Romans 13:8-14 - Loving and living for Jesus

I remember sitting next to one of my youth leaders at a Christian festival one Summer in a seminar about the OT laws.  The speaker asked us, "So why do you think God gave the Israelites the ten commandments?"  My youth leader put his hand up and answered, "For their enjoyment."  People weren't sure if he was joking or not and there was a moment of strange awkwardness before the speaker moved on to less surprising answers but I think my friend was right - When God gives his people laws or commands, it's because he loves them and wants them to enjoy him and be like him.  Our best reason for keeping God laws is because we love him back, enjoy a relationship with him and want to be like him.

Romans 13:8-14

Paul says love is the fulfillment of the law because God's commands are about loving him and loving one another.  Interestingly, Jesus claimed he came to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17).  This means he kept all of God's commandments and lived a perfect life of love to his Father and to others.  Those who trust and follow Jesus are empowered by God the Holy Spirit to do the same.  Not to earn God's love but because in Jesus, they have already received it and want to share it with others.

Paul then commends living for Jesus by comparing this world to the night and heaven to the day.  Crime happens in the cover of night and in the darkness, people do evil and selfish things but when daylight comes, it's harder to hide.  This is the picture Paul uses to urge Christians to get busy loving and living for Jesus now because they don't know how much longer we have before Jesus returns.  It's not about being caught doing the wrong things - Jesus sees everything anyway!  It's about making the most of the opportunity while it's still here to show and to share the love of Jesus and to see as many people as possible trust and follow him and receive his love and forgiveness before it's too late.

Christians don't live this way in their own strength.  Paul uses the language of being clothed with Christ to illustrate how this life is possible.  Christians are those who have trusted Jesus, received the Holy Spirit of Jesus and are not only graciously forgiven but graciously empowered to live a new life as lights in a dark world (John 8:12).

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Romans 13:1-7 - Christians and governments

How should Christians think about and react to those in authority?

Romans 13:1-7

Some Christians I've met are very pessimistic about the future and will occasionally say things like, "It's only going to get harder and harder to be a Christian in this country."  They'll mention schools that don't let Christians in to do assemblies and they use examples of people who have been in the news like the nurse who wasn't allowed to wear her cross necklace.  They'll call it persecution.  I think they're wrong.

For one thing, the schools I've come across who aren't keen on having Christians in are the same ones who've had to put up with rubbish ones going in and saying things like, "Don't bother revising - Just trust God!" or imposing their beliefs rather than proposing them.  And the nurse in question was given decent offers of compromise like wearing her cross as a pin rather than on a necklace to avoid snagging it while she did her job.  The point is - sometimes Christians wind people up unnecessarily.  This is not persecution.

And for another thing, persecution in this country (and it does happen), isn't anything like as bad as it is elsewhere in the world where Christians are regularly attacked, imprisoned, tortured and killed (www.persecution.tv).

Paul wants Christians to obey the law and respect those in authority.  God is the one who has allowed people to come into those positions after all, so we don't have to fight them all the time.  Are they all good leaders?  No.  Are any of them good leaders all the time?  No.  But God has allowed them to lead and wants Christians to respect their position of authority as much as they can. 

There's nothing wrong with seeking to influence those in positions of power but it's possible to do this respectfully as well as strongly.  Tearfund's IF campaign is a great example.

If people in authority ever instruct those of us who trust and follow Jesus to sin, then we should strongly resist them (like in Daniel 3:16-18).  And if they want to prevent us from doing something Jesus has commanded us to do, then we go ahead and do it anyway (like in Acts 4:18-20).  If there's a clear clash between any human authority and the authority of Jesus, we should submit to the highest authority.  But Paul's main idea here is that Christians should make every effort to live under human authority well.  This means they should pay their taxes, obey the law and respect positions of leadership, even if they don't like the people leading.

So will it get harder for Christians to trust and follow Jesus in our cultures today?  I don't know.  Quite possibly.  But it shouldn't be because Christians are annoying, rude or petty.  We can do better than that!

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Romans 12 - What is true and proper worship?

Too many Christians like or leave their particular church because they're looking for "good worship" and what they really mean is "a good band".  The bands probably aren't that good anyway (don't get me started) but that's not even the point.  What if more Christians got stuck into churches because they were looking for how they could serve?  What if they were in it for others and not for themselves?  What if they stopped consuming church and started really serving each other and loving people outside the church too?  Then, even if the best the band could do was ropy covers of boring indy worship songs, the worship would still be amazing!  That's what!

Romans 12

Paul says true and proper worship is to live and do everything for Jesus.  This means songs and bands are part of it but only part of it.  The songs bit means nothing if the life isn't happening.  Paul wants Christians to worship their guts out by living for Jesus instead of letting culture decide what they do.  In our day, this means we should fight hard to avoid getting sucked into the greedy consumer mentality that asks 'What am I getting out of this?' and start asking, 'What can I give?'  And even now, some Christians reading this will still think I'm talking exclusively about the singing in church.  I'm not!  It's our whole lives!  This is Paul's point.  Christians worship by living for Jesus!

Worship includes how Christians serve other Christians.  It starts with humility and Paul seems to suggest that the more faith you have, the more humble you should be because you have a clearer view of who Jesus is, who you are and who your family is too.  Jesus has given gifts and abilities to every Christian to serve one another in love and this means getting on with it and serving the best we can in his strength.  It also means helping each other fight off sin and temptation wherever it is still dragging people into trouble.  This means Christians should welcome loving challenges from one another about their choices because they're wanting to constantly learn and grow and be more like Jesus.  Paul says if Christians love each other they'll 'hate what is evil and cling to what is good' (v9).  So if they say they love each other but don't do this, then they don't really love each other.   

Worship also includes how Christians are to love everyone, including people who don't yet trust and follow Jesus.  This means standing out by the distinctive way in which we do good to those who are against us (v14), party hard when someone has good news (v15), crash hard with those who are crushed (v15) and get on with all sorts of people (v16-18).  When Christians retaliate and bicker, avoid celebrations, ignore or frustrate people in tough times or clash and argue, they're not really loving people very well and they're not worshiping Jesus very well either.  If the good news about Jesus is true, then Christians shouldn't just believe it, they should also be good news to others.  If we're looking for 'true and proper worship', this is part of it.

Remember the end of chapter 11 where Paul's words of worship burst out of him?  This stuff about a life of worship is his very next thought!  If you're a Christian, is it yours?  If you're not, how are your Christian mates doing at worshiping Jesus?

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Romans 11 - What about Israel?

Paul continues to think about the Israelites and tries to explain why some of them trust and follow Jesus and others don't, even though all of them share a history of being a nation that belonged to God. Paul says it's not about nationality or human works - it's about Jesus and God's grace. 

Romans 11

Paul knows full well that many of his Jewish readers will be struggling with the idea that they must trust and follow Jesus.  They would have struggled because they thought they were fine as they were.  They knew the Old Testament Scriptures and the story of God's promises to their ancient father Abraham about him becoming a great nation chosen by God.  They thought it was all about being in Abraham's family but they were wrong.  It was always about being in God's family through trusting and following him.  And since God himself showed up in the person of Jesus, it's about trusting and following Jesus.

So did God just change his mind and dump a load of Israelites from his promise?  Not at all.  They got to be part of Abraham's family - part of the nation of Israel but they never automatically made it into God's family because of these promises.  To be in God's family meant trusting and following God.  Paul's already made this clear when he described how Abraham was made right with God by believing God (Romans 4).  Likewise, some Israelites had soft hearts, trusted and followed God and he was merciful and forgave them.  At the same time, other Israelites had hard hearts and didn't trust or follow God and so he wasn't merciful to them and didn't forgive them.

Paul says that it's not just about human will.  God's will is involved too.  God chose some Israelites to trust and follow him and be in his family, whilst hardening the hearts of others who didn't trust or follow him.  Did he force anyone either way?  No.  Did he take away their own decision?  No.  Was human will in harmony with God's will?  Absolutely.  It's hard to understand but no human choice goes beyond what God has chosen.  God is God.  He gets to choose who and how many undeserving people he will be save (Romans 9:15).

So Paul says there are some Israelites who will trust and follow Jesus and the reason they will do this is because of God's grace.  Nothing to do with human effort, works, religion or heritage.

Paul says he hopes that God will use Gentile (non-Jewish) Christians to help Israelites realise what they're missing and turn from their sin and trust and follow Jesus, but he warns them too.  They should not be proud or think they're better than the Israelites in any way.  It's not about nationality.  No-one gets into God's family except through coming humbly to Jesus and receiving grace from God.  Paul uses the example of a vine to describe how anyone from any nation can be 'grafted in' or adopted into God's family through trusting and following Jesus.  Paul wants there to be no division based on heritage, nationality or anything else other than Jesus.  It's Jesus that makes people part of God's family.  It's all about him.  No-one should be proud.  Everyone should be humble.

Paul wonders in amazement at God's plans.  Will large numbers of people come to know Jesus because of the witness and example of unlikely Christians?  Absolutely!  God is in the business of rescuing all sorts of people from sin and sometimes a person stuck in religion or pride will and trust and follow Jesus because they see him rescuing and restoring drug addicts, prostitutes and killers.  It happens!

Paul has spent 11 chapters explaining and unpacking the good news of Jesus and now he's bursting with worship to God and at the end of this chapter, he lets it fly...

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
    How unsearchable his judgments,
    and his paths beyond tracing out!
‘Who has known the mind of the Lord?
    Or who has been his counsellor?’
‘Who has ever given to God,
    that God should repay them?’
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
    To him be the glory for ever! Amen. 

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Romans 10 - Close but so far away

Paul continues to describe the sad state of so many of his Israelite friends who refuse to come to Jesus.  And yet, he hasn't judged them or given up on them.

Romans 10

Paul longs to see his non-Christian friends trust and follow Jesus and know God personally, especially his fellow Israelites, but it seems like these guys are the least likely because of their attitude and approach to God.  They're relying so much on their own goodness that they miss the goodness of God.  Like so many today, they trust in their own ways and their own efforts thinking there's nothing better.  They're wrong.  There is Jesus.

Jesus is closer than these people might think.  If they stopped trying so hard to climb up and find God, they might realise that God has come down and his Spirit today is inviting them to be right with God by believing Jesus and to be rescued from sin by asking him for forgiveness.

Paul is on a mission that every Christian should be on.  He lives to tell people about Jesus and to send others to tell people about Jesus so everyone can hear, understand, believe and benefit from this good news from God.

Paul knows that some people will not believe.  The Israelites had a massive historical advantage when it came to knowing God and they were the first to hear about Jesus but many were stubborn and hard-hearted and rejected him.  Since that time and still today, the good news has been going out to everyone else.  It's for everybody!  If people tell us they don't want to know about Jesus, we can't force them to change their mind.  We love them and we don't give up friendship with them but we also keep looking for people who want to hear, understand and believe the good news about Jesus so they too can be rescued from sin and made right with God.

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Romans 9 - God's choice and ours

Just as Paul is getting excited about how good the good news of Jesus is, he also has deep pain for the lost, especially those from his own nation - Israel.  How can they not trust and follow Jesus after all God has done for them in their history?  Paul tries to answer this question by exploring God's perspective on it all.  It's a tough part of the Bible and not easy to understand but we should try.  Getting a glimpse of God's perspective on people should help us with our perspective on God...

Romans 9

Throughout the Old Testament, since Genesis 12, God had been working especially with the nation of Israel.  They were meant to be a blessing to the whole world too.  Paul lists all the huge blessings and clues God gave the Israelites that Jesus was coming.  God made them part of his family, turned up personally to be with them, gave them his laws of love, provided a temporary way to be forgiven and made promises about a saviour who would come from their own nation one day.

Paul grapples with why it is that these people don't see the truth about Jesus.  The first answer he has is that it's not about genetics.  Just because a person is born into an Israelite family, doesn't automatically mean they will trust and follow Jesus and be in his family.  It's not about the family you were born into but about being born again into God's family through Jesus (John 3:3). 

Paul's saying clearly that the Israelites are a mixed bag.  Not all of them belonged to God.  Not all of them trusted and followed God.  Not all of them were chosen by God to be in his family.  Paul quotes the prophet Malachi who put it most starkly - 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated'.  Even within the same human family, God choses who he will work with and include in his family.

Is Paul saying Jacob was better than Esau?  Not at all.  Both were sinful and we see some of the huge mistakes each of them made in Genesis.  They were just the same as everyone else - Neither of them deserved anything good from God but God in his mercy chose to bring Jacob into his family.

Is he saying that Jacob and Esau had no choice in the matter?  No.  Paul uses the example of Pharaoh.  Genesis tells us that God hardened Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 9:12) but it also tells us that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Exodus 8:32).  Both were true at the same time.  Jacob and Esau both made their choices too.  Esau never trusted and followed God but Jacob (although he took a while to realise it) did.  God's choice doesn't negate our choices.  His will doesn't cancel out ours.  They are both realities that Paul wants us to be aware of, even if we can't understand fully how they go together.

Paul then grapples with why God chooses certain people and not others but he's speculating rather than claiming to fully understand God's reasons.  This is shown by his repeated question, 'What if...?' (v22 and v23).  His best idea is that God patiently allowed and used some people's sinful lives to help his people realise their need of him.  Paul puts it forward as a strong theory based on what the Bible records.  His point is not that we try to fully understand God's thoughts.  That would be impossible.  What he's trying to do is show us that God rules over all our choices and being in God's family is not dependent on our own human effort but on God's mercy to us.

We have a choice about how to react to this.  We really do!

Do we get angry, raise our fists to God and blame him for our own selfish choices - sinful choices we know we have willingly made and enjoyed?

Or do we get humble and ask God for mercy through Jesus because we know it's our only hope of being right with him and having peace?

For those of us who have already made the second choice, we get grateful.  Grateful that God has had mercy on us.  Not because we are good but because Jesus is good and we have received mercy, forgiveness, purpose, peace, life, hope, strength and infinitely more than we could ever earn.  And maybe like Paul, we also get pain from thinking about people we know and love who don't yet know and love Jesus, despite all the huge blessings and clues they've had so far and we keep praying for them.

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Romans 8:31-39 - As bad as it gets

I still remember a daughter of a friend of ours when she was younger, getting really upset in the middle of watching Finding Nemo on DVD.  She came running into the kitchen where me and her dad were, crying because Nemo was lost.  Dad told her it was ok and gently reminded her of the name of the film (and that she'd watched it several times before)!  For those who trust and follow Jesus, this world is as bad as it gets...

Romans 8:31-39

If Jesus has died in our place for our sin, if the Holy Spirit has moved into our lives as Christians, if our perfect future with Jesus is guaranteed - then what do we have to worry about?  Nothing.  Not really.  Any suffering we go through in this life is like a plot twist in a story that we know ends well.  It doesn't mean we don't suffer or that suffering doesn't hurt us.  Christians aren't immune from suffering and struggle in this world.  What it does mean is that we don't go through it alone (Jesus is always with us), we don't have to be beaten (Jesus is living in us) and we don't go through it forever (this world is temporary).

If God is for us, then we are unstoppable.  No-one can reverse what God has said about us and if we're in Christ, God declares us innocent and has nothing but love for us.  If we're trusting and following Jesus, he has made us part of God's forever family and nothing can change that.  The worst this world can do to us is kill us but all that does is send us home sooner.  For us as Christians, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger and whatever does kill us makes us stronger still!  Knowing Jesus means we can't lose.

Trusting and following Jesus means that nothing can separate us from God's love.  Ever. 

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Romans 8:18-30 - In the end

Again Paul packs a lot into a few short sentences.  This time it's about the sure hope Christians have about life beyond this world in the end...

Romans 8:18-30

Paul knows that God has something incredible in store for his people for eternity.  This world is not as good as it gets.  We were made for something more.  And for those who trust and follow Jesus and are in God's family, the end is so good that it makes everything (and I really do mean everything) worthwhile.  As Relient K sang - 'The end will justify the things it took to get us there'.

Paul reminds us that it's not just us who are broken and longing for something better.  Creation is too.  Our world is beautiful but broken.  It doesn't always work the way it should and in some places it's actually killing us.  This is not how it should be and it's not how it will be in the end.  This doesn't mean we give up on this place as we wait for the new one.  Quite the opposite.  Because God will make all things new (Revelation 21:1-5), we see his intentions for this place and we should fight as hard as we can to look after it well because it's not ours.

Me and Chrissi are adopting two little girls this year.  There's a definite plan to place them with us over the next 6 months.  We love them now.  We're parents now.  It's just that our kids aren't home yet.  It's like this for God's people.  They're already in God's family but they're not home yet.  This is what Paul means when he talks about Christians being adopted (Romans 8:15) but not yet adopted (Romans 8:23).  They're in God's family because they trust and follow Jesus but they're not home yet and they wait patiently for the day when they will see Jesus face-to-face and all sin and suffering will be gone forever.

In the meantime, Paul tells us that one of the things God the Holy Spirit does for Christians is to help them talk to God in prayer.  The longing is so deep and sometimes the suffering is so hard that we often don't know how to express it to God in the right words but God knows everything already and he just wants to help us talk to him and bring ourselves, our struggles and our longings to him.  If we trust and follow Jesus, then we're God's kids.  He doesn't care about polished religious prayers.  He just wants us to talk to him honestly and depend on him in everything.

Why do people bother to have kids?  It's expensive, heartbreaking, painful, worrying and hard work.  Much easier not to have kids!  Why do people put themselves through it?  I think the best reason is because they love each other so much that they want to share that love with a bigger family and the pain and heartache is all worth it if their kids love them back and enjoy being part of it.  It's the same with God.  Paul reminds us that God has only ever had good plans.  He knows the end from the beginning and he wouldn't have started out unless it was going to end well and be worth everything in between.  It's hard for us to imagine just how good God is and how good his plans are for those who love him.  The pain and destruction and suffering that exist in our world today is the result of God offering people the freedom to choose whether or not to love him back.  God decided it was worth all this suffering - and his own too - on the cross, in order that he might have a massive family of people who know him, love him and enjoy him forever.

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Romans 8:1-17 - Two ways to live

Romans 8 is a chapter packed with good news.  Paul continues to describe the difference it makes when a person trusts and follow him.

Romans 8:1-17

'No condemnation.'  This is a massive load taken away.  No more feelings of guilt.  No more sense of desperate longing.  No more striving to please anyone.  And no more thinking we're good enough, only to find out we're not.  If we're trusting and following Jesus, our peace no longer depends on ourselves, how we feel, what we do or on the approval of others.  We have peace with God and he says we're completely and permanently forgiven because of Jesus.  We can't be right with God by obeying his law because we can't obey his law but Jesus can and he did it on our behalf and represented us on the cross when he became sin so that we might become right with God (2 Corinthians 5:21).  He offers us the best swap.  Ever.

Paul says there are two ways to live: 'by the flesh' or 'by the Spirit'.

Life by the flesh means...
- We're lost (condemned) because we're sinful and can't keep God's law (v3)
- We do whatever we want but that's all we can do (v5)
- Our thinking is broken and our mind 'is death' (v6)
- We're hostile to God and resistant to him (v7)
- It's impossible for us to please God (v8)
- We will die (v12)

Life by the Spirit means...
- God himself has set us free from sin and death (v2)
- God's righteous requirements are met in us because of Jesus (v4)
- We have a new, deeper desire to please God and not ourselves (v5)
- Our thinking is increasingly informed and led by God and not by sin (v6)
- God himself lives in us, showing that we are his (v9)
- We have freedom to live life to the full because of Jesus (v10, 13)
- We have a certain promise of life forever because of Jesus (v11)
- We are God's children, adopted into his family (v14-15)
- We are reminded of this certainty and we know it deep down (v16)
- We are due to receive everything good that God wants to share with his family forever (v17)

Paul has already used the example of slavery to describe Christians as those who are slaves to the one who loves them the most (Romans 6:15-23).  Now Paul shows us how this illustration falls down...  Slaves live in fear.  Christians don't.  Those who trust and follow Jesus are 'sons', not slaves.  God welcomes us home and we have peace because we are part of the family.

2 ways to live

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Romans 7:7-25 - God's law and our sinful nature

Sin is a word that is commonly misunderstood today.  Too often it's reserved only for really serious things like murder, rape or genocide.  But in the Bible we see that sin includes everything we think, say and do that falls short of God's standards (sins of commission).  It is also everything good that we fail to think, say and do (sins of omission).  And sin isn't just these symptoms but it is also the sickness we all have that leads to these things.  We are sinners by nature as well as by choice.  Are human beings capable of good?  Absolutely.  But there is something seriously wrong with all of us.  We are meant to be better than we are.

Romans 7:7-25

Remember, Paul's first readers included a lot of Jews who thought they were made right with God by observing the law.  The problem was they had a lot of pride and like a lot of people today, they thought they were good enough for God and that God owed them somehow.  Paul's trying to get them to see that they still have a sin problem and he wants to show them that God's only solution for it is Jesus, who died in their place for their sin so they could have forgiveness, friendship with God, life to the full and life forever.  Paul's not slagging off the law though.  Jewish readers would have been concerned about this.  Paul says the law is still good but its purpose was to highlight sin and the need for mercy and grace from God though Jesus.

We might be tempted to think that we're good and maybe compared to some other people we are.  But God's law shows us that compared to him, no-one is good. Not really.  Paul describes how we can't stop sinning.  We can't even meet our own standards, let alone God's.  We try to be better but we can only get so far.  The sin sickness is always right there with us and our consciences (if we're still listening to them) remind us of our guilt when the symptoms come out.  And when some people don't feel guilty any more it's either because they've been forgiven by Jesus or because they've ignored their God-given conscience for so long that they can't hear it anymore. 

A young girl once said conscience was like a triangle inside us and when we do things wrong, it spins round and the corners make us hurt.  She said the more we ignore it and keep doing wrong, the corners start to wear off and in the end it becomes a circle and doing wrong things doesn't hurt us like it should.  Consciences can be broken so that people are blind to the sin problem and they feel good enough just as they are.  They don't know how good God is, how much he loves them or what he has in store for them.

Christians aren't good people.  Christians are those who know they're bad and need forgiveness from God.  They are those who still struggle with sin but now they are forgiven, made right with God and are slowly changing to be more like Jesus through the power of God the Holy Spirit who lives in them.  And when they do something good and right, it's not out of guilt, to try and earn God's favour or love but it's out of freedom because they already have it.

We're not fine as we are.  And we can't save ourselves.  We need Jesus for that.

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