriage. If they are not a team you do not have a
biblical view of God's plan and purpose for man. It is a common misconception
that one is doing just fine if they have correct ideas about biblical truths,
even if they do not live in obedience to the commands of the Bible. Such a
slipshod Christianity cannot change society, for it does not even change those
who profess such a perverted faith. Without obedience to God's revealed will
any profession of being a Christian is phony. An authentic Christian will still
be a sinner and will fail, but they will be always striving to obey all they
understand of God's will for their life.
If you do not remember anything else in
Paul's introduction to Romans, remember verse 5 and the purpose of Paul in his
ministry to call people from all nations to obedience that comes from faith. A. W. Tozer again wrote, "The Bible
recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any
obedience that does not spring from faith.
The two are opposite sides of the same coin. What does all this add up to?
What are its practical implications for us plain Christians today? Of this we can be certain: God is waiting in all readiness to send down
floods of blessing upon us as soon as we begin to obey His plain
instructions. We need no new doctrine,
no new movement, no "key," no important evangelist or expensive,
"course" to show us the way.
It is before us as clear as a four‑lane highway. To any enquirer, I would say: "Just do
the next thing you know you should do, to carry out the will of the
Lord."
If God's
people would have obeyed Him the Old Testament would not be filled with
violence and judgment, but it would be a perpetual proof of just how close even
fallen man can live to paradise. They
failed, and so do we, but the challenge is ever before us. This is God's goal in history to produce in
every nation people who will obey Him.
Chuck Swindoll said, "Only one decision pleases God‑obedience." This means there is only one way to success
that fits God's definition of success, and that is by obedience.
Heaven
and hell, and everything in between, meaning all of history, revolves around
the issue of obedience. Paul wrote in
II Thess. 1:18 that when Jesus comes again in judgment, "He will punish
those who do not know God and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord
Jesus." Not to obey is to reserve
a place in hell. On the other hand, we
read in Heb. 5:8‑9, "Although he was a son, He learned obedience
from what He suffered, and once made perfect, He became the source of eternal
salvation for all who obey Him." Heaven is the destiny of those who live
in obedience. May God help us all to
recognize this great truth that we are called to obedience.
6.
ESTABLISHED BY ENCOURAGEMENT
Based on Rom. 1:11‑13
One of
the greatest heroes in Minnesota history was James Root of White Bear. He was the engineer on the No. 4 Limited the
day it pulled out of Duluth heading for St. Paul on Sept. 1, 1894. Before that day ended he saved the lives of
nearly 400 people. Unknown to him and
his passengers they were heading into one of the worse fires in history. It completely destroyed 6 Minnesota villages
killing 420 people, and it turned every thing to ashes over an area of 350
square miles.
As Root
brought his train to Hinkley he saw masses of people running down the track
toward him. He stopped the train and
jumped out of the cab. He soon learned
that Hinkley was a furnace, and that a tornado of flame was heading their way. He encouraged the 300 people of men, women,
and children to get on board. By the
time they did the heat was already so intense that it shattered the window of
his cab and cut his forehead. He put
the train in reverse and headed back to Skunk Lake, a small station 4 miles
North.
The
heat was so intense that his fire man climbed into the water tank. He was alone and fighting for his own
survival. His hands were so burned he
feared rubbing them lest he tare off the flesh. The cars were all on fire and the glass was melting. It was torture for the passengers to
breathe, but Root kept the train moving and got it to the Skunk Lake bridge
where there was a swamp with a few feet of water. He and the passengers got into this swamp and watched the train
be destroyed by the flames. Had Root
not been strong in his determination all 400 hundred would have perished.
Hero
stories are almost always stories of strength where you see exhibited strength
of body, mind and will. All the heroes
of the Bible were not as strong as Samson, but they were all strong in their
commitment to the God of Israel, who was called the Strength of Israel. Habakkuk ends his prophecy with these words,
"The Sovereign Lord is my strength."
Over and over the Psalms refer to God as the source of strength, and He
is named Strength.
Psa. 18:1, "I love you, O Lord, my
strength."
Psa. 18:32, "It is God who arms me with
strength."
Psa. 22:19, "David cries out to God O my
Strength, come quickly to help me."
There
are dozens of references to God as my strength and song. The joy of the Lord is my strength, and the
purpose of worship is to enter into the beauty of God's presence to be
strengthened by his strength. The
saints are urged to seek God's strength and to be clothed with it. They are to walk in His strength for a life
of joy and victory. All of this becomes
the background for our understanding of Paul's concept of Christian worship and
fellowship. He writes to the Romans
here in chapter 1 verse 11 that he longs to be with them to impart to them some
spiritual gift, and why does he feel this is important? He says the purpose of the gift is to make
you strong.
Weak
Christians are a great problem.
Therefore, the greatest solution to this problem is to make Christians
strong. That is the point of the gifts
of the Spirit. That is the point of
worship and Christian fellowship.
Strong Christians are obedient Christians, and weak Christians are
disobedient Christians. The only the
church can fulfill God's purpose in history is to help Christians be
strong. Paul is not so proud as to
think that he does not need the strength that can come from them. In verse 12 he says that he wants to see
them, not just to give strength but to receive it, and that they might be
mutually encouraged by each other's faith.
Here is
the most powerful reason there is for Christians to get together. It is that they might encourage and make
each other stronger. Paul knows what
anyone knows who tries to live in full obedience to God. It is hard, and there is an ever present
temptation to throw in the towel and take the easy way out, and just drift
along with the culture. Swimming
against the stream and climbing the mountain of the upward call leads to burn
out and discouragement. We need to be
renewed and strengthened to keep going.
We come together to hear the Word of God in order to charge our
batteries so that we can go away saying with Paul, "I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me."
We can then resist the devil; resist conformity to the world, and in
spite of our weakness be witnesses for Christ.
The
point of coming to church is to come out of the world to worship God, and then
be strengthened to go back into the world to work for God. You need energy to be a witness. You need to overcome all the natural
weaknesses of the flesh, and recognize that every day you touch lives with
either that weakness or the power of God.
George Elliot wrote,
Every soul that touches yours‑
Be it the slightest contact‑
Gets therefrom some good;
Some little grace; one kindly thought;
One aspiration yet unfelt;
One bit of courage
For the darkening sky;
One gleam of faith
To brave the thickening ills of life;
One glimpse of brighter skies
Beyond the gathering mists‑
To make this life worth while
And heaven a surer heritage.
This is
true if you are strong. If you are
weak, you are part of the problem and not part of the answer. Weak Christians offend people and make them
doubt the value of being saved. They do
not attack but repel people because they operate in their own strength, which
is weakness, rather than in the strength of Christ which draws men to
Himself.
The
Roman Christians had to be fairly strong and mature, for the report of their
faith had spread all over the known world.
Nevertheless, Paul says they still need to be made strong. The implication is that every Christian,
including himself, needs to be strengthened.
There is no such thing as a Christian who is too strong. There is no level a Christian can reach
where he is no longer in need of encouragement and strengthening that comes
from other Christians and their gifts.
If
anyone could be a lone ranger Christian it would be Paul, but he admits he
needed the encouragement of their faith.
Anyone who claims to be so strong that they never need the encouragement
of others has achieved a level that is no where recognized in the New
Testament. Look at verse 13, and you
can see Paul admitting to his frustration.
He says that he planned many times to come to them but was prevented. Maybe you thought that being an Apostle of
Christ was a perpetual joyride where everything worked out and nothing ever
went wrong. The fact is, Paul's plans
fell through over and over again. He
did not get to do what he wanted to do.
It is a great disappointment to have your plans not work out when all
you want to do is serve the Lord and do good.
It is bad enough when the plan goes sour once or twice, but when it
happens many times you feel jinxed and begin to wonder if you should just give
up.
There
are disappointments in serving Jesus, that is why Paul needed the encouragement
of others, and that is why we all do.
The only way any Christian can be obedient over the long hall, and not
get weary in well doing, is to be encouraged by other believers and
strengthened to keep running the race.
Paul needed it more than most, for he had problems, trials, and burdens
that go beyond what most ever have to bear.
He writes in II Cor. 1:8‑9, "We do not want you t be
uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we
despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of
death."
In II Cor.
4:8 Paul says that he was perplexed in all his trials. The word means to be at
a loss to explain what is happening. Paul could not understand why he had to
experience so much disappointment. Here is a man who has more revelation from
God than any man who has ever lived, and yet he does not know all the plans of
God. He sees through a glass darkly. There is no one who can rise so far above
the rest of us in spirituality that they do not need the encouragement of the
rest of the body.
Daniel Tayler tells of his father who had a
dream come true. He got to be a bat boy for the Chicago Cubs. All was going
fine until in a late inning the pitcher came to bat and got a hit. Someone
threw him a jacket and said take it to the pitcher. He did not know that in the
major leagues the pitcher put on a jacket when he got on base. He only knew one
pitcher in the game and so he ran out to the mound to hand the jacket to him.
People were shouting at him to take it to the pitcher, but the pitcher was refusing
it. He was totally confused. He thought he was doing what he was told to do,
but it was not working. He was perplexed and at a loss as to what was
happening. The manager finally walked out and pointed him to the right pitcher
on first base. He was doing his best but did not understand the plan he was
supposed to carry out.
It is
too bad that such complexity cannot be limited to the experience of little
boys, but the fact is that even an Apostle cannot escape it. Paul's sincere
efforts to do the will of God were often dashed to pieces and crushed by
circumstances beyond his control. He writes in I Thess. 2:17, "..out of
our intense longing we made every effort to see you, for we wanted to come to
you‑certainly I, Paul, did, again and again‑but Satan stopped
us." God allows Satan to hinder the plans of his servants. God allows him
the freedom of will that he needs to be a valid enemy, for it he had no weapons
it would not be an authentic conflict of good and evil. We have to wage real
warfare as we serve the Lord, and this means that much can go wrong, or not go
at all.
It is
bad enough that Satan has power to hinder our efforts, but to make matters
worse, even the Holy Spirit can and does hinder our will. In Acts 16:6‑7
we read, "Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of
Phyrigia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the
word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried
to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to." Now
when the unholy spirit of Satan and the Holy Spirit of Jesus are both throwing
monkey wrenches into your plans, you need a lot of encouragement. That is why
Paul is practically begging Christians in all of his churches to pray for him.
The battle is real.
Paul was
a wise and brilliant man of God, but he did not always understand the will of
God. He just did his best and admitted that he needed the encouragement of
others. When you need something yourself you are more aware of how others need
it also. Paul is fully aware of how all believers need encouragement and
strength that comes from the gifts of others in the body. Paul was not so proud
that he would not admit his own need.
The
church was meant to be a mutual benefit society in which we strengthen each
other's weaknesses and meet needs. John Calvin said, "There is not one so
void of gifts in the church of Christ who is not able to contribute something
to our benefit." Every Christian
is a part of the whole process of encouragement. Sometimes all you have to do
is just be present to be an encouragement. Just seeing you helps them to press
on and resist the temptation to forsake the assembling of themselves together.
We can all give this gift of encouragement, and that is why it is so important
that we be faithful in our being present to other believers.
Harold
Dye, a gifted Christian writer tells of his experience while fishing in the New
Mexico mountains. He was climbing to a high stream when he came to a dangerous
spot on the trail. The rain and the snow had eroded the trail and left a chasm
he would have to leap across. He write, "As I debated making the leap from
this side to the other I noticed something on the trail ahead that made all the
difference in the world‑the fresh imprint of a shoe. Someone had been
along this trail before me. He too had faced the same chasm and had safely
crossed it. That was all the encouragement I needed. With one strong effort I
was safely on the other side and on my way to that inviting stream."
Just the
presence of one other person facing the same decision can keep us climbing.
That is why support groups are so popular and helpful. They encourage people in
whatever battle they face because they know they are not alone. This is the
comfort and encouragement that the church is to give to all who want to climb
higher in the Christian life, but who face obstacles that hinder them and make
they want to give up. Paul is not just concerned with starting new churches, but
with helping established churches to be constantly renewed. The Roman church
was established, but Paul knew that it needed to keep on growing or it would
lead to decay. All believers need to be continuously encouraged and
strengthened or they will begin to settle down to mediocrity, and cease to grow
in their love for God and the doing of His will.
Our
presence, our actions, and our words are all potential gifts of encouragement
to make each other stronger. If you go away from church without some gift that
makes you stronger you have missed the whole point of being in church. You have
missed the gift that God intended you to have by hearing some truth, getting
some insight, hearing some inspiration, or feeling loved by some other person.
We need to come to church ready to give and to receive some gift of
encouragement. We are all called to the ministry of encouragement, and all
believers can do this. If you come to church and you and nobody else is
encouraged by your presence then something is wrong that needs to be corrected.
We need to come prepared to be encouraged and to give encouragement to others.
If we miss this goal we are not in the will of God.
God
wants us all to be a part of making each other strong in the Lord. The Greek
word for strong is sterizo. It is one of Paul's favorite words. He uses it more
than all other New Testament authors put together. It was to him the goal of
all ministry. He writes in I. Thess. 3:2, "We sent Timothy....to
strengthen and encourage you in your faith." He sent Timothy because his
letter was not enough to impart sterizo. His letter to Romans was not enough
either and so he longed to come to them to impart sterizo. There is a strength
that you can only get in fellowship. You cannot get it just by reading the
Bible or other Christian writings. You need the fellowship of other
personalities to be strengthened. Some
believers forsake the fellowship of the church and feel they can make it one
their own, but they are weak and ineffective Christians, and often live no
higher than a gnats eyelash above the world.
God made us to need each other to be strong Christians.
Paul
links encouragement and strength because no Christian can become strong without
encouragement. Rob a believer of encouragement and you pull the spark plug out
of his engine, and he or she will lose power and cease to run the race to new
heights. But encourage a believer and they will never cease to press on to new
levels of growth and service. That is why Paul ends the second chapter of II
Thessalonians with this prayer: "May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God
our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and
good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and
word." It is not only Paul's idea, but it is God's idea that they bottom
line is the need for encouragement.
Paul
says here that he longs to see them to make them stronger, and to be encouraged
himself. The Greek word for long is
epipotheo, and it refers to a very strong emotion. It is translated desire
greatly, or desire earnestly, and long after greatly. In one place it is even
translated lust. That is how strongly Paul felt the desire to be involved in
the ministry of encouragement. He had a lust to strengthen the body of Christ.
This is a rare lust. Martin Niemoller had it. He was the German pastor who
defied Hitler and spoke out boldly for Christ.
He was
arrested and put in solitary confinement for 8 years. He was cut off from his family
and church and had no way of serving them. Then one day he came up with an
idea. Each day he moved his table under the high window of his cell. He then
put his chair on the top of the table and by standing on tip toe on the chair
he could get close to the window. There he waited for the scuffling that could
be heard as the other prisoners crunched the ground on their daily walk. When
he heard them he began to read passages from the Bible that would be an
encouragement. He did this day after day with no way to know who, if anyone,
was listening. That was a lust to be an instrument of encouragement.
It is
not likely you and I will ever be so tested to see how strong our desire is to
be an encouragement to other. We are free to do it in hundreds of ways every
day. Everything we do and say can make the body stronger or weaker. May God
help us be aware of this so that we come to church with this spirit of Paul to
help contribute to the goal that we are all established by encouragement.
7. THE DUTY OF BEING IN DEBT
Based on Rom. 1:14‑17
In 1901
Andrew Carnegie sold his Pennsylvania steel mill to J. P. Morgan for 420
million dollars, and thereby became the richest man in the world. That fortune was made by the sacrifice of
thousands of common laborers. He under
paid them ruthlessly, and he forced them to work 12 hours a day 7 days a
week. His labor practices stirred up a
lot of hostility, and in Homestead, PA., where our son Mark was born one of the
bloodiest strikes in labor history took place at his mill. Fourteen people were killed, and 163 were
seriously injured.
The
good that came out of this is that Carnegie felt obligated to benefit the
masses with his fortune, and so he began to give it away. He endowed 3000 libraries, and I have
personally blessed with generous gift, for I have used some of those
libraries. Eighty per cent of his money
went to educational purposes so that millions have benefitted for the thousands
who had to suffer. So many of the
blessings of life come to us because of men who felt obligated to do their best
to make up for the damage their past has caused. Paul was just such a man, and because of his strong sense of
obligation he preached the Gospel and started churches all over the known
world. Paul felt like he was in debt to
the whole world, and he poured out his life to the fullest of his ability to
pay what he felt he owed.
Everyone is in debt to someone, but Paul was in debt to everyone. In verse 14 he says, "I am obligated
both to Greeks and non‑Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish."
What he says just about sums up the entire human race. There might be room to squeeze somebody in
between wise and foolish, but there is no room at all between Greeks and non‑Greeks. If you are not a Greek, you are a non‑Greek,
and so everyone is covered.
Our
national debt is outrageous, but even we do not owe everybody on the
planet. Paul was more in debt than
anyone has ever claimed to be, but he was not ashamed of it. He glories in his debt to all men, for what
he owes them is, not dollars, shekels, or any other type of money, but the
Gospel. That is why he longed to get to
Rome and to far off Spain, and to everywhere else in the world. Paul owed the whole world the Gospel, and so
he had business everywhere.
Something tells me this is a message we have missed as American
Christians. How often have we ever felt
in debt to our non‑Christian friends, associates, and neighbors? We do not feel like we owe them anything. But Paul says that he felt an obligation to
all men to share the Gospel. He was
debtor to all because he owed them the Gospel.
Why did Paul feel such an obligation?
It was because he knew that all men were capable of being made rich in
Christ. The Gospel is not‑look at
how good I am‑if you were as good you too could be a child of God. Or, look at how good someone else is. That is not good news. Good news is that you can be saved and be a
child of God no matter who you are, or what you have been. No matter how sinful, foolish, or proud you
have been, you can be saved and be a child of God. It doesn't make any difference if you are a PhD or a high school
dropout. The reason Paul was obligated
to all men is because all have an equal right to receive the Gospel and be
saved.
The
implications of this are staggering. It
means that everyone of us is in debt to every non‑Christian we know. We owe them the opportunity to be
saved. This is an enormous obligation,
but I fear we have been so influenced by our culture that we do not take
obligations all that seriously. Clerks
are obligated to wait on customers, but they often make the customer wait while
they do personal business.
Manufacturers are obligated to produce a product that is safe, but tons
of stuff floods the market that can hurt, or even kill you. The government is obligated to protect its
citizens, but often neglects this and lets dangerous drugs and products into
the market place. Professionals of all
kinds let us down for they set their obligations to us on the back burner, and
give selfish goals priority.
We all
do our share of griping and complaining, for we are all victims to some degree,
but listen to how Paul starts chapter 2 of Romans: "You, therefore, have
no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for whatever point you judge
the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the
same things." You say that people
owe you money and they won't repay.
You say you have rights, but they are not being honored. All of this might be true, but what about
the fact that every man, woman and child on this planet has a right to hear the
Gospel and become a child of God! What
about the fact, that we as Christians are debtors to all people, and we have an
obligation to share the Gospel with them.
We saw
in a previous message that we have an obligation to be an encourager of all in
the body of Christ, and now we see that we have an obligation to be an
enlightener of all who are outside of the body of Christ. We are debtors to all people, and we owe
everybody something. We need to face
the reality that we are all in as bad a shape as the government. We let our debts build up and do not pay
them off. We neglect a major obligation
of the Christian life because we do not have a plan by which we share the
Gospel with unsaved people.
I
suppose we feel that just because Paul felt such an obligation to all people,
it does not mean we have to take on that same sense of debt he felt. But this rationalizing will not hold water,
for in chapter 8 Paul uses this same word to refer to all believers having the
same obligation as he had to die to self and what the sinful nature
desires. We are to live in accordance
with the Spirit, and set our minds on what the Spirit desires. The Spirit does not give us all the same
gifts, and so we are not like Paul in many ways, but it is God's will for all
of us to have that sense of obligation that Paul had, and to feel like we owe
this lost world a chance to get in on a saved world that will last
forever. We all owe the lost a chance
to be saved, and so we are all under the same obligation as Paul to not be
ashamed of the Gospel, but to be bold in sharing it with those who will be lost
without it.
Notice
that Paul does not say I am obligated to God the Father, the Son, or the Holy
Spirit. Jesus saved him even though he
was a proud and arrogant man of violence who persecuted and killed
Christians. He was a religious bigot of
the worst kind, and yet Jesus saved him.
He owed everything to Christ, but Paul also knew he owed nothing to
Christ, for Jesus paid it all, and he was debt free to God. All he owed to God had been paid by his
Savior, and so he was a free man. But
it was to man that he was in debt. They
did nothing for him, and yet he was in debt to them. He owed them the Gospel because he had received it freely, and
when you have a gift that is so valuable that you can share it with everyone,
and in so doing have even more of it, then you have an obligation to do
so.
If I
won the lottery and started sharing my fortune with others I would eventually
run out and deplete my resources. But
if I share the Gospel I never have less, and I enrich others with that which
makes them rich forever. The Gospel is
a gift that never stops giving, and that is why we are so obligated to share
it. If I discovered a cure for all
cancer and just kept it for myself in case I ever got cancer, you would
consider me a monster of immorality worthy of a place along side Hitler in the
pages of infamy. Yet we have a cure for
sin and all of its eternal effects, and still we feel no obligation to share
this good news with those who are dying for time and eternity for lack of
it.
There
is only one way to reduce this deficit, and that is by doing what Paul
did. He shared the Gospel with everyone
he could in the world. If we do not
share the Gospel with anyone, then we are guilty of not paying our greatest
debt in life, and we fail in our greatest obligation. We do not like this message of Paul. We like his message when he says there is no condemnation for
those who are in Christ, and we like his freedom message, and his message about
escape from the bondage of the law. We
love all of his positive stuff, but we do not like the balancing side where he
makes us feel the need to bear one another's burdens, and to feel responsible
for suffering for the cause of Christ, and being obligated to pay off our debt
to all people.
We like
the benefits of being servants of Christ, but not the burdens. We want Christianity without the cross, for
the cross is costly and puts us into debt.
To take up the cross and follow Jesus like Paul did is to feel an
obligation to tell the world about the Gospel.
We owe everyone the chance to be saved, but we seldom make a payment on
this debt by telling anyone about what Jesus did for them. Should we feel guilty? Of course we should! If we have a legitimate debt and do not try
to make payments we should feel guilty.
A non‑witnessing
Christian should feel guilty because that is
probably the only way they will get motivated to make a list and begin to pray
for people, and think of strategies by which to share the good news. We feel the obligation to pay off our
financial debts, and we need to match that zeal in paying off our spiritual
debts to the lost world.
I was
impressed in reading about the life of Sir Walter Scott. In 1826 at the age of 55 he sank everything
he had into a book publishing company that went bankrupt. It not only left him penniless, but heavily
in debt to the tone of 700 thousand dollars.
He was no Pollyanna who said that this was wonderful. He was miserable, as any of us would be in
that circumstance. He wrote in his
diary that he would like to lie down to sleep and never wake up. He wanted to escape the burden of it, but he
did wake up and vow that he would pay back every cent.
He
rented a home in Edinburgh and began to write like a madman. In two years he had paid his creditors 200
thousand. He toiled so hard that he
became ill, but he never ceased writing.
Great books flowed from his mind.
His hair turned white and he became weak with exhaustion, but he had a
debt to pay, and pay it he would whatever the cost. He suffered terribly, but when he died he had paid off the
greatest share of his debt, and all of his creditors honored him as one of the
greatest writers and honorable men of all time. He became great by his labor to pay a debt. So it was with Paul. Do you think we would have ever heard of
Paul had he not heeded the call of Jesus to be an Apostle to the Gentiles? Had he not felt the obligation to carry the
Gospel into the whole world, we would not have his Epistles. Paul is one of the greatest men who ever
lived because he lived to pay a debt.
Paul
does not say to the Romans, "You are obligated to Greeks and non‑Greeks,
to the wise and unwise." He says,
"I am." It is individual
commitment, and not a committee decision.
How many statues have you ever seen erected in honor of a
committee? Every Christian has to
decide on their own what they will do. Is this my debt as well, and do I owe
the world anything? Is it my
responsibility to witness and share the Gospel with lost people? If we leave it to the church as a whole it
just won't happen. Only individuals can
pay this debt. God did not send a committee
into the world. He sent His only Son.
He did not call a committee to be Apostles to the Gentiles. He chose just one man, and that man was
Paul. This does not mean that God does
not use groups, but those He uses are only effective when they are made up of
individuals who have committed themselves to the cause.
If you
do not feel a personal responsibility, it will not happen. I am convinced that every Christian has
people in their lives that only they can touch, and nobody else will. Unless we feel an obligation to do our part
we will be a hindrance rather than a help to fulfilling the purpose of
God. Paul cared about every person that
his life could touch. He had no
prejudice, and no class spirit. He was
a Jew, but he loved all Gentiles. The
Greek word for non‑Greeks is barbaros, which we call barbarians. They are the uncultured and unsophisticated. Paul was an intellectual, and so we can see
why he would love to reach the scholars and the philosophers. But Paul says that he is also a debtor to
the foolish, the uneducated, and those of the lowest status.
There
was no discrimination with Paul. If you
were a human being, he owed you the Gospel, and all the personal love and
compassion he was capable of sharing.
Paul was the ideal, however, and most have not been able to live on his
level. They feel an obligation only to
reach their own class of people. That
is better than not caring about anybody, but it is far from the Christian ideal
we see in Paul. The closer we come to
him the more pleasing we will be to Christ.
One of
the greatest examples I am aware of in crossing all barriers to reach people
was Dr. Frank Laubach. A brilliant man
himself, he took it as his goal to help the illiterates of the world to read
and to discover the Gospel for themselves.
He reduced the Bible to 300 words, and he has taught millions around the
world to read it. We need to catch
something of his spirit so that we can really care about those who live in a
lower state of learning.
Dr.
Laubach wrote, "If you sit down beside an illiterate as an equal, your
heart overflowing with love for him..., if you never frown nor criticize but
look pleased and surprised, and praise him for his progress, a thousand silver
threads wind about his heart and yours.
You are the first educated man that ever looked at him except to swindle
him, and he will be so mystified by your unusual kindness, that he is likely to
stop and ask: "How do you expect to get paid for this? I have no money." The only irresistible
Gospel is love in action....If we serve the illiterates and then tell the
Gospel after we have won their hearts, they will believe in Christ because they
believe in us."
For the
Christian to develop this attitude he or she needs to have a deep conviction
about the common origin and infinite value of every human life. Paul in Acts 17
stressed this on Mars Hill as he spoke to the Greek scholars and philosophers.
He said the God is not far from any of us, and in him we live and move and have
our being. He quotes one of their own poets who wrote, "We are his
offspring." Paul could find a common ground with all people because of his
conviction that all people are loved by God.
Modern
science is confirming this conviction by making it clear that all mankind likely
came from one mother. The study of genetics reveals that the DNA in the cells
of all people has come down the same from the first egg. There is an unchanging
line that goes all the way back to Eve. They studied the DNA from women in
Europe, Asia, New Guinea, Africa, and Australia, and they found it to be
extremely similar. We do not need chemistry to tell us this for the Bible calls
Eve the mother of all living.
It is
hard sometimes to love the unrighteous just because they are from the same origin
and made in the image of God. But the early Christians were just this kind of
unrighteous people before their conversion. Paul writes in
Titus 3:3‑4, "At one time we too were
foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passion and pleasures.
We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another, but when the
kindness and love of God our Savior appeared he saved us..." Paul was in
debt to these very unrighteous and foolish people because those are the people
Jesus died for. Had he not died for such awful people there would be not Gospel
to share with our world. Many faithless fools have become faithful friends of
God because of believers who feel the debt they owe them to let them know they
can become children of God through Christ.
Our
society is producing ruined lives almost as fast as we produce garbage.
Thousands of youth run away, kill themselves, get pregnant, and do every
foolish thing known to man. The folly of the adult population is too obvious to
need listing. It is our duty to try and make a difference in the lives of these
masses of unhappy people. There are endless books on how to get out of debt,
and this is good economic advice, but for those of us who are rich in the grace
of Christ, there is a need to get deeper into debt and feel more deeply our
obligation to share the riches with those who desperately need the Gospel.
Frank
Tillapaugh in his book Unleashing Your Potential tells of visiting with the
pastor of Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston. They were eating in a
restaurant right next to this historic church. In the 40's a busboy worked in
that restaurant by the name of Ho Chi Minh. 2000 Christians in that church were
only feet away from one who would lead the Communist Revolution in China. Many
of them ate in that restaurant, but there is not a hint that one of them
attempted to witness to him. One
friendly Christian might have changed the course of history had they felt the
debt they owed to that young boy so far from his native land. You might not change the world, but you can
change some life you touch if you will just realize, as Paul did, the duty you
have of being in debt to the lost around you.
8.
SHIPPING OUT SHAME Based on
Rom. 1:14‑17
It is
on the highest interest level to hear of people's most embarrassing
moments. Jane Wyman tells of hers. She was preparing for very important guests
and she put a note on the guest towels that she had so carefully selected. The note read, "If you use these I will
murder you." The note was meant
for her husband, of course, but in all the excitement of her preparation she
forgot to remove the note. When the evening was over and the guests had
departed she discovered the towels were still in perfect order, as well as the
note itself.
She
wanted to crawl into a hole she was so embarrassed. Something like this happens
to all of us at some time or other. Carl Michaelson tells of his little girl
coming in with a tear in her pants and his wife was angry. She had done this
too often, and she said to her, "Now you go to your room and sew up that
tear." The poor little kid never had a needle in her hand. The mother went
to check on her a little later and there were her torn pants on the floor, but
no little girl. She went searching and when she saw the light on in the
basement she called down, "Are you down there running around with your
pants off?" There was silence, and then a deep voice responded, "No
madam, I'm just reading the gas meter." Talk about embarrassing!
Art Linkletter tells about one of his most
embarrassing experiences on his once popular show People Are Funny. They had an auction offering the person in
the studio who contributed most to charity the chance to come up and hit him
with a chocolate cream pie. The highest
bitter was a sweet little gray haired grandmother. She wrote out her personal check for 200 dollars. She picked up the pie and smashed it
completely across his face. Then she
twisted it which forced the meringue under his eyes. He said he would never forget that experience, but to add to the
embarrassment her check bounced, and he knew he had been had.
Life
is filled with embarrassing moments. We
feel embarrassed as children about our silly mistakes that everybody laughs at. Then as teens we are embarrassed about our
zips, our clothes, and quite often about our parents. But it works both ways.
And when we become parents, we are often embarrassed by our children,
and their behavior.
Shame
because of our feelings of inferiority and our sinful desires are a normal part
of everyone's life. A Christian father
writing in Moody Monthly says the most embarrassing thing he ever did was
reading the Bible with his children.
The first thing they asked was why did Abraham lie about his wife
Sarah? His daughter asked, "Daddy
didn't he love her?" Then came Lot
in Sodom and they wanted to know why the town homosexuals wanted to beat down the
door of Lot to get at his guests.
Things did not get better when he got to David. Questions about adultery and murder were not
comfortable for him. He switched to
Proverbs for a while, but then had to face:
"Daddy, what's a prostitute?"
It was one of the hardest things he ever did because the Bible deals
openly with all the things that shame and embarrass us. But it did force him to prepare his children
for the real world.
The
feelings of shame and embarrassment are not all bad. Peter the Great was once so
angry with a servant on his boat that he was going to throw him overboard and
let him drown. The servant reminded him that this would go on his record for
all of history. This reminder cooled him off, for he did not want the shame of
that blot on his record. Shame prevented his sin. This is the positive value of
shame.
We
need to be sensitive in some areas of life or we lose the ability to blush and
nothing embarrasses us anymore. We
become hardened to the sinful nature of man.
This is going on all the time in our culture. People are on talk shows openly sharing their sex life. Articles in the paper deal with the most
intimate aspects of life, which were once preserved for the eyes of
professional people only. We are an
open culture, and our children now watch on TV things that would have turned
most people's faces red with embarrassment only a generation ago.
There
is no doubt that some openness on sensitive issues is good. The Bible itself is quite open, but the fact
is, if the openness does not carry with it a sense of shame and embarrassment
it is harmful. Paul in the last part of
Romans 1 tells of how God gave people over to a depraved mind. They felt no shame about anything. They did every kind of wickedness and not
only felt no shame, but gloried in their evil, and enjoyed the evil of
others. The worst judgment that can
happen to a culture is to lose its sense of shame. That is the bottom of the pit when man gets so depraved that
nothing produces shame. Abraham
Heschel, the Jewish author, in his book What Is Man? writes, "I am afraid
of people who are never embarrassed by their own pettiness, prejudices, envy
and conceit, never embarrassed at the profanation of life. What the world needs is a sense of
embarrassment."
On the other hand, we have a world filled
with people who are neurotic because they are ashamed and embarrassed about
their bodies and their normal sex desires.
Christian counselors by the thousands are busy every day trying to help Christian people get over their shame
that robs them of the joy God intended them to experience in marriage. Shame over the legitimate enjoyment of sex
is a curse. In the Autobiography of
Gandhi he tells of the night his father died.
He was by his bedside until 11 P. M. when his uncle came to relieve
him. He went to bed with his wife and
enjoyed the pleasure of lovemaking.
Later the message came that his father had died. He felt shame and wrote,
"So all was over! I had but to ring my hands. I felt deeply
ashamed and miserable. I ran to my father's room. I saw
that, if animal passion had
not blinded me, I should have
been spared the torture of
separation from my father during
his last moments. I should have been massaging him, and he
would have died in my
arms. But now it was uncle who had
had this privilege. He was so deeply devoted to his elder
brother that he had earned
the honor of doing him the last
services! My father had forebodings of the coming
event.
He had made a sign for pen
and paper, and had written:
'Prepare for the last
rights.' He had then snapped the
amulet off his arm and also
his gold necklace of tulasi‑
beads and flung them
aside. A moment after this he was
no more.
The shame, to which I have referred in a foregoing
chapter, was this shame of
my carnal desire even at the
critical hour of my father's
death, which demanded wakeful
service. It is a blot I have never been able to
efface or forget."
Over the
years I have counseled a number of people who feel this shame and guilt because
they were not there when a loved one died.
They may have been enjoying some valid pleasure of life at the time, and
they are ashamed of themselves for their self‑indulgence rather than self‑sacrifice. It may be just eating or sleeping, but they
feel guilty and ashamed. The goal of
the counselor is to help them get beyond their neurotic shame and see that
nobody can be in a state of perpetual self‑denial. Even in a crisis we need relief, and some
enjoyment to balance out the burden.
So
what we have is a crazy paradoxical world where there is both too much shame,
and also too little of it. This brings
us to Paul's dealing with this very issue in writing to the Romans. Human nature hasn't changed, and the issues
of Paul's day are the same as those we deal with in our day. In 1:16 Paul says, "I am not ashamed of
the Gospel of Christ." So we can
deal with the Christian need to overcome shame in dealing with the Gospel and
other religious issues. Then in Rom.
6:21 Paul uses this same word in referring to their former lives of sin. He writes, "What benefit did you reap
at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?"
What
we have here is Christians who are on both sides of the fence striving to not
be ashamed of certain things, and at the same time trying to maintain shame of
other things. Unfortunately, it often
happens that we feel the shame where we shouldn't, and don't feel it where we
should. We have shame we are to ship
out, and shame we are to shape up. It
is not shape up or ship out, but shape up and ship out. Paul is dealing here with‑
SHAME WE ARE TO SHIP OUT.
Paul was
not ashamed of the Gospel when he wrote, but he was earlier in his life. He was
ashamed that Jewish people were claiming that Jesus was the Messiah. He was a
man who was crucified as a criminal, and it was embarrassing for people to
honor him. He wanted to hunt them down and rid the world of such people. After
Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus he was never ashamed of Jesus
again. Then he was ashamed of his stubbornness and blindness that made him a
persecutor of Jesus. Not all people have such a dramatic event in their lives.
Timothy
was one of the great men of the New Testament and a favorite friend of Paul. He
was not a bold personality, but was rather shy and timid. He had to fight with
shame in identifying with Jesus. Paul had to give him a pep talk in II Tim. 1:7‑8,
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of
love and of self‑discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our
Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the
Gospel." Poor timid Timothy had a crucified criminal as his Lord, and he
had a jailbird for his leader. It was hard to be bold with these embarrassing
credentials. How would you feel if an interviewer looked at your resume and
asked about your present status as follower of public rioter and prisoner Paul,
and partner in stirring up hostilities in many communities over the teachings
of an executed criminal in Israel. This might bring a blush to any man's face.
Peter
was a bold man and thought he could take on the Roman soldiers single handed
with his one sword. But when he saw Jesus in bondage he denied he even knew him
was a servant girl said he was a follower of this prisoner. He was ashamed to
be linked with Jesus at that point. We do not have to face what he did, but we
all have the battle with shame in identifying with our Lord in a world where
his name is often used as a curse word.
It is a common battle that Christians have to try and overcome that
shame that keeps them from being a witness to their faith in Christ.
Jesus
had to endure shame as he hung on the cross, and was nearly naked in
public. His disciples had forsaken him,
and the people were mocking him. It was the ultimate in embarrassment, but
Jesus rose above it and conquered the shame of it. Heb. 12:2 says, "Let us
fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy
set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and set down at the right
hand of the throne of God." Jesus looked beyond the shame to the purpose
of God in saving millions by his act of sacrifice. He shipped out the emotion
of shame and took on the emotion of joy, for he saw the unseen values of all
eternity that would come from this event.
Paul did
the same thing. If he would have looked only at the visible it would have been
embarrassing. He was serving the Lord of all and yet was often in prison and
going through all kinds of hardships. But Paul did not look at the negative but
at the positive. That is why he could say he was not ashamed of the Gospel. He
knew it was the power that would save lives for all eternity. He had insight
into the invisible and the ultimate victory just as Jesus did. You overcome
shame by developing an emotion that is even stronger. Paul writes of his
victory over shame in II Tim. 1:11‑12, "And of this Gospel I was
appointed a herald and an Apostle and a teacher. That is why I m suffering as I
am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced
that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day."
We are
often ashamed because we do suffer. We are ashamed to be bold for Christ
because we fear people will say, "If being a Christian is so great, why
are you more poor than my non‑Christian friends? Why do you have as many
problems as anyone else. Your life is no dream come true." We are
embarrassed by this reality. It would be easy if being a Christian made you
superior to everyone else, but that is not the way it works, and so we have
shame. Almost every educated man alive had a better life than Paul did, and
they were not being stoned and run out of town, or being arrested. He was seen as a fool by the wise of his
day, but he was not ashamed because of his confidence in what was ahead in
Christ.
In our
day the shame is made even worse by the preaching of the health and wealth
gospel. A true believer is supposedly never to be sick or in debt. Life is just
a bowl of cherries for the believer. This perversion so contrary to the New
Testament is an embarrassment for we can seldom live up to this false image, and
so we do not claim to be believers as we should. Paul, on the other hand,
gloried in what he suffered for Christ. Everyone could see he was not rich and
was often in trouble of one kind or another, and he also had his physical
problems. He was not embarrassed by all of this negative at all, for he saw the
positive he had in Christ.
In our
culture, however, we are often embarrassed by any level of failure for it looks
like we are not blest of God is we are not on the highest level of success.
Anything less than the best is an embarrassment. Beatrix Potter, the English
writer, wrote the tale of Peter Rabbit as a girl. As she grew older, richer,
and more successful, she became embarrassed by her early work and never allowed
Peter Rabbit to be mentioned in her presence. It is a quirk of human nature,
but the more successful we become the greater the danger of being ashamed of
Jesus.
Charles
Colson in his book The Struggle For Men's Hearts and Minds gives this analysis of
American Christianity: "We live in a time that would seem to be marked by
unprecedented spiritual resurgence; 96 % of all American say they believe in
God; 80% profess to be Christians. Yet families are splitting apart in record
numbers. Countless millions of unborn children have been murdered since 1973.
And there are 100 times more burglaries in so‑called
"Christian" America that in so‑called "pagan" Japan.
Why this paradox between profession and practice? Why is the faith of more than
50 million Americans who claim to be born again not making more of an impact on
the moral values of our land?"
"The answer is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor martyred
y the Nazis, labeled cheap grace: the perception that Christianity offers only
a flood of blessings, the rights of the kingdom without responsibilities to the
King. This easy believism fails to take biblical truth to heart and fails to
act in obedience to the Scriptures. The result is a church which increasingly
accommodates secular values. Not knowingly, of course, but simply by gradual
acceptance of secular standards which have become comfortable."
He is
saying, in essence, that we as American Christians are embarrassed by the
Gospel. It does not fit our idea of what is acceptable, and so we have tailored
it to fit the way we feel so we can be more comfortable with it. The paradox is
that the only way we can get back to Paul's position of not being ashamed of
the Gospel is to add to our lives shame for all that is not the Gospel. We need
to be embarrassed by all of the false gospels of our day. We need to feel shame
for all the perversions and rip‑offs that operate under the name of
Christian. Shame can be an asset. An
honest look at our own sinfulness will prevent us from being hypocritical and
holier than thou in our approach to witnessing.
We need
to be honest about the reality that we are not saved because we are better than
others. We have the same problems and the same tendencies to sin as anyone
else. We have the same temptations, and the same desires for success, fame,
things and pleasure. People need to know that salvation is not earned by being
better, but it is a gift that comes when we have faith in the one who offers
it, and that is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not want people to
focus on us, but to look to Jesus who alone can save.
Frederick Buechner was a chaplain as a Christian
Academy. One day he was walking through the slums of Manhatten, and on the wall
of an abandoned building there was a mass of graffiti. There were four letter
words, names of lovers, and right in the midst of all of this someone put
"Jesus Saves." His first
reaction was embarrassment to see that message in the midst of all that profanity.
It shocked his sense of Presbyterian propriety. He tried to figure out why he
had such a revulsion to that message, and he concluded he was embarrassed for
lack of faith.
He
really had lost his conviction that Jesus could save people out of the sewer
they were living in. He expected Jesus to save only the clean and respectable
people. He realized he was embarrassed because he had lost his awareness of the
power of the Gospel. That is why any of is ashamed of the Gospel. It is because
we have lost faith it its power to save anyone who will believe. We need to
ship out this shame and regain the faith of Paul that made him unashamed of the
Gospel. This will lead us to be more bold and powerful in sharing this good
news with all whom God brings us into contact.
Baptism
and the Lord's Supper are two of the simplest things we do as Christians. But the fact is, these two simple acts of
obedience to Christ have created a great deal of controversy in the Christian
world. Every aspect of baptism is a
major issue on which Christians differ.
THE TIMING OF IT:
Should it be when people are infants, or when they are old enough to be
believers and able to make their own choice?
THE METHOD OF IT:
Should it be by sprinkling, by pouring, or by immersion?
THE MEANING OF IT:
Is it a sacrament by which grace is imparted, or is it a symbol of our
obedience to Christ?
THE NECESSITY OF IT: Is it essential for salvation, or is it just a basic step of
obedience? Is it essential for church
membership, or can one be a member of the church and not be baptized?
Beside
all of these issues there is the more subjective issue as to what one is
suppose to feel when they are baptized.
The author of How To Live Like A King's Kid shared this testimony of his
baptism: "So I went to his little
Baptist Church with him. And when the
pastor invited anyone who wanted to, to come forward and make a public
confession of faith‑a confession with his mouth that he had faith in
Jesus in his heart‑I went forward and did it. They scheduled a baptismal service for me right away, and I
dutifully got wet all over, being immersed in the dunk tank. I didn't mind too much. The Bible said New Testament Christians were
baptized by being immersed‑that's what the word baptizo means‑and
if New Testament Christians did it, that was good enough for me. Besides, I read that Jesus was baptized by
John in the River Jordan, and so baptism seemed a good thing for me if I was
going to follow Him. When I came up out
of the water, I was disappointed. I
didn't feel anything but wet. I thought
I had done something pretty terrific, humbling myself in the little old country
Baptist Church like that. And I waited
for a ball of fire to hit, but nothing happened, not then. Ed said the feelings would come later."
He
went on to say that they did come later, but he was expecting his baptism to be
like that of Jesus when the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove, and
God spoke from heaven about how pleased He was with His Son. His expectations were too high, for baptism
is an act of obedience to Christ, and its value does not depend on how it makes
you feel. It should make you feel good
to obey your Lord who commanded that all who follow Him be baptized. But He did not promise it would be an
experience of ecstasy. In fact, in many
parts of the world being baptized is a very scary experience, for it can mean
rejection by your family and society.
Many obey Christ in fear and trembling, for the consequences of their
obedience can be suffering and even death.
Trying
to keep up with the changes in churches on this issue is almost
impossible. Many churches that
practiced only infant baptism are now baptizing by the believer's baptism, and
many are doing so by immersion. Some
even baptize infants by immersion. John
Westerhoff tells of the infant baptism in a Catholic Church. The father came down the isle with a coffin
that he had made, and the mother was carrying a pail of water. The godparents carried the baby. The coffin was placed on the alter while the
priest filled it with water. He took
the child and held its nose and pushed it under the water saying, "You are
drowned in the name of God the Father, the God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit." The congregation then stood and sang joyful
Easter songs. The priest said over the
head of the child, "You are now resurrected so you might love and serve
the Lord."
So now
you have even babies being immersed with the same symbolism that Baptists have
stressed for centuries. Many Catholic
churches now recognize that for centuries Catholics baptized in large baptismal
pools, and now they are going back to that original method. Christians everywhere that recognizing that
baptism is symbolic of the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul in Rom. 6 makes it clear that we are
buried with Christ in baptism, and that we are also symbolically raised from
the dead with Christ. The only adequate
way to convey this is by immersion. You
cannot be buried in a cup or a baptismal fount. You need a large enough body of water to immerse the whole person
to convey the idea of burial and resurrection.
That is why the New Testament always portrays the quantity of water
involved in baptism.
In John
3:23 we read that John the Baptist was baptizing in Aenon because there was
much water there. He needed a lot of
water because he had to immerse people in it and not merely sprinkle them. In Acts 8:36 we read that Philip and the
Ethiopian Eunuch were going through the desert and they came to a body of
water. The Eunuch who had just received
Jesus as his Savior said, "Look, here is water, why shouldn't I be
baptized?" Until enough water was
available the possibility of baptism was not considered. This man was not heading across a desert
without any water. If it was only a
matter of sprinkling some water on his head, or of pouring some out of a jug on
his head, there was nothing to hinder him from being baptized before they came
to this body of water. This new convert
knew that he needed to be immersed, and only an adequate water supply could
lead to a meaningful baptism. The point
is, not any amount of water can give witness to the death and resurrection of
Christ. It takes enough to bury a
person in.
Now we
have to be honest with the historical reason for Christian departing from
immersion and going to sprinkling. As
the church spread not everybody lived near a river or a lake, and it was a
great inconvenience to find a body of water for immersion. Some churches in desert places had no access
to a large body of water. They began to
argue that even though immersion was the New Testament mode that it is no where
stated that it has to be in this mode for all times and places. Added to this there was the problem of the
sick and aged who could not travel to the river even if there was one not far
away. Even in Baptist churches there
are cases of the sick and aged who are taken into membership without
immersion. They fall into the same
category as the thief on the cross who entered heaven with Jesus even though he
could not obey Jesus and be baptized.
The
inconvenience of immersion led the Catholic Church to change, and by the 5th
century sprinkling was almost universal.
When the Protestant Reformation came in the 1500's all the great leaders
struggled with this issue. They all
agreed that immersion was the New Testament mode, and that believer's baptism
was the New Testament practice. But
after a thousand years of the tradition of sprinkling it was hard to go back
and so Lutherans, Presbyterians and later the Methodists all stuck with infant
baptism. There were many practical
reasons for not changing back to the New Testament method, and we should not be
too critical of the great Protestant leaders, for they went through agony over
this issue. Had we been in the shoes
of Martin Luther we may have done the same thing, and had we been in the
Arabian Baptist Church of 4911 No Water Drive, Sand Dune, Arabia, we may have
chosen to sprinkle rather than immerse.
We do
not have the limitations that many have had, and so we have no reason not to
follow the New Testament pattern of believer's baptism by immersion. There are not persons in the New Testament who
were baptized before they were believers.
We read in Acts 2:41, "They that gladly received His Word were
baptized." In Acts 8:12 we read,
"When they believed...they were baptized." In Acts 18:8 we read, "Chrispus believed...and many of the
Corinthians having believed, and were baptized." This does not mean one has to be an adult to be baptized. Many children are believers. I was baptized at age 9, and I remember that
as a deacon I voted for a 4‑year‑old girl to be baptized. She knew her theology as well as any
adult. She loved Jesus and understood
she was being a witness by her baptism to the death and resurrection of her
Savior. Age is not the issue. It is belief.
Baptists have been critical of those who baptize children so young, but
there is no basis for it. Jesus said,
"Let the little children come to me and forbid them not, for of such is
the kingdom of heaven." I cannot
imagine any child who loves Jesus, and who desires to be baptized in obedience
to Him, being to young. If a child
knows what it is to obey Jesus, I would not want to be the one who says to them
that they are too young to obey Jesus.
The New Testament makes it clear that whole families were baptized
together, and there is no reason to assume that this did not include small
children. You have the family of Lydia
and the Philippian jailor as examples.
The important thing to focus on is the focus of Paul, which is the death
and resurrection of Christ. Baptism is
our witness to the fact that we identify with the two great acts that made
Jesus the Savior of the world.
The
cross and the resurrection are the foundation of God's plan of salvation. Baptism is our witness to the world that we
are a part of that plan. We are
Christians and followers of Christ, and we are committed to Him as Lord and
Savior. We are not to pretend that we
are superior to others who may baptize in some other way. We only say that the New Testament way best
conveys the meaning of baptism. It is
the way that gives the most intense witness.
Let's say we are going to dramatize the experience of John being caught
up into heaven. At one point we are
going to bear witness to his vision to the glory of God on His throne. Some on the planning committee suggest that
we use a flashlight behind a sheet to convey the glory of God. Others say we should hook up 3 or 4
floodlights. The first group says this
last idea involves too much work, and the flashlight is so easy and
convenient. But the others persist
because they say that you cannot witness to the glory of God's unapproachable
light with a flashlight. Even the
floodlights cannot begin to convey the glory of God, but the flashlight will
convey nothing but the weakness of His glory.
It is better to have no witness at all than one that is so pathetically
weak.
This
is the same issue with baptism.
Baptists feel that just as a flashlight bears little witness to the
glory of God, so other modes of baptism bear little witness to the death and
resurrection of Christ. Immersion was
the New Testament method because it does illustrate the experience of death and
resurrection. The body is put under the
water to be buried with Christ, and it is brought up again like one being
resurrected from the grave. It is the
only adequate way to symbolize the death and resurrection of Christ. Those baptized by some other mode are not
any less Christian, but their witness conveys less meaning. Many of the greatest Christians in history
have not been immersed, and they are no less great Christians for it.
John
Calvin, the great reformer, wrote in his Institutes, "But whether the
person baptized be wholly immersed, and whether thrice or once, or whether
water be only poured or sprinkled upon him, is of no importance; churches ought
to be left at liberty in this respect, to act according to the difference of
countries. The very word baptize,
however, signifies to immerse; and it is certain that immersion was the
practice of the ancient church."
This is a view that has been held by millions. Even Baptist libraries all over the world are filled with the
books of those believers who were not immersed. Baptists do not persist in defending immersion because they feel
it is essential to salvation. It is
because they feel it is essential to adequately convey the death and
resurrection of Christ as its meaning.
There
are many good arguments for not bothering with immersion. It is so inconvenient and more time
consuming, and it far messier. But no
one can escape the fact that it is the only way to convey the picture of burial
and resurrection. Since that is the
point of it all, Baptists say we have to put up with the inconvenience in order
to give an adequate witness. It doesn't
make Baptists superior, but it does make their witness superior as to what
Jesus did for us in His death and resurrection. The purpose of baptism is to point to Him and to indicate our
commitment to Him. It is an act of
obedience by which we thank Him for what He has done for us in His death and
resurrection.
10. WITNESS WITH WATER Based
on Rom. 6:3‑4
A
visitor to a drought stricken area was talking to some of the citizens about
their no rain situation. As they were complaining
about the difficulties it brought to them he sought to comfort them with the it‑could‑be‑worse
philosophy. He said, "If you think
it is bad here, you should go South.
They haven't had rain for so long that the Baptists are sprinkling, the
Methodists are using a damp rag, and the Presbyterians are issuing rain
checks." The story is of doubtful
historicity, but the point is true that water is essential and the amount of
water available can be a determining factor in the mode of baptism. In John 3:23 we read that John the Baptist
was baptizing in Aenon because there was much water there. This implies that a large quantity was
necessary for an effective witness through baptism.
In
Acts 8:36 we read that Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch were moving along and
came to a body of water, and he said, "See here is water; what does hinder
me to be baptized?" Until enough
water was available the possibility of baptism was not considered. He was certainly not traveling in the desert
without water, and so if it was a mere matter of sprinkling or pouring a little
water on him there was nothing to hinder him from doing so before they came to
a body of water. All of this is saying
that an inadequate supply of water is a hindrance to a meaningful baptism.
Nature
by means of water gives witness to its power in floods, tidal waves and
cloudbursts of rain. The amount of
water is a determining factor in the intensity of the witness. No one is greatly impressed by a normal
rain, but when it falls in sheets and the streets become rivers people are wide
awake, and they stand at awe at the power of nature and the witness it can give
of that power through water. As
Baptists we feel this has a parallel in the spiritual realm. We are to witness with water concerning the
power of God in our lives, and the quantity of water makes a difference in the
intensity of the witness. We feel that
the biblical pattern of immersion of the whole person in water gives the most
adequate witness. Those who sprinkle
admit that immersion was the biblical mode, but they argue that it is nowhere
commanded as essential, and so there is no reason the mode cannot be
changed. But any change only weakens
the witness.
We do
not feel that baptism saves, and so there are millions who have been sprinkled
who truly love Christ and are brothers and sisters in Christ. We continue to defend and practice immersion
not because we think it is essential for salvation, but because we think it is
essential as an adequate witness. If it
was just a spiritual matter completely we could forget water entirely, but we
cannot do so because literal water is essential to the witness. To get the point clearer, look at another
example to get a better perspective.
Let's say we are going to dramatize the experience of John being caught
up into heaven. At one point we are
going to bear witness to his vision to the glory of God on His throne. Some on the planning committee suggest that
we use a flashlight behind a sheet to convey the glory of God. Others say we should hook up 3 or 4
floodlights. The first group says this
last idea involves too much work, and the flashlight is so easy and convenient. But the others persist because they say that
you cannot witness to the glory of God's unapproachable light with a
flashlight. Even the floodlights cannot
begin to convey the glory of God, but the flashlight will convey nothing but
the weakness of His glory. It is better
to have no witness at all than one that is so pathetically weak.
We
feel that just as a flashlight bears little witness to the glory of God, so
sprinkling bears little witness to the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul makes it clear in verse 3‑4 of
what we are witnessing to in baptism, and so we want to examine these two basic
ideas from these verses. First we see‑
I. IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST. v. 3
Paul
says that in baptism we are identified with Jesus in His death. We are giving witness to the fact that as
Jesus died for sin, so we will die to sin.
We want to bury the old man of sin that clings to us and holds us back
from fellowship with God. This does not
mean that the Christian no longer sins after baptism, but that he is committing
himself to never again live in sin. He
identifies himself with Christ, and in so doing he cannot be un‑Christ
like without struggle and guilt. In
other words, the Christian still sins, but no longer enjoys living in sin
because of his identification with Christ.
Sin becomes conspicuous and can no longer be practiced without the pangs
of guilt that drive us to repentance.
Paul is
writing to people who are deceiving themselves and trying to justify sin by
saying that if they sin grace will abound all the more, and so we need not fear
to sin. It was a subtle way of making
sin lawful. Paul demolishes this idea
by calling their attention to what they witnessed to in the water of
baptism. They gave witness that were identified
with Christ in His death. They were
buried with Him, and the man of sin was no longer to be allowed to live. No clever reasoning can be allowed to
displace this witness. If you allow the
old man to revive and live in sin, you reject the witness of your baptism, and
are no longer identified with Christ.
Baptism is to be a witness not only to the world, but a perpetual
witness to your self in time of temptation.
You are to look back, as Paul makes the Roman Christians look back, and
remember what you gave witness to in the water of baptism. You said, "I bury myself with
Christ. He died for sin and I die to
sin. I can never again give myself to a
sinful life." Baptism witnesses to
what we have determined to do with our wills.
By God's grace we will cease to serve sin.
We will stand with Christ until death in the battle
against sin. The second thing we
witness to in baptism is our‑
II. IMITATION OF CHRIST. v. 4
As we
are to be identified with Jesus in His death, so we are to be imitators of His
life. Paul says, "Like as Christ was
raised up from the dead even so we also should walk in newness of
life." Jesus rose a new person,
for when He died He bore our sins, but when He rose He was pure and spotless,
and from then on He was eternally holy.
It is certainly an ideal beyond us, and baptism will never be able to
cleanse us and make us perfect as He was, but it is to be a witness of our
determination to aim for this high and holy goal.
We
are to imitate Jesus in His holiness, and though we cannot fully attain it, we
can go far by His grace. If we consider
the context, we can see just how important this concept is and the need for
pursuing it. Paul is writing to
Christians who were violating their witness.
It shows that baptism is not automatic in its effect. It is not magic, and does nothing without
the will of the person committed to its meaning. These Christians were trying to be identified with Jesus without
imitating Him in newness of life. They
wanted the blessings without the responsibility. Paul reminds them that this is folly, for they cannot identify
with Christ without imitating Him, for the witness of baptism is in two parts,
and they are as inseparable in meaning and life as they are in the act.
If you
only go down in the water of baptism and do not come up, there will be no
imitating of Christ, for you will be literally dead. Nor is it possible to come up to newness of life without having
previously gone under. Without death
there can be no resurrection. Both are
essential for the full witness of baptism, and both are essential for a full
Christian life. Only those who are both
dead to sin and alive to Christ are giving full witness to the good news in
their lives. Let us, therefore,
recognize the serious significance of this witness with water. It is to be a symbol to others and to
ourselves of what our lives must seek to always bear witness to, and that is
that we are identified with Christ and His death, and we are imitators of His
life in how we live.
11. THE ONLY WAY OUT Based on Rom. 7:18‑8:2
Floyd
Collins was a professional cave hunter.
He found the famous Crystal Cave in Kentucky in 1917. It is a popular tourist cave now, but back
them it was too far off the road to get people to come to it. Floyd's dream was to find a bigger and
better cave, even more beautiful than the world famous Mammoth Cave. So he began exploring, and one day as he
went deep into a cave, he squeezed into a narrow opening, and found the cavern
of his dreams. It was like a domed cathedral studded with glittering
stalactites and stalagmites. He was so
excited he became careless, and his foot pushed a small rock that held up a
huge boulder, and the boulder came down on his left ankle pinning him there
deep in the cave.
He almost pulled his leg off trying to get
free, but it was hopeless. For 24
hours he laid there in pain and fear. Finally, he heard someone coming. He yelled, and his two partners found
him. They could not budge the boulder,
however. He begged them to go get help.
In a matter of hours that cave sight became pandemonium. Crowds gathered as the news spread of a
trapped man. His brother offered five
hundred dollars to anyone who could rescue Floyd. Many tried but failed.
For two days these attempts went on, and Floyd was getting weak. Finally, they offered five hundred dollars
to any doctor who would amputate his leg, but there were no takers.
By this
time reporters and photographers had made this cave sight the focus of world
attention. Fifteen hundred people who
camped in the area, and the governor had to call in the state militia to keep
law and order. In desperation to get
Floyd out they tried to dig a shaft from the top. This led to a cave in that blocked the passage to him, and so they
could no longer get food and water to him.
Eleven days later they broke through, but Floyd Collins was dead. The body could not be removed, so they held
a service right there, and the cave became his tomb.
It was
not a very happy ending, for it reveals that with all of man's resources there
are some things he just can't get out of.
There are traps he just can't escape from. Floyd could not get out himself, nor could anyone else help him
out. He had gotten himself into a truly
hopeless situation. Now this
experience, we must admit, is very rare, but it illustrates a fact of life that
is not rare, but it so common, it is true of all of us, and everybody
else. Everyone of us has explored the
cave of sin and gotten trapped by the boulder of guilt. The Bible says, "All have sinned and
come short of the glory of God."
Once you are in this cave there are no ways of escape that man can
devise.
We have
a record of all the ways men have tried to get free from the bondage to sin.
Men have offered millions of sacrifices to God in order to get Him to forgive
and release them from sin. But there is
no record that anyone was ever set free by this method, even when they offered
their own babies, or young virgins in sacrifice. All of this folly just added to the darkness of the cave in which
they were trapped. Two thousand years
ago men use to dig a pit, and get down in it, and kill a bull above it. They would then let all the blood come down
upon them in the pit to atone for their sin.
All they did was make a major mess. They never washed one sin away with
all of that blood.
Men have
tried other ways to escape their bondage.
They have tried to atone for sin and escape it by doing hard things,
like crawling on their hands and knees for hundreds of miles; by standing in
cold water in a cave up their neck until nearly frozen; by kissing thousands of
steps as they climb to a shrine on a mountain top. On and on goes the list of the many things men have done to try
and get free from the cave of sin. The
tragedy is none of them work, just like nothing worked to rescue Floyd
Collins. Man, with all of his progress,
and all of his marvelous inventions, is no closer than the caveman to a way of
escaping the cave of sin.
Does
this mean that man is in a hopeless situation?
Yes it does, as far as man is concerned there is nothing he can do to
escape the chains of sin. Once you have
sinned there is no way to unsin. It is
done, and the wages of sin is death, and so man is trapped. The inner anxiety
cause from being trapped drives men to all sorts of things to deaden the pain of his fear and guilt. Alcohol, drugs, sex, amusements of all
kinds, dominate his life in the hopes of drowning his sense of despair over the
fact that he cannot escape. Yet we need
not despair, for there is good news.
The good news is, man is not alone in his fight for freedom. There is a God who also hates sin, and all
that it does to man to rob him of life. God has come up with a plan to deal
with the hopeless situation.
It is
hopeless for man, that is, but God has a solution. That huge boulder of guilt that keeps you pinned to the floor of
sin can be dissolved in the blood of Christ.
You can't do anything about sin, but Jesus can. He can forgive it because he paid for
it. If I bought a thousand books, I can
give them away if I want to, and I can give them to anybody I choose. If I want you to have one, I can give it to
you if you will take it. Jesus
purchased forgiveness for all men, and He is ready to give it to any man who
will say he wants it. Those who receive
it can shout with Paul, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus." You are
free in Christ and no longer trapped in the cave of sin, but free to come out
into the sunlight and live again. There
are only two ways to deal with sin: You
can try and fight it on your own, and like Floyd Collins parish in a hopeless
battle, or you can receive forgiveness in Christ as a free gift.
Forgiveness
is complete with God. He does not say I
forgive, but I will never forget. I will let you off this time, but if you ever
fall again I will drag out all of your failures of the past and show you the
scum that you are. The blood of Christ
cleanses from all sin, and that means it removes it. There is no way you can know how many gravy spots I have had on
my shirt, because when it is washed the spots are removed and gone for good,
and there is no mark of its having been present. So God sees you when you are forgiven as clean and pure with no
remembrance of your spots and stains.
You have
to deal with the new spots and stains, and confess your latest sins, and get
them forgiven, but once you come to Christ and ask His forgiveness, you do not
have to deal with your past sins any longer.
I do not take my suit and rub it where I had soup stains last year. I forgot all the stains of the past, for
they are gone. I do not feel
embarrassed by what use to be on my sleeve, for it is gone. All I have to do is deal with the now, and
keep the shirt clean. Deal with sin
daily, just as you wash your hands and face daily. Ask Jesus to cleanse you and forgive you, and start each day
fresh and clean. If you get a blot on your clean day, get it cared for so the
next day you can start with a clean slate.
Forgiveness is connected with reconciliation with God, for forgiveness
has as its goal being restored to a right relationship. If God just said, "I forgive you now, get
lost," what good would forgiveness be?
We would still be without God and hope.
We want more than just not to suffer a penalty, we want life with
meaning, joy, hope, and fellowship with God. The story is told of a servant
girl caught stealing from the Queen.
She was brought before her majesty for sentencing. She threw herself before the Queen, and
begged for forgiveness, and pledging complete loyalty in the future. Touched by the tears, the Queen said, "Rise,
I forgive you, but I don't want to see you around here anymore. Leave the palace and find employment
elsewhere." "But your
grace," the servant girl cried, "That isn't forgiveness. That is merely pardoned. I want to be forgiven so that I may remain
in your service." The Queen was
surprised by this depth of discernment and said, "You are right, return to
your duties as though nothing had happened, for you are forgiven."
So God
says to those who receive Christ, "Your sins are gone, and you can return
to fellowship with Me. The past no
longer blocks the way, for it is no longer remembered." Saving men from
hell is just a marvelous fringe benefit, but that is not the primary goal of
God in saving men. He wants them to be
in fellowship with Him. He wants them
to be a part of His family forever. The
father of the Prodigal Son did not want him home just to get him out of the
pigsty and cleaned up, he wanted him home to be with him, and to love him. So
God also does not save men just to keep them out of hell, but because he wants
them to enjoy heaven with Him. God
wants to forgive you, not forsake you.
God wants to pardon you, not punish you. God wants to befriend you, not blast you.
All
repentance is, is being honest with yourself and God. Repentance means you admit to God you are trapped, and going in
the direction that you know is leading
to destruction. The reason this is hard for many is because of our pride. We are like the man who was driving to
Detroit. As he turned onto the freeway
his wife told him he had turned the wrong way, for Detroit was the other
direction. He said, "I know what I
am doing," and he stubbornly refused to consider he may have made a
mistake. A few miles down the road he
saw a sign that said Chicago 75 miles.
He was shaken up a bit by that sign, but refused to change his
direction. After two more signs, he
knew he was headed the wrong way, but he just could not admit to his wife that
he made a mistake. He kept hoping there
was a way he could get to Detroit without turning around.
That is
where man is. He wants to go to heaven,
and live forever in the paradise of God, where there is no sin, suffering, or
death. Who would not want such an
eternal life of joy and abundance? His
sin, however, is taking him the other way to a life of loss, and darkness, and
the absence of all that is appealing.
He knows it too, but his pride makes him stubborn, and he refuses to
admit he could be such a fool as to risk the glory of heaven for the sake of
his sin. No man wants to admit he gave
up the chance to get diamonds because he was to busy going after jelly
beans. No man will feel comfortable
admitting he gave up a chance to be rich because he wanted to read comic
books. Man's pride makes it so hard for
him to be honest, but only when he is honest, can he stop being a fool. Repentance is simply admitting I am going
the wrong way, and now I am sick of it, and want to turn around and go the way
that leads to life.
Repentance is not a one time thing, as if you can only make a wrong turn
once in life. Christians who are sensitive to the Holy Spirit will repent
frequently, as they grow and walk in the light. They will see they are going the wrong way, and need to repent
and turn around time and time again. It
is not anything to be ashamed of, for it is something to be proud of, for to
repent is to be honest with yourself and God.
A couple
of years ago this story came out in the Dallas Times Herald. A man who had been active with the Nazi's
during World War II feared reprisals when the war ended, so he hid himself in
the attic of his sister's barn. There
he lived alone, isolated and cut off from life. He ate only the little food his sister brought him. His whole existence was limited to that
small room. When the authorities
finally discovered him, they checked their records and could find no charges
against him. They had never wanted him
for anything, so he had spent 30 years in self‑imposed imprisonment. You say, what a pathetic waste of life. What a colossal fool for not finding out he
could have been a free man. The fact
is, some of you may be just as foolish.
God has sent His Son to set you free, yet you live as a prisoner,
trapped in the cold dark cave of sin and guilt. All you have to do is repent, and admit you can't get free on
your own, and turn to Jesus, trusting Him to set you free. He promises that when the Son sets you free
you will be free indeed.
I'm free from the fear of
tomorrow.
I'm free from the guilt of
the past.
I've traded my shackles for
a glorious crown.
I'm free, praise the Lord,
free at last.
12. LIBERTY IN THE LORD Based on Rom. 8:1‑2
The Civil War was a complex and complicated war. Lambdin P. Milligan was one of the men who
got caught up in the complexities of it, and changed the course of legal
history in the United States. Milligan
was a lawyer active in local politics in Indiana. The war had been on three years and was already the worst in the
history of our land. Indiana was on the
side of the North, but many were in sympathy with the South. Secret societies were formed which were
called Copperheads, and they supported the Confederate cause.
When the Northern general Alvin Hovey heard that Milligan was
a part of one of these Copperhead groups, he had him arrested and tried for
treason. Milligan charged that the army
had no right to try him under military law because he was a civilian. General Hovey ignored his argument and went
ahead and tried him. He found him
guilty and sentenced him to hang.
Milligan’s lawyer went to President Lincoln directly to plead his
case. All Lincoln could offer was that
if the war ended before he was to hang he would give him a prison term
instead.
The war did end soon, but Lincoln was assassinated, and there
was no record of this private conversation.
Nine days before he was to die Milligan’s lawyer took his case to the
Supreme Court. The court ruled that the
military has no right to try a civilian, and only when the civil courts are
closed and unable to operate can a military court have any authority over a
civilian. Milligan was released and was
a free man. It was not because he was
innocent, but because he was transferred to a different system of law. The civil law set him free from the
condemnation of the military law. The
one system of law took away his freedom and sentenced him to die. The other set him free to live his
life. What system of law a man is under
is literally a matter of life or death.
This is precisely what Paul is saying in these opening verses
of Rom. 8. Life and death depend upon
what system of law you are under, and the good news that fills his heart with
joy is that in Christ we are transferred from the law that condemns us to die
to the law that sets us free to live in liberty without condemnation. With a theme like this it is no wonder that
Rom. 8 is considered to be one of the greatest chapters of the Bible. It begins with no condemnation and ends with
no separation. It is a gold mine of
assurance, and a diamond field of gems that makes the Christian who comprehends
them rich beyond compare.
If the Bible was a ring and
Romans its precious jewel the 8th chapter would be the sparkling
point, for it dazzles with beauty from beginning to end. We want to focus our attention on just one
of the many sparkling points of this gem.
THE EXCLAMATION OF LIBERTY
IN CHRIST. v. 1.
G. Campbell Morgan points out that this opening sentence is
emphatic and explosive in the Greek. He
writes, “It is the glad exultant cry of a soul apprehending the fullest meaning
of what the Gospel has wrought for men.”
Paul souls like a man who has just emerged from the court room where he
was on trial for his life. Confronting
the reporters he shouts, “I’m free!
I’ve be acquitted! The verdict
was-not guilty. There is therefore now
no condemnation. I can walk out of here
in complete liberty as a free man.”
Life is never abundant without liberty. Jesus called Lazarus back into life, but He
also commanded that they unbind him from his grave clothes that he might have
liberty in life, for life without liberty would have been a burden and not a
blessing. Life was and is a burden for
all who live under law, for one is always under the law of condemnation. He who keeps the whole law yet offends in
one point is guilty of all. There is no
way for sinful men to keep the whole law, and so he is under perpetual
condemnation.
Because we, as Christians, have never been where Paul was,
under the law, we tend to lose the full appreciation of the liberty that came
with the Gospel. Most of us have never felt the bondage and the burden of
condemnation. One of the reasons there
is more exclamation of joy for those converted later in life is because they
have felt this bondage and burden.
They have felt the heaviness, and so they more deeply feel the release
and the liberty that comes with the Gospel of forgiveness. The majority of Christians do not feel as
deeply as Paul about the liberty they have in Christ, for the same reason that the
majority of Americans do not feel as deeply as political liberty as did Patrick
Henry, who exclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Only those who have been oppressed and denied their liberties,
and only those who have felt the burden of condemnation can burst forth into
praise and commitment like Paul and Patrick.
Does this mean that those of us who have benefitted by always having the
liberty of our Lord and our land cannot join in the exclamation of those who
have gone from bondage to liberty? Not
at all! We may not be able to fully
enter into the intense degree of emotion felt by those who have been through
the radical transformation, but by empathy we can approach it.
Empathy is the ability to enter into the experience of another. You do it when you weep at sad scenes on the
screen. You feel the hurt of those who
suffer. You know in your heart what it
must feel like. You do it when your
face lights up and you smile when someone you see on the scene is exceedingly
happy. By empathy you enter into their
emotions and feel with them. You don’t
have to be a slave and then set free to feel the joy of liberty. You don’t have to be a prisoner of war who
is tortured and starved, and then delivered by your allies, to have the joy of
liberty. You don’t have to live in fear
that some Pharisee will find you picking up a stick on the Sabbath and have you
stoned to feel the joy of grace that sets us free from the many laws that made
life a burden under the Mosaic Law.
In other words, you don’t have to experience the negative to
enjoy the positive. If that was the
case, every generation would have to give up its progress and go back to
experience all the negatives that were fought and overcome. We don’t have to go back and feel the load
of the law to enter into the delight of deliverance from the law. All we have to do is understand
history. That is what history is for. It is help us to enter into experiences of
others so we can feel what they felt.
I can imagine how maddening it would be to not have the
freedom to worship as you desire. To
have someone else tell you where you could meet, and what you could or could
not preach would be intolerable. I’ve
never experienced that, but I can by empathy feel that burden and so be
thankful for the religious liberty that I have in our land of freedom. I have never lived under the burden of
trying to keep many laws to please religious leaders. I have never had to live in fear that my sin would be greater
than my good deeds, and so have to stand before God condemned. But I can imagine that kind of burden and
fear, and so I can enter into the joy of the exclamation of no condemnation.
No condemnation, O my soul,
Tis God that speaks the
word!
Completely justified art
thou,
In Christ, thy risen Lord.
13. THE INDWELLING SPIRIT Based on Rom. 8:9‑13
Indwelling has a variety of meanings. It can mean that matter indwells matter as a
kernel or fruit within a shell. A yoke
indwells the white and both dwell within the shell. It can refer to a situation where one substance is intermixed
with another, as with salt and water, or medicine within your blood
system. Then there is the non‑material
indwelling the material. When an artist
really puts himself into his art, we say his spirit indwells it. A musician lives in his composition. It reveals his nature, personality, or mood.
This is what we mean when we say God indwells His
creation. His beauty and harmony of
nature are built right into what He has made.
Another type of indwelling is related to heredity. Parents indwell their children in the sense
that part of them has been reproduced.
Man being made in the image of God conveys this idea, and so God
indwells men in the sense that they have qualities that are from His
nature. We can speak of one man
dwelling in another in the sense of influence or inspiration. If a man is a follower of another's methods
or ideas, you can say that he just lives in that man.
All of these ideas of spiritual indwelling fit the meaning of
being indwelt by God, but they all fall short of the full meaning. Paul makes it clear in this passage that
God's indwelling is not just figurative, and does not just relate to His image,
influence, and inspiration, but to a literal indwelling. God actually abides within our literal flesh
just as Jesus literally entered the flesh of a human body in the
incarnation. The term Christian refers
to those who are Christ ones, and that is what we literally are as Christians. We are little Christ's. We have the same Holy Spirit indwelling us
as He had. The source of His wisdom and
power is within us as it was in Him. In
verse 11 Paul makes it clear that the very Spirit of God who raised up Christ
is the Spirit that dwells in the believer, and it is He who will also raise us
up to life immortal.
It is no wonder that Paul was such a man of assurance and
certainty. Paul didn't claim to know
everything, for he said that we know only in part. Much was mystery to Paul, but he was sure of the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit. We want to study this
passage verse by verse in order to grow in the knowledge that is necessary to
have the assurance of Paul.
In verse 9 in the KJV Paul says to the Roman Christians,
"You are not in the flesh."
If you take this literally you would think Paul was writing to
disembodied Christians. It sounds like
a weight watchers paradise. But the
modern versions make it clear that Paul is saying they are not controlled by
the sinful nature. He is saying that
the natural man is not controlled by the Spirit, but the Christian is to be so
controlled. Those who are in flesh live
their life with no regard for God and His will. They live in a sphere that is flesh controlled and
dominated. In contrast Paul says the
Christian is controlled by the Spirit.
Paul's method of getting people to examine themselves is far
superior to that of asking people if they are saved. Instead of asking them, he describes the two spheres in which all
people live, and then let's them judge for themselves which sphere they are
in. To be in the Spirit is the opposite
of being in the flesh. If you are in
the Spirit and controlled by the Spirit God will play the dominant role in your
decisions, thoughts, and acts. John
wrote in I John 14, "Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us,
because He has given us of His Spirit."
The indwelling Spirit is the key to Christian assurance.
Then Paul says,
"If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, He does not belong to
Christ." We must possess the
Spirit to be possessed by Christ. He
must be ours if we are His. Mutual
possessing and mutual indwelling is what salvation is all about. These are terms that are not familiar to us
because we have taken a few biblical concepts to describe salvation and have
ignored the rest. This is a statement
of absolute finality, just like the statement, "You must be born
again." You must have the Spirit
of Christ is saying the same thing.
Having the Spirit is a good biblical phrase that we ought to use, for it
means to be a child of God. We tend not
to use this terminology because it brings the Holy Spirit into the center of
the plan of salvation, and we tend to be weak in our understanding of the role
of the Holy Spirit.
In verse 10 Paul says, "But if Christ is in you...,"
and so we see that Christ in us, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of God,
are all used interchangeably. They are one,
and you cannot have one Person of the trinity in you and not have the
others. Where one is, all are. Then Paul says your body is dead because of
sin. What does this mean? Does Christ dwell in a corpse? Was He resurrected and ascended, and then sent
back to dwell in dead bodies? What Paul
means is that the body of the Christian is subject to death. It is in the realm of the dying, and will
return to dust because of sin.
In other words, the Christian is only partially saved in the
present. Sin still has power over the
realm of the flesh, and as Paul goes on to say, not until the resurrection will
our bodies be made spiritual and enter into the realm of the Spirit and be
saved. Christians, therefore, are half and half. They are half saved and half not saved, but the half not yet
saved has a guarantee to be saved if the Spirit indwells them.
Then Paul ends verse 10 by saying, "Yet your spirit is
alive because of righteousness."
It is alive because of the righteousness of Christ. Jesus said, "He that believes in me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me
shall never die." The Christian
is alive even if he is dead. Death no
longer has dominion over them. The body
which is still subject to death is not the controlling factor in the
Christian. His body does not run the
show as it does for those in the flesh.
For the Christian the Spirit is in control, and so the power of the
resurrection is already in operation in the Christian life. The resurrection life is a life in which the
Spirit is in control, and not the body.
There is no difference between the bodies and the lost and those of the
saved. The difference is in the
Spirit. The spirit of the lost man is a
slave to his body, but the spirit of the saved is a co‑partner with the
Spirit of God.
In verse 11 Paul makes it clear that sin and death will not
gain the slightest victory over the children of God. He wants to make it clear that though the body is dead and not in
control it is not to be abused, for it will be a part of the total plan of
salvation. Jesus indwelt a body, and
even though it died it saw no corruption.
God will not let any body He has dignified by His indwelling be left in
the grip of death. All that God
indwells shall be eternal and so if the Spirit indwells us, we can have perfect
assurance of immorality. Just as
certain as Jesus rose with a body changed and made immortal, so shall all
Christians rise and be changed. The
power of the resurrection is the power of the Spirit, and no temple of the Holy
Spirit will lie forever in the dust, for the Spirit will give life even to our
dead bodies.
In the light of all that the Spirit does for us now and for
eternity Paul goes on to say that we have an obligation to live according to
the Spirit and not according to the flesh. We do not owe the body anything, for
its fleshly nature only brings us down, but we owe the Spirit everything, for
He lifts us up to the dignity of being God's child.
Paul goes on in v. 13 to say that we will die if we live
according to the sinful nature of the flesh, but we will live if we put to
death the deeds of the body by means of the Spirit. This is life now and forever.
We must be in constant battle with the body to keep it under the control
of the Spirit. We must present our bodies as living sacrifices as Paul says in
chapter 12 of Romans. We must die daily
or the body will dominate us and lead us in many ways that are not truly life,
but paths to death. The spirit is
willing but the flesh is weak, and if you let your body determine what you will
do, it means you will do much less for Christ and for your own spiritual growth
than is you are controlled by the Spirit. The flesh will keep you from doing
much that is God's will for your growth.
By the grace of God the Spirit working with our spirit can
overthrow the tyranny of the flesh and reign in its place. The Spirit can gain
control and discipline the body and bring it under submission. This will lead
to the fruit of the Spirit being produced in your life. The Spirit will help us
put to death the desires of the body to be lazy and indifferent to the things
of God, and the desires to do what is contrary to the will of God. If the Spirit is not in control, the body
will quench the Spirit and we will be carnal and not spiritual. Something has
to die, and it is either the flesh or the Spirit, and which it is determines
the quality of your life now and for eternity. Assurance of salvation;
assurance of eternal life, and assurance of abundant life now are all dependant
upon the indwelling of the Spirit of God.
14. BLESSED ASSURANCE Based on Rom. 8:14‑18
William Stidger tells this fascinating true story out of
history: It was the final battle in the
war between the Tartars and the Russians as they faced each other across the
Oka River in 1462. For several days
they were engaged in bitter fighting.
Time after time the Tartar hordes tried to drive across the river, but
they were thrust back. The Russians
were far inferior by number, but the water of the Oka was their protection.
Then something happened that struck fear into the hearts of
the Russian defenders. A cold wave
swept down from the snow‑clad peaks of the Ural Mountains, and the waters
of the Oka began to freeze over. Once
the ice was strong enough the Tartars could cross over and annihilate the
Russian forces. As they sat around the
camp fire talking of the advantage the enemy would soon have, and as they felt
the weather getting colder and colder, their fear grew to a panic, and before
midnight the whole army was fleeing back to Moscow.
The following morning when the Tartar sentries were able to
look across the river, they were amazed to find that the enemy had
vanished. The Tartars immediately
suspected a trick. They thought that
perhaps the Russians had crossed the river several miles down and were planning
to attack from the rear. Uncertainty as
to what the Russians were up to caused fear to spread through the camp, and in
less than two hours the Tartar host had abandoned its tents, and was in full
retreat. Two panic stricken armies were
running from each other, both having been conquered by fear.
Fear is a great conqueror.
It is one of the most universal and powerful forces that man has to
contend with. Every man, even the
bravest, has to fight with fear on many different fronts. We feel fear because of inadequacy. We fear people who are superior. We fear those with more education, and those
with more talent. We fear those who are
more widely traveled. We fear dozens of
different relationships with others because of our ignorance and
inadequacies. The result is that we
flee in retreat and let fear defeat us and deprive us of many of life's
blessings and opportunities.
Not only do we have social fears that control us, but we have
bodily pain fears. Certainly it is a
rare person who does not fear a heart attack every time they get a pain in the
chest. We hear so much about physical
problems in all age groups that we are conscious that no one is immune from
serious and fatal diseases. The result
is a constant weight of fear pressing down on us. Add to this the fear we have over economics. We fear inflation and depression. We fear we won't be able to afford to send
our children to college. We fear a
thousand different things in relation to money. When a woman says she hasn't a thing to wear she is saying that
she fears to be out of style. Fear even
plays a role in determining our wardrobe.
Children fear they will not win their parents affections, and
parents fear they will not raise their children right. Parents fear they will not maintain their
love and loyalty to each other.
Everything seems to be built on shifting sand, and there is no
certainty. Therefore, fear reigns, and
masses go down in defeat before fear every day. We haven't even mentioned the dozens of religious and
superstitious fears that fill our institutions for the mentally ill.
We quote, "I will fear no evil for thou art with
me," but then we do not walk in fearlessness as we talk. We shun the conflict with the enemy like
weaponless orphans. Boldness and
courage are quenched by fear, and we do not witness as we ought. God says to go and conquer, but like the
Israelites of old, we let our fear reign and reply that there are giants in the
land. Every obstacle looks like a
giant, and we feel like pigmies. I
can't, I can't, is the theme song of the average Christian. What they mean is, I fear, I fear. There is no victory march of certainty
ringing in their ears. They hear only
the dismal dirge of doubt which holds them down.
John Masefield in The Hell‑Hounds tells of a priest who
let fear terrorize him into cowardice.
He became faithless to his duties, and he hid himself in fear. Then he heard the message of some birds
singing‑
Open the door, Good saint,
they cried;
Pass deeper into your soul!
There is a power in your
side
Which hell cannot control.
The story is fiction, but the message is one of the most
essential biblical facts that every child of God must grasp. We do not need to be controlled by fear. We have a power within that can control
fear. This is one of the major messages
that the Apostle Paul communicated in his letters. Here in Romans 8 he makes it so clear that none can miss it. We can be sure, and have complete
certainty, and absolute assurance that deprives fear of a foothold in our
lives. Uncertainty is what gives fear
its power.
People are uncertain about life, its meaning, purpose, and
goals. This leaves them helpless
victims of fear, but Paul says the Christian can have certainty in all of these
areas. We can be certain of being led
by the Spirit. We can be certain of
immortality of the body as well as of the Spirit. Man fears non‑existence, but the Christian need not do so,
for he can have assurance of eternal life.
Man fears to be nobody, and to be insignificant. The Christian need not fear this, for over
and over Paul says the Christian can be assured that he is a child of God. He has a place in God's family for time and
eternity.
Men fear that they will have nothing to show for having
lived, but Paul says the Christian can be assured of an eternal
inheritance. We will be co‑heirs
with Christ of all the infinite riches of God.
With assurance of immortality, identity, and inheritance, you would
think Christians could march boldly on to victory unhindered by fear. Unfortunately, this is not the case, for
what is possible is not necessarily actual.
William Adams Brown writes, "A noticeable feature of
contemporary religious life is the loss of the sense of certainty." It is considered to be pride to absolutely
sure of anything. Someone said that we
are not even sure that we are not sure.
Men are even fearful of being certain.
Part of this is due to the false certainties of past. Men have been dogmatic in science and
religion, and they were so sure they were right that they persecuted those who
came up with something new. Certainty
led to intolerance and narrowness, and a loss of freedom to pursue the
truth. In reaction to this the modern
man has gone to the other extreme and says that we cannot be certain of
anything. The task of the Christian is
to find the happy medium between these two extremes.
In the first place, the Christian must recognize that
certainty is not essential in all areas.
It would be interesting to know exactly who is right as to just how God
created the universe. Did He do it in 7
literal days, or 7 ages? Did He do it
directly, or by process? It would be
interesting to know for sure, but such certainty is not necessary for effective
Christian living. It is not essential
for life abundant to know if the church will go through the tribulation or
escape it. We can survive and even
thrive with uncertainty in many areas over which Christians debate. What we need to know for sure is, are we
saved, are we children of God, and do we have eternal life? If we have certainty in these areas, that is
what really matters, for that gives us a solid basis from which we can fight
off all the fiery darts of fear.
The second thing we must recognize is that certainty does not
mean infallibility. To be certain of
something does not mean you possess full knowledge of it, and can never
change. Certainty is not to be
confused with changelessness. I can be
certain of my salvation as a child, but my account of it and its basis at that
point may be radically revised as I get older, and grow in my knowledge of
God's Word. Jesus is the same
yesterday, today, and forever, but in relationship to me He is ever changing as
I grow in knowledge. Yesterday Jesus
may have been an enemy to a man, today a Savior, and tomorrow a Lord to be
followed. Our relationship, our
maturity, our knowledge causes us to be changing all the time, but through it
all we can be certain that we are children of God.
Paul states it clearly in verse 16 where he says that the
Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. The value of a testimony depends upon the
character of the witness. Paul says we
have the highest possible witness to assure us of being children of God, and
that is the Holy Spirit Himself. The
Holy Spirit is the author of absolute assurance. Conversion is followed by confirmation. God does not leave His children ignorant as to their
identity. What a cruel picture is
suggested by those who say you cannot know you are saved. It pictures God as an irresponsible Father,
who give birth to children, but never gives them a name to establish their
identity. If we cannot be certain that
we are children of God, then fear must reign supreme, and Christianity has
nothing to offer a fear filled world.
If all we have to offer is a hope‑so salvation, and not a know‑so
salvation, we are not preaching a Gospel, but a gamble. Take a chance, and maybe you will make it,
and maybe not. This leaves you yet in
the grip of fear.
Christians who feel assurance is a sign of pride fail to pay
attention to God's Word. If it is our
spirit only that claims we are children of God then it would be pride, but Paul
says there is a duel witness. Not only
does our spirit bear witness, but the spirit of God bears witness with our
spirit. Assurance is based on a duel
witness, and it is not pride to accept the witness and testimony that God has
given to empower us to overcome fear and live victoriously. It is pride to refuse the witness and power
of God and seek to live in your own strength.
Many Christians develop fear even as they read this verse for
the conquering of fear. They never hear
any voice from heaven saying they are children of God. They never have any visions or supernatural
revelations, and so they fear they lack this witness of the Spirit. What Paul is saying here is that the proof
of your sonship lies in how you address God.
If you call Him Father, that very fact that you can do so is the witness
of the Holy Spirit that you are His child.
Luther said, "Whoever believes with a firm faith and love that he
is a child of God, is a child of God."
The child of God addresses God as Father.
Abba Father here is really Father repeated twice. Abba is father in Aramaic, which was the
language that Jesus spoke. When He
taught the Lord's Prayer He doubtless said, "Our Abba who art in
heaven." In Mark 14:36 Jesus
prayed in Gethsemane and said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible to
Thee." In Gal. 4:6 Paul uses the phrase again, "And because you are
sons God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father!" It is universally acknowledged among Bible scholars that calling
God Father is the witness of the Holy Spirit to our sonship. Even a liberal like Paul Tillich writes,
"Only he who has the Spirit has the power to say Father to God." He also says, "The whole message of
Christianity is contained in this statement.
Christianity overcomes law and despair by the certainty that we are the
children of God. There is nothing
higher than this."
When even a liberal sees that assurance of salvation is the
key to power over all fear, God forbid that we neglect this precious
truth. If we serve God out of fear that
He will punish us, this is a slave mentality, and not the spirit of sonship. If
you have this attitude toward God, you are living on a sub‑Christian
level. Many churches in the past have
encouraged this sub‑Christian living by playing down the doctrine of
assurance, and the witness of the Holy Spirit.
If men are free and independent, and their assurance of salvation and
sonship comes directly from the witness of the Spirit, they will not be
dependent upon the institutional church.
Therefore, to maintain a loyalty to the institution people were kept
blind to the doctrine of assurance.
This produced weak and ineffective Christians. Paul's approach is one
that needs to be followed. You make
individual Christians strong through assurance so they can conquer fear.
These kinds of Christians
are what make the institutional church strong.
The tragedy is that so few professing Christians have
assurance of their salvation. Many
times it is due to sheer ignorance of what the Bible teaches. The founders of all the major denominations
made it clear in their commentaries on this 16th verse, but the people are kept
in ignorance. Protestants are as much
in the dark about some vital biblical subjects as are Catholics. The witness of the Spirit, and the assurance
of sonship is one of the subjects.
Calvin said, "No one can be termed a son of God who does
not acknowledge himself to be one."
Our own spirit must bear witness that we are children of God, and then
we must have the witness of the Holy Spirit which enables us to say Abba Father,
or as Philip has it, "Father, my Father." John Wesley said, "This is the privilege of all the children
of God, and without this we can never be assured that we are His
children." If you cannot call God
Father, you need to make a decision that will open your heart to God and allow
you to see Him as your heavenly Father.
H. Harold Kent, and architect and preacher in Canada, bought a
dog from a man just to protect him. The
man beat the dog repeatedly. The dog
was beautiful, but it lived in fear, and even when he first had this dog at
home he would call Wolf, and he would snare and slink into a corner in
fear. After a time of much love and no
beatings he began to realize he was not going to be hurt, and so he began to
greet him when he came home with a wagging tail. He had conquered fear by the spirit of love. He had learned that he was a member of the
family. Perfect love had cast out
fear. It works even in the life of a
dog.
One of the main reasons the Lord's Prayer begins with Our
Father is so that it might become a habit for God's children to address Him as
Father. It is one of the unique aspects
of Christianity that Christians call their God Father. God is called God by the billions through
history, but Christians call God Father.
If you do not then you have not developed one of the key ways to have
assurance of your salvation. You can
think of God as the Creator and the Lord of history and still be uncertain, but
you cannot think of God as your Father and live in uncertainty of His
love.
As Christians we need to learn that God has not given us a
spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. We are to be assured that we are members of
God's family, and this assurance will give us the victory over life's most potent
fears. Let us not live on the level of
I hope I am saved, or I hope I am a child of God, but let us live on the
biblical level of I know. An unknown
poet wrote‑
What wondrous blessings
overflow,
When we can truly say, I
know‑
I know in whom I have
believed,
I know the one I have
received,
I know His blood avails for
me,
I know that I was blind, but
see,
I know that my redeemer
lives,
I know the gifts He freely
gives,
I know He'll keep me to the
end,
I know He's my unfailing
friend.
15. ABSOLUTELY PERSUADED Based on Rom. 8:28‑39
The 8th chapter of Romans is
a spiritual palace of comfort and challenge built for the children of God. Nothing could be more optimistic than the
words we find here that all works for good, and that if God is before us who
can be against us. God has given His
Son who intercedes of us, and nothing can separate from His love. We are more than conquerors. Such an optimistic view of things seems to
be more than we can believe. We wonder
if the writer is some arm chair philosopher who never got his hands dirty, and
never knew what it was to suffer. It
would be easy for him to sit in his patted chair and write about life, while
his servants bring him his mid‑afternoon snack.
But wait! We are
talking about the wrong man. The author
of this chapter is a soldier from the battlefront. He knows what it is like to be hated, despised, beaten, stoned,
shipwrecked, and imprisoned. The
Apostle Paul was not writing from a sheltered life, but from one that knew the
stress of constant combat and serious struggles. It is important to keep this in mind as we consider his words.
Let's look first at‑
I. HIS CERTAINTY. v. 28.
He says, "We know" and in verse 38, "I am persuaded." In a day when nothing seemed certain, and governments can rise or fall overnight, and where text books change their contents every year, we