This morning we move to the second of a four part sermon
series this month on the letter to the Romans we’ve called Good news from a good God bringing an explanation of the Christian
good news. Our subtitle today is ‘God calls us to believe’ and we’re building
from last Sunday’s examination of ‘God’s call to repentance’. We thought then
about Paul’s description in Chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans of our
knowing what to do but not doing it, an insight from God’s Word that psychology
reinforces. We saw how the Christian good news of God’s love offers what
psychology will never be able to offer – opportunity to repent, turn from our inadequacies to the
source of grace and holiness which is in Jesus Christ.
In the Sunday lectionary we turn the page today from Romans 7
to Romans 8 which begins with one of the most assuring verses in scripture: There is … no condemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus. What a wonderful verse and how much we need to believe it!
Why should
we believe it? Why should we believe Christians are saved from judgement?
Verses 2 to 4 of Romans 8 explain all. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free
from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened
by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that
the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not
according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
St Paul
talks of three laws here – that of the Spirit, that of sin and death and that
given through Moses, the Ten Commandments
which are up on the sanctuary walls by the high altar. The first two
laws he speaks of set a contrast picked up throughout today’s passage between a
way of blessing – that of the Spirit – and a way of disaster, that of sin and
death. The third moral law has what Paul calls a just requirement which can’t be properly enforced on we who live according to the flesh under the law of sin and of death. As we
saw last week from Romans 7 no way can our lives be made pleasing to God and
free from condemnation by our own efforts but only by God’s grace which makes
us acceptable in his Son Jesus Christ which is the good news from a good God.
Peake’s commentary on these initial verses of Romans 8
has this helpful summary: Moses’ law has
right but not might; sin’s law
has might but not right; the law of the
Spirit has both right and might. God’s intervention involved ‘sending his own
son’ into the human situation dominated by Sin, not to be contaminated by it
but to decontaminate it, in a word to expose and overthrow the power of evil in
its occupied territory.
I like that quotation. The law has rights over us but
sin has might over us – the very conundrum we looked at last week. I do not do what I want Paul said
repeatedly in Chapter 7. Now in Chapter 8 he shows great excitement about the
Holy Spirit who has both rights over us and might to help us supply behaviour
that’s right. As Saint Augustine – himself transformed by reading the letter to
the Romans writes – give me the grace to
obey what you command and command what you will.
The ongoing decontamination
of our lives by Jesus Christ is good news from a good God. I know how far he’s
got to go with me, but at least I have knowledge of what they call ‘a Man who
can’. When your computer is contaminated
and the anti-virus has failed you have to take it to be decontaminated by ‘a
man who can’ in Haywards Heath or wherever. You can’t deal with it yourself. So
it is with the tendency to exalt self over God and neighbour and that deep
seated pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth – remember ‘pale
gas’, the mnemonic for the seven deadly sins. Our inner contamination requires
external treatment through what Jesus does for us, which is spelled out in
today’s Romans reading which ends with these words: If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he
who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also
through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Think about those words. Do you believe them? That weekly act of receiving Holy Communion – do
you see it for what it is, your decontamination and revitalisation? This section of Romans 8 sets forth a great
divide. For those who live according to
the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live
according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the
Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the
Spirit is life and peace.
There is a great divide between living at a physical
level, a life which evidently gets lost in physical death, and living at a
spiritual level, in the power of the Holy Spirit, with a quality of life
stronger than physical death through the power of Christ’s resurrection. If the
Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also
through his Spirit that dwells in you.
The letter to the Romans, like most of New Testament
writings, thrills with the perceived consequence of laying hold of the risen
Lord Jesus Christ through faith and baptism, Jesus who gives life to our mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwells
in us.
At every funeral in this Church we place the Paschal Candle
besides the coffin as a sign of this and sprinkle the body with holy water as a
reminder of the truth of our baptism - that the risen Christ’s indwelling gives life to our mortal bodies
through his Spirit. How many of these celebrations ring true to the
deceased? Inasmuch as our lives are in the orbit of the Church we have the
opportunity to engage with Jesus Christ in word and sacrament. He in turn,
throughout our lives, seeks to engage and draw forth the opening and offering
of our hearts.
O come to
my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for thee we sing,
but too often we are wording Christian faith.
I love this picture. It’s from St Paul’s Cathedral and it’s a
call to faith. Holman Hunt’s Light of the
world can be found in the north aisle chapel just off the Dome. It shows
Jesus Christ standing before a symbol of the human heart, knocking on a door
covered in ivy, a door without a handle – on
the outside! The scripture text below it from Revelation 3:20 makes plain
what Jesus Christ wants from you and I. came on earth it invites. Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any
man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him
and he with me.
The human heart, the centre of our being, is designed to open
from the inside. Until it opens Jesus cannot come close nor can his Spirit come
in to indwell us. To return to our passage, verses 9-10 you are not in the
flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who
does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ
is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life
because of righteousness.
As I invite you to read and ponder Romans Chapter 8 in
the coming weeks I am pointing to good news that’s not only believable but transformative! Whenever we welcome
Jesus and open the door to him his life pours into us, life that’s immortal and
insuppressible for the life of Jesus will never be put down – it will never
die.
That life is ours for the taking and it’s to be ours in
Holy Communion this morning as we open our hearts to Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the
sins of the world. Blessed are those who are called to his supper. Lord, I am
not worthy to receive you but only say the word, and I shall be healed. If the
Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also
through his Spirit that dwells in you.
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