Good news
from a good God is the title of a four part sermon series this month
on Romans bringing an explanation of the Christian good news. We’ll be looking
at the psychological insight of Romans 7 - I do not do the good I want – and the good news from Romans 8 which speaks of how
we reach a place of no condemnation, look
positively to the future and welcome the assurance that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God. The
series will weave in for our application God’s call to repent, believe, ask and
receive as four sub-headings.
This morning we read Romans 7.15-25 which began with a
profound statement that must have rung true to each and every one of us. I do not understand my own
actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. How is it that human
beings know what’s right and are
tortured by their failure to do so? I
know I must speak well of all people, because all are loved by God and in his
image, yet I get seduced into repeating negative assessments about them, what
we call detraction. I know my life is animated by God, surrounded by his love,
yet I act sometimes as if he weren’t there and didn’t care – and so on.
The letter to the Romans was written to engage exactly with
this wretchedness, and the grace from above that frees us from it, the grace
spoken of at the end of today’s second reading. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God … Jesus Christ our Lord!
We are talking this morning good news from a good God who
knows our plight through and through – has lived in it and through it in Jesus
– and whose all powerful goodness can operate in us if we repent and believe in
him, ask him in and receive his assurance. This is a scene setting for four
weeks of teaching on the basis of Christianity now we move on to look more
closely at the letter to the Romans itself which Coleridge called the most profound work ever written.
In the New Testament it’s placed first after the historical
accounts of the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and before the
earlier writings of Paul that deal with particular problems in Corinth,
Galatia, Ephesus and so on. The letter to the Romans is Paul’s credo written around 55AD to summarise 20 years reflection
on the meaning of Jesus Christ. Paul is never an easy read – read through Romans
with me in July but not in King James! Use a less poetic but more accessible
translation. Be careful though. In reading and getting to grips with Romans
you’re handling dynamite! Many who’ve read it – Augustine, Luther and so on –
have had to press a reset button on their life.
The dynamite has two blasts and they concern law and history. Reading Romans challenges both that part of us that seeks
to earn good will legalistically through good actions and that other part of us
that’s deep down lost hope for the future of the world. Such is its power, the
power of the Word of God no less, to reset our life and our hope.
The letter to the Romans says first of all that to reach into
a right relationship with God is impossible from our side but that God has reached down to us in Jesus to
lift us to his heights. The righteousness of God is revealed through
faith for faith is banner heading of the letter, Chapter 1:17 saying we’re
saved ultimately not by following laws but by welcoming grace.
The second blast of Romans is that the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ has rewritten the history of the world, making the church God’s
new Israel so that the very destiny of the cosmos is tied in with that of God’s
children and, as we read in Romans 8:21 the
creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the
freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Over the next four weeks the Sunday Lectionary covers Romans
7 and 8 which are the hinge of 16 Chapters on the good news of God’s goodness.
Chapters 1 to 8 of Romans are theological – they are about God, the individual
and the church and we will be reading Paul’s summary of these Chapters over the
next month in Chapters 7 and 8. Chapters 9 to 11 reflect on the purpose of
history, how the Church is the new Israel and how the old Israel will yet find
a place in his plan. Chapters 12 to 15 are on Christian ethics, that is, on the
practical application to our lives of the truth about God, law and grace,
history and the church expounded in the first part of the letter.
So – to practical application this morning – with more
thoughts on the section of Romans 7 you have in your service booklet. The
passage is a profound reflection on our human condition. When Augustine read it
he had the school of thought Lord, make
me chaste, but not yet. Like us he knew of the good and evil within him and
was complacent. We human beings know our worth, know what we can and might be,
but we fall short of it and of the desire for it. To speak of our sinning is to
speak as they do in archery of a life that falls short of its target. We know
we’re made by God for community to love God and the community but with that
knowledge comes the deep frustration of
distrust, or even at times hatred, of God and the community. For I do not do what I
want, writes Paul in verse 15 of Chapter
7 but I do the very thing I hate.
How can I
please God? We live dangerously when we think our churchgoing or
confirmation or ordination is what ultimately pleases him. It doesn’t displease
him but its insufficient to give access to him in his holiness. ‘Lord you are the
source of all holiness’ the priest says in the eucharistic prayer, going on to
ask God in that holiness to make bread and wine holy for us. It is precisely
that body and blood of Christ represented in bread and wine which can make us
pleasing to God. The letter to the Hebrews says in Chapter 11 verse 6 that without faith it is impossible to please
God. What pleases God is to be found in the body and blood of Jesus as Paul
says in Ephesians 1:6-7 glorious grace [is]
freely bestowed on us in the Beloved… [Jesus Christ in whom] we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. The good news of the
goodness of God to us is that though so different, awesome, immense and holy he
thought to make us in his image so as to be transformed into his glory and be
history makers. To effect that plan for
the future of the cosmos he needed to take our nature and provide sinners with
a way into his holiness by incorporating us into the body of Jesus Christ
that’s acceptable to God.
By uniting us to the sacrifice of Jesus, made present at this
and every eucharist, God makes us acceptable in the Beloved, since, in the
words of Romans 3:23 all have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God [but] are now justified by his grace as a gift,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. This earlier teaching in
Romans lies behind the end of today’s
passage: Wretched man that I am! Who will
rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God … Jesus Christ our Lord!
Read Romans 1 to 7 to get more insight into this need for God
to take flesh in Jesus and so provide needful sacrifice for sin - but this
morning I leave you with God’s call to repentance. You’ve read Paul’s
description of our knowing what to do but not doing it, insight from God’s Word
that psychology reinforces. With me accept what psychology will not be able to
offer which is the call to repent, to turn from your inadequacy to the source
of grace and holiness which is Christ in
you – Christ who is coming to you
in word and sacrament this morning. Repent,
turn to him whose power in you is able to alleviate your wretchedness and
work within you by his power to make your life pleasing to God who has made you
for his glory.
Here’s a taster for you – but do pick up your bible in the
coming week – a modern translation – and savour Romans!
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