Text: Romans 1:1-7
Focus: The Family of God
Function: To help people feel the joy of belonging to Jesus
Form: Story telling
Intro:
I love that old Gaither Hymn, “I'm So Glad I'm a Part, of the family of God.”
I remember when I was first saved and the joy I felt when I realized that here was a place that I belonged. I was in a place that wouldn't judge me for who I am. I was in a place where people actually covenanted with me to love and support me regardless of my faults and failures. It feels so good to belong.
I remember the first time the men in the Church got together to help out a family. We were all on the roof making repairs, and because I was small, they tied a rope around me and sent me up on a steep section to make a crucial repair. Not only did I belong, but I was needed.
What a great feeling that is!
Last week, we looked at the commitment, and the sacrifices that we should all be making that love demands.
That commitment, that attitude that the apostle had counted the cost is again reflected in his description of himself. He says, I am Jesus' slave.” He recognizes that as a Christian, he has surrendered his rights to Jesus Christ. Therefore, here he is, sending a letter of welcome to people who are the enemy of the nation he dearly loves.
That is the context of this letter. Paul, although a Roman Citizen, was first a Jew. And the negative and resentful feeling toward the Roman people, was certainly something that loomed large in his mind.
He was a Pharisee and from the gospels we read about the contempt the Pharisees had for anyone who was a part of the Roman bondage.
But all of that changes when he becomes a Christian. Because now, his national identities, as a Jew, and a citizen of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth, takes the back seat to the fact that he is now in God's family.
So today, the focus is on joy, the joy of belonging... ...belonging to this great family.
Paul writes this letter to people who didn't expect to be a part of the covenant that God established with the Jewish people.
Paul rejoices in the fact that God's grace, love, and forgiveness extends even to our enemies.
I once heard a believer who was harboring bitterness in her heart say, “I would rather go to hell than share heaven with that person.”
And if she doesn't repent, she will.
Paul realizes that it is indeed a joy for them.
Instead of grudgingly saying, “well if I have to let you into heaven to get there myself, then so be it.” No, his answer was love. He was truly happy about the salvation and forgiveness of his enemies.
Remember Jonah? It wasn't that he didn't want to be a prophet. His entire running away, getting swallowed by the fish, miraculously surviving the ordeal, and miraculously being coughed up on the beach of the very city he was sent to is quite a story.
But his frustration was with God's forgiveness. He was afraid that if he preached to those people they would indeed repent and God would spare them His judgment.
Nineveh was a powerful nation, and they were enemies of Israel. He spends the last 2 chapters sulking, angry at God that his enemies found forgiveness and grace.
So this letter, encompasses the whole hope of the Christmas story. God wants everyone back, even our enemies.
God is in the business of reconciling people to Him and each other.
And Paul is on mission with God.
This is what happens when a person gets saved. They start loving their enemies. And this is an important lesson for us today.
Paul rejoices in the salvation of his enemies.
Do you see this in what I have been preaching here these last three years? 3 years ago this Sunday, God appointed me to be your pastor.
And for three years, I have been preaching that we need to be like Paul, instead of the other Pharisees. The other Pharisees kept control of their people by pointing their fingers at the awful sinfulness of the culture around them. They would claim that the sins of those people, and the sins of this other people, and the sins of someone else is why God isn't blessing the land.
I have been preaching that instead of being like the Pharisees and crying foul over the sins of others, pointing our fingers at pagans, we need to be like this dear brother and get involved in God's mission.
To use a military term: We are on point in spiritual warfare and the battle is for the souls of men and women, even our enemies.
The Romans were this great and terrible military power, so Paul changes his introduction of Jesus to them.
Everywhere else, he starts with the Cross, but here, he starts with the Christmas story, the nativity.
He mentions if from the birth of Christ.
Jesus was born. God came into the World. God has a plan to draw everyone back to Him.
He speaks of the resurrection, but the initial introduction says nothing about the cross. Ho does speak clearly of it later on in the book. But right now, that concept is left out. He speaks of the nativity. The message of hope. The message of reconciliation.
Remember, the Romans were about power and control. When Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, he refused to allow his sword hand to be submerged in his baptism.
That power, that control was extremely important to that culture.
So the emphasis, born as a baby, in human frailty, without the assumed power of a mighty man speaks volumes to the Roman believers about the nature of our salvation and transformation.
He is telling them that conversion into this new family of God will indeed upset the status quo of their own value system.
That is the message.
And in these first 7 verses, Paul explains to them the meaning of God's plan to provide redemption, hope and joy to the entire world.
I love verse 7 from our reading this morning:
7And you, dear friends in Rome, are among those He dearly loves; you, too, are invited by Jesus Christ to be God's very own--yes, his holy people. May all God's mercies and peace be yours from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord.
The enemies of God's people are also included in the people invited by Jesus to be God's very own people.
This is indeed a privilege given to us all from God.
Again, this new Kingdom is upside down from the empire that has given them such security and confidence.
And he says, “you are God's very own -Yes! His holy people.
Holy People.
What does that mean?
Holy does not mean religious. It means set apart.
It means that we, like Jesus have adopted a new country, a new Kingdom a new first allegiance.
We now belong to God's family and as we saw two weeks ago, it is indeed a treasure that is worth everything we own.
Before we count ourselves citizens of our the United States of America, before we consider ourselves members of a political party, before we consider ourselves members of a certain racial group, before we consider ourselves members of a certain economic class, before we consider ourselves members of a certain educational class, before we consider ourselves blue collar, or white collar, we are first and foremost believers in Jesus, members of God's family and citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Paul is reminding them of the benefits of that kingdom.
It means everything.
I have had the privilege of several “eleventh hour” baptisms. At the bedside of dying people who finally surrendered their souls to God's salvation.
On every single occasion, the person has regretted the fact that they waited until the last minute. To see the joy of transformation come across their faces, to know that they are indeed forgiven and to know that they are reconciled to God is amazing.
One man, covered in tattoos and apparently a pretty notorious sinner lay dying in a hospital bed in the front room of his mobile home for months.
People who knew him kept asking me to visit.
When I would visit, he would be cordial, but when the conversation turned toward eternity, he would almost immediately fall asleep.
One day, the Holy Spirit spoke to me about the veil that Satan places over unbelievers eyes, and I rebuked a spirit of slumber, silently in my minds own prayers.
Immediately the man woke up and started asking me if he could be saved.
He accepted Christ's sacrifice for him and told me to make sure to say that he now had a new last name: Christian.
That funeral service focused on his new last name.
To see the joy that came into his heart was worth a lot to me.
And, he called himself by this new last name.
I used to wonder what people thought when they heard “I'm a part of the family of God.”
Did they hear me saying “I'm in and you are out?”
Did they hear me saying “I think I am better than you?”
Or, did they hear us talking about the joy, the privilege and the peace that comes from being in this family?
I think a lot of it has to do with the way we describe the family and the way we treat those who may not yet be members.
A lot of it is up to us. So again, let us take our clue from this scripture and recognize again who this Jewish man, the apostle Paul is writing this letter to.
Now we know that he is a Roman Citizen, even though he is Jewish. He obtained his citizenship by having the good fortune to be born in a Roman city. Maybe he was one of the first “anchor babies.”
In the Roman world, at that time, this was indeed a great privilege. It was as great a privilege for him as it is for those of us who happen to have US citizenship. It was a sort of “passport to safety” wherever he traveled.
But, in this passage he makes one thing clear about all of that privilege. He is a member of God's family, and he is more concerned and more excited, and more committed to what that means than his rights and privileges as a citizen of the most powerful kingdom the world had ever known.
Do you see the importance of being imported into the family of God?
It is our birthright as believers. The joy, the privilege of being a member of God's family.
And that privilege does not make us better than anyone else. It should never make us feel arrogant, or proud. But the emphasis is one of Joy.
What is joy? It's an emotion.
One wise person said: “Joy is peace dancing, and peace is joy at rest.”
When we think of joy, we think of merriment. But it isn't necessarily excitement, or partying.
Joy is what happens when the hope we trust in comes to pass.
It springs out of the peace that we have when, just as my ruffian friend proclaimed, he knew that his sins were forgiven and he was a part of something huge.
When my father died, I didn't feel a lot of joy, but I sure felt peace. I had peace to know that his was a life worth living. His life made a difference. He preached grace to people who knew they didn't deserve it.
It was a life demonstrated by the peace that comes from having the issue settled as to where his primary allegiance lies. His was in the kingdom of God.
And joy came for him the moment he died. And it will come again for me, with him in heaven.
And all of that makes up what it means to be a Christian.
But in this passage, brother Paul chooses to emphasize the joy, the privilege and the meaning of life on this earth as a believer.
He is a part of God's great adventure. He is a part of God's great desire to bring everyone back to Him.
The Family of God is not an exclusive club membership, but it is a partnership of believers who have the same concern for one another.
That is the beauty of the Christmas Spirit. It is a time for us, for everyone to remind ourselves that essentially, we are all loving people who care for others.
Hope came at Christmas. Love came at Christmas. Joy came at Christmas.
CONCL:
At the end of 2 Corinthians, the other 13th chapter, Paul gives this instruction:
5-6Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don't drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it.
And by this text, the acceptance of his enemies into God's kingdom we see something.
True Christian love rejoices in the restoration to God of our enemies.
Are you happy that at the success or failure of others?
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