Romans: God's Righteous Judgment: Feb 18, 2007
February 18, 2007 Faith and Works the Gospel in Synch
Introduction: drama by Craig Erickson… (on belief)
What does it mean to “believe”?
Paul in his thesis statement on the book of Romans in chapter 1:16 says, 16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…
What does it mean to believe in a way that leads us to salvation—i.e. to believe in a way that leads to our sins being taken away and our restored to God?
According to a poll taken by TIME magazine 80% of Canadians claim to “believe” or “somewhat believe” in God… what kind of belief that restores a person to God?
As we turn to Romans chapter 2 today we’re going to be looking at the kind of belief that restores a person to God… and prepares us to stand before God on the coming final day of judgment…
But, before we look at the nature of the judgment day lets us review the context:
We’ve just begun a series on the book of Romans: a book that unpacks: the greatest news ever--the Gospel: the message that we can be restored our maker.
Last Sunday we walked through the latter part of Romans Chapter 1. In that later part of Romans 1 the apostle Paul sketches out the chief spiritual dynamic in the history of the world. He shows how human beings turned from the living God. So like a fish out of water, human beings are living outside the environment for which they were made and are therefore experiencing all kinds of breakdown. As a result of living lives disconnected from the one true source of life, human beings experience not only alienation from God but from themselves, each other and the earth. And this shows up in all kinds of different ways: pride, fear, envy, lust, inordinate anger, hatred, abuse of people, abuse of the earth.
As Paul finishes Romans chapter 1, he is aware that there will be many Jewish people
who will hear these words of his read, and many of them will likely quietly assume that when Paul is describing humankind as “turning away from God” he is describing the history of the Gentiles… the history of the pagans.
Many of Paul’s fellow Jews would have assumed that because they were the physical descendants of Abraham and their people had received the law of God through Moses, that no matter what they did they would be exempt from God’s judgment.
And so, in Romans Chapter 2, verse 1, Paul turns his attention to his fellow Jews and says in vs. 1
1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
Paul says to his fellow Jews, “Don’t look down at the Gentiles… at the pagans…for their history of turning away from God… because at whatever point you look down on the Gentiles and the pagans you are guilty of doing the same
And then in verses 21-23, Paul asks his fellow Jews:
21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
Paul, of course, is not suggesting here that every single Jewish person engages in stealing, adultery and gratuitously breaks God’s law. But Paul is stating that some of the Jews engage in these violations. Because come of the Jews engage in these violations, and if that is the case, the Jewish people as a whole (this was much more group oriented culture than our North American culture), cannot look down on the Gentiles as a whole.
Paul would also say to people who have been raised in a Christian culture or some of kind “polite” middle or upper class society, don’t look down on other people who haven’t had your religious, cultural, or social upbringing because whatever “they”--those cultural barbarians do to break God’s code so do you or so do “your people.”
If you personally don’t break a particular law of God, Paul says don’t look on those who do, because at some other point you break God’s law.
We human beings have a remarkable capacity to justify our sins, but to look down at other people’s sins especially if there are different from our sins.
People with conservative values can look down on say the sexual mores of more liberal types, whereas people with liberal values can look down at conservatives who don’t seem to care enough for justice poor and environment.
We can look down on people who commit sins different from our own, and as Paul points out we can even look down on people who commit the same sins we do.
People can very upset when some above them on the social ladder treats them condescendingly while they themselves act in a condescending way to those who are below them. David Hocking a Christian pastor in Southern California says I don’t want to join the church because they hypocrites there, come one more hypocrite won’t upset the balance. Paul candidly points we are all prone to hypocrisy at some level, so none of us has the right to arrogantly look down another person or set of people, Paul now turns his attention to how God will judge us.
Notice vs. 6
6 God will repay everyone according to what they have done." [a] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.
It is very clear that on the final day of judgment that he refers to in vs. 16 that when God judges everyone’s secrets through Jesus Christ that God will be completely just and impartial in that judgment.
Now, Paul in Romans, Chapter 2, sounds as if our judgment before God will take place on the basis of what we actually do.
Verse 6 says God will repay everyone according to what they have done… those who do good, will receive eternal life …those who are self-seeking and evil will experience wrath and anger on that day of judgment.
If, however, you have read the book of Romans and other parts of scripture, you will
know that Paul very clearly argues that people will be justified by God, not primarily by
their works, but by their faith or trust in the living God.
In Romans 1: 16, in Paul’s thesis statement, he says: I am not ashamed of the gospel
because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.
Paul says in his thesis statement that salvation or forgiveness of sins comes to those who believe.
In Romans 3:26, we read that the righteous are justified by faith in Jesus Christ.
In Romans 5, Paul says that we have peace with God through our faith on Jesus Christ.
And in Galatians and other passages, Paul makes it very clear that we are justified by our faith in Jesus Christ.
So why does Paul seem to contradict himself in Romans 2:6 and says God will repay everyone according to what they have done--to those who do good, he will give eternal life, to those who do evil he will exact anger and judgment? And why does James seem to contradict the Bible’s general teaching that a person is justified in God sight by faith, when he says in James 2:24 that people are justified by what they do and not by faith alone?
There seem to be claims in the New Testament that we justified before God by faith and there also seem to be some contradicting statements that say we are justified by works.
Is there really a contradiction here or simply an apparent contradiction?
There is no real contradiction. Because the Bible clearly teaches that if we really believe in God, if we really trust God, that belief will be evidenced in what we do.
The Bible teaches we are justified in God’s sight on the basis of our trusting in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ (his work on the cross, absorbing our sins in his body) but if that faith is real faith, then that faith will be demonstrated in what we do.
This does not mean that when we come to believe and trust in God we will made perfect, but as we grow in our faith and trust in God that faith and that trust will be apparent in the way that we actually live our lives.
I pointed out in our first message in this Romans series, I pointed out that when Paul says: I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone believes, the word “believe” is in the present, continuous tense in the Greek and so we could translate the verse the Gospel is the power of salvation for all who continue to believe and trust in God.
Believing in God is not intended to be a “one time decision” we made when we were students or during a crisis… believing in God is an ongoing affair and if continue to believe and trust we will obey God.
Trusting God and obeying God are not two different ways to relate to God, rather faith
and obedience to God are organically connected. When truly believe and trust God we will also obey God.
My seminary professor, Scott Hafemann, in his book, The God of Promise and the Life of
Faith, points out that every commandment of God is really a promise in disguise.
For example, God commands us to rest one day out of seven in a given week. God says, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall work, but the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
Implicit in the command to take a Sabbath once a week is the promise is that while we are resting and worshipping God will provide for our needs.
If we really believe that God will provide for our needs while we rest, we will obey the Sabbath commandment. The Sabbath commandment is not simply given to us so that
we can experience physical, emotional and spiritual recovery. That is part of the reason
God gave us the Sabbath commandment, but another deeper reason he gave us the
Sabbath command is so that we would learn to trust the living God.
Eugene Peterson in his book on the Psalms called Answering God points out that the
Hebrew conception of the day begins in the evening and therefore from the Hebrew perspective we begin our day in rest, and when we wake up we discover that God has been at work in the world: creating shoots on crocuses, tulips, and puppies.
Part of what the Sabbath commandment does for us is that it gives us the opportunity to say to God, “I trust you to take care of the universe and my life, as I take a day of rest and
focused worship on you.”
In the 10th commandment God says do not covet. The promise implicit in this commandment is that God will meet the deepest longings of our heart.
When we believe that the deepest yearnings of our heart will be met in the living God, we will become people who can obey the commandment “do not covet.”
Over the past year or so, I’ve become acquainted with a young woman named Catherine who has felt called to live a life of holy pilgrimage. She’s me permission to tell her story. Catherine was involved in a car accident where she sustained a back injury, she didn’t sue, but ended getting a financial settlement… and with the money she decided visit some of the holy places of North America and Europe… out of that pilgrimage God calling to a life of holy pilgrimage.
Last month over lunch, I asked her if part of that call to holy pilgrimage included a call to celibacy. And she said I’ve wanted to be single so my heart could be more exclusively focused on Jesus Christ. I decided I would not have children of my own because I’d like every child to be my child potentially (not in the legal sense, of course) but in a sense that if I don’t my own children I can care of for children of world, especially the poor children like Mother Teresa was able to do because she didn’t have any children of her own.
This young woman comes from well to do family, she’s well educated, fun, attractive, her decision to follow Christ has meant that she “giving up” a number of things that most people consider essential to happiness. But she’s a young woman of deep joy who doesn’t covet other people things, because she knows God will meet the deepest longings of her heart.
(As a PS, she now considering the possibility that marriage may be God’s will for her as man as devoted to Christ as she is has proposed to her).
This young woman that I have just described has a friend named Shane Clairborne. Some of you would know Shane, or know of him—he wrote a book called The Irresistible Rvolution. Shane intrigues me. Shane is a young man in his early thirties. He is radically committed to God and to justice for the poor. He feels a call to lead a celibate life and to own as little as possible.
Catherine met female met Shane, got to know him, when they were together at Princeton Seminary and she said Shane was wearing these old jeans that were fastened together with safety pins and had these long dredlocks that were died blue and he just seemed kind of out there, especially for a wealthy place like Princeton. She thought, I’ll reach out to him because he seemed so “out there…” on the margins. So she’s “hi” and he says hi back and she soon come to realize what a warm, winsome beautiful human being—she becomes good with him friends with.
They ended up going to India together with some others and to serve along side Mother Teresa.
My friend Catherine describes Shane as a modern day St. Francis of Assisi, about the greatest compliment, in my view, that you could give a person.
Shane has chosen a life of celibacy and to giving away almost at that he possesses, yet he is a person of luminous joy.
Shane is from an upper middle class family, was educated at expensive private schools, though he has almost nothing now by world standards, he does not covet people who achieve the North American success dream, he does not covet them, because he believes, he really believes that implicit the commandment that shalt not covet is the promise that God will meet the deepest longings of our heart… And he’s a person of luminous joy.
When we become people who believe that each of the commandments of God contain a promise from God, we will not view the commands of God as a kind of intrusion that will wreck our lives but as window of opportunity to trust the promises of God… As we trust that God will supply all of our needs as we will honor Sabbath, as we God trust to meet all of our needs, we will obey the commandment to give. As trust God to meet the deepest longings of our heart we obey the commandment not to covet. As we trust that we find our lives through by losing them Christ, we will our lay them for God.
And so Paul is not contradicting himself when he says that on one hand we are justified
by believing and the other hand says we are justified by what we do, because as James points out if we really believe the gospel, if we really trust in God, and continue to trust in God, and all of promises implicit in the commandments we will obey God.
We are justified by faith, but true faith is always demonstrated in what we do.
Remember the gospel is not just a one-time praying a prayer to Jesus. It is about a life of trust in living God.
In Romans 2:16, we read that on the coming day of judgment that we will be judged as
God judges everyone’s secrets. And on that Day of Judgment the secrets of our heart will
be revealed, and we will be justified on the basis of what we do. And if you say, “But ,
ah, I don’t get it, doesn’t Paul say we will be justified by what we believed?”
What we really believed in the deepest part of our heart will one day be revealed by what
we did.
A Christian pastor sits with a couple whose marriage has been severely tested by the husband’s having sex with another woman. The husband says my wife should get over it because the other woman meant nothing to me and I love my wife my more than any other person in all the world. Then pastor gently, yet clearly says. That may be true, but in the moment you slept with other woman, in that moment, you were saying by what you did that you loved yourself more than your wife.
What we really believe, what’s in our heart will be revealed in what we do.
That does not mean that we will lives of perfection. It does mean as we grow in our trust in God, we will become people who increasingly obey.
In the latter part of Romans 2 in verses 28 and 29 we read:
28 A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person's praise is not from other people, but from God.
Paul says a person is not a Jew…and here he is using the word Jew as a kind of metaphor to mean ‘the children of God, the true spiritual descendants of Abraham.’…a person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly. No, a person is a Jew who is a Jew who is one inwardly and real circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the Spirit (illus father in Washington State).
And when Paul says this, he is saying is (and we see this more clearly if we link what here says to other parts of the book of Romans, particularly Chapters 9-11) that when a person truly believes the gospel, truly trusts in Jesus Christ, they are reconciled to God through his spirit. And as a result of being reconciled to God who is Spirit, they receive God’s Spirit, and, therefore, a new heart.
Paul is arguing that in the book of Romans the covenant that God made with Abraham and his descendants to forgive their sins and make them new people there would bear the Spirit of God, what is sometimes referred to as “the new covenant,” is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
In Ezekiel, Chapter 36: 24…, we read these words concerning the new covenant:
24 " 'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws..
What the prophet Ezekiel is saying and what Paul is affirming is this; that when we put
our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we are restored to the God who is Spirit and we receive
a new Spirit; we become people who experience the promises of the new covenant, the Spirit and as God’s Spirit works in us, we will become people who by nature follow God’s decrees, God’s ways.
Some years ago I was speaking at a high school camp just outside of Ottawa. Most of the 50 or so kids were not Christians. I remember one evening where I was anticipating speaking. The evening got off to a late start as it hard to pull the kids together, they sat around a camp fire with all smoke wafting off blowing into faces of the kids, there mosquitoes buzzing around and then a rap group got up and performed…and then I got up and started speaking… I wasn’t connecting with these kids very well… I could they were distracted by the smoke and mosquitoes and hoping that I’d end ASAP…
At the end my talk, I had the teens bow their and if you’d like to give your life to Christ tonight to give your to Christ… raise your hand… only two kids, raised their hand… one of them was star athlete of the high school: football, basketball and baseball MVP… He was handsome and bad boy….
The next morning… he and some of his friends decided to take a canoe out onto the lake and they were not wearing life jackets… and they decided to tip the canoe in the middle of the lake…and race back… and this star athlete, ended up going under water and never surfacing—he ended up drowning in the lake
That morning in the tent some of popular, bad-boy jock friend were saying let’s do ________ when we leave this and they described something bad that boys like to do… and this star athlete…said, Last I gave my to life God, I can’t do that any more…
This high school athlete new nothing of Ezekiel 36 and the new covenant, but the morning after he had given his life to God, he showing evidence of hearted wanted to follow God’s ways. When we really trust in Jesus we receive God’s Spirit making us want to follow God’s ways.
It may be that some of you here are made a little anxious about this teaching of Paul and
James that we are justified both by faith and by deeds. To reiterate, Paul and James are
Not saying we are justified on the basis of our deeds. Paul us saying that we are justified on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ, but that true faith will always be demonstrated by deeds.
Some of you may saying to yourself, I’m not sure that that’s good news for me. I am not very disciplined…
I want to bring to your attention what the apostle Paul says in Philippians, Chapter 2…
continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Paul says in Phil. 2 work out your salvation with fear and trembling with more reverence and care than your preparing to go med school, your beginning a new job, than your starting a new relationship…as important as those things are because your salvation is more important than anything in the whole world… But know that as you work out, rest in the knowledge that it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose…
Rest in the knowledge that God’s Spirit will help you…
The gospel, according to the apostle Paul, is not that we are saved we are saved on the basis of faith and trust in the living God, but that faith if true ongoing faith will always be demonstrated by works. If we really believe are restored to God and receive the Spirit our faith will be demonstrated in what we do.
Prayer:
Paul says here in the Bible, one day you will stand before on the day of judgment… the way we can ready ourselves by turning to and trusting in Jesus Christ.
Romans 2:4 we are told that God’s kindness that leads us to turn to him, to begin to trust him…
Two weeks the ago paper carried a story about a newborn girl had left by your mother on
someone’s doorstep in Saskatoon. It was so cold that this little baby could have frozen to death in just a few minutes, but was rescued by the family living in that house.
Police service spokeswoman, Alyson Edwards came forward and said on television, “We want the mother to step forward, we you, that we are not going to throw handcuffs on your and throw you in jail. We want to help you… As a result of that kind police woman’s the call, the young fear mother came forward…
When we realize how kind God is… we can turn to God and offer him our trust, our lives… perhaps some of you want to do that now…
(The seron can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
Introduction: drama by Craig Erickson… (on belief)
What does it mean to “believe”?
Paul in his thesis statement on the book of Romans in chapter 1:16 says, 16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…
What does it mean to believe in a way that leads us to salvation—i.e. to believe in a way that leads to our sins being taken away and our restored to God?
According to a poll taken by TIME magazine 80% of Canadians claim to “believe” or “somewhat believe” in God… what kind of belief that restores a person to God?
As we turn to Romans chapter 2 today we’re going to be looking at the kind of belief that restores a person to God… and prepares us to stand before God on the coming final day of judgment…
But, before we look at the nature of the judgment day lets us review the context:
We’ve just begun a series on the book of Romans: a book that unpacks: the greatest news ever--the Gospel: the message that we can be restored our maker.
Last Sunday we walked through the latter part of Romans Chapter 1. In that later part of Romans 1 the apostle Paul sketches out the chief spiritual dynamic in the history of the world. He shows how human beings turned from the living God. So like a fish out of water, human beings are living outside the environment for which they were made and are therefore experiencing all kinds of breakdown. As a result of living lives disconnected from the one true source of life, human beings experience not only alienation from God but from themselves, each other and the earth. And this shows up in all kinds of different ways: pride, fear, envy, lust, inordinate anger, hatred, abuse of people, abuse of the earth.
As Paul finishes Romans chapter 1, he is aware that there will be many Jewish people
who will hear these words of his read, and many of them will likely quietly assume that when Paul is describing humankind as “turning away from God” he is describing the history of the Gentiles… the history of the pagans.
Many of Paul’s fellow Jews would have assumed that because they were the physical descendants of Abraham and their people had received the law of God through Moses, that no matter what they did they would be exempt from God’s judgment.
And so, in Romans Chapter 2, verse 1, Paul turns his attention to his fellow Jews and says in vs. 1
1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
Paul says to his fellow Jews, “Don’t look down at the Gentiles… at the pagans…for their history of turning away from God… because at whatever point you look down on the Gentiles and the pagans you are guilty of doing the same
And then in verses 21-23, Paul asks his fellow Jews:
21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
Paul, of course, is not suggesting here that every single Jewish person engages in stealing, adultery and gratuitously breaks God’s law. But Paul is stating that some of the Jews engage in these violations. Because come of the Jews engage in these violations, and if that is the case, the Jewish people as a whole (this was much more group oriented culture than our North American culture), cannot look down on the Gentiles as a whole.
Paul would also say to people who have been raised in a Christian culture or some of kind “polite” middle or upper class society, don’t look down on other people who haven’t had your religious, cultural, or social upbringing because whatever “they”--those cultural barbarians do to break God’s code so do you or so do “your people.”
If you personally don’t break a particular law of God, Paul says don’t look on those who do, because at some other point you break God’s law.
We human beings have a remarkable capacity to justify our sins, but to look down at other people’s sins especially if there are different from our sins.
People with conservative values can look down on say the sexual mores of more liberal types, whereas people with liberal values can look down at conservatives who don’t seem to care enough for justice poor and environment.
We can look down on people who commit sins different from our own, and as Paul points out we can even look down on people who commit the same sins we do.
People can very upset when some above them on the social ladder treats them condescendingly while they themselves act in a condescending way to those who are below them. David Hocking a Christian pastor in Southern California says I don’t want to join the church because they hypocrites there, come one more hypocrite won’t upset the balance. Paul candidly points we are all prone to hypocrisy at some level, so none of us has the right to arrogantly look down another person or set of people, Paul now turns his attention to how God will judge us.
Notice vs. 6
6 God will repay everyone according to what they have done." [a] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.
It is very clear that on the final day of judgment that he refers to in vs. 16 that when God judges everyone’s secrets through Jesus Christ that God will be completely just and impartial in that judgment.
Now, Paul in Romans, Chapter 2, sounds as if our judgment before God will take place on the basis of what we actually do.
Verse 6 says God will repay everyone according to what they have done… those who do good, will receive eternal life …those who are self-seeking and evil will experience wrath and anger on that day of judgment.
If, however, you have read the book of Romans and other parts of scripture, you will
know that Paul very clearly argues that people will be justified by God, not primarily by
their works, but by their faith or trust in the living God.
In Romans 1: 16, in Paul’s thesis statement, he says: I am not ashamed of the gospel
because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.
Paul says in his thesis statement that salvation or forgiveness of sins comes to those who believe.
In Romans 3:26, we read that the righteous are justified by faith in Jesus Christ.
In Romans 5, Paul says that we have peace with God through our faith on Jesus Christ.
And in Galatians and other passages, Paul makes it very clear that we are justified by our faith in Jesus Christ.
So why does Paul seem to contradict himself in Romans 2:6 and says God will repay everyone according to what they have done--to those who do good, he will give eternal life, to those who do evil he will exact anger and judgment? And why does James seem to contradict the Bible’s general teaching that a person is justified in God sight by faith, when he says in James 2:24 that people are justified by what they do and not by faith alone?
There seem to be claims in the New Testament that we justified before God by faith and there also seem to be some contradicting statements that say we are justified by works.
Is there really a contradiction here or simply an apparent contradiction?
There is no real contradiction. Because the Bible clearly teaches that if we really believe in God, if we really trust God, that belief will be evidenced in what we do.
The Bible teaches we are justified in God’s sight on the basis of our trusting in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ (his work on the cross, absorbing our sins in his body) but if that faith is real faith, then that faith will be demonstrated in what we do.
This does not mean that when we come to believe and trust in God we will made perfect, but as we grow in our faith and trust in God that faith and that trust will be apparent in the way that we actually live our lives.
I pointed out in our first message in this Romans series, I pointed out that when Paul says: I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone believes, the word “believe” is in the present, continuous tense in the Greek and so we could translate the verse the Gospel is the power of salvation for all who continue to believe and trust in God.
Believing in God is not intended to be a “one time decision” we made when we were students or during a crisis… believing in God is an ongoing affair and if continue to believe and trust we will obey God.
Trusting God and obeying God are not two different ways to relate to God, rather faith
and obedience to God are organically connected. When truly believe and trust God we will also obey God.
My seminary professor, Scott Hafemann, in his book, The God of Promise and the Life of
Faith, points out that every commandment of God is really a promise in disguise.
For example, God commands us to rest one day out of seven in a given week. God says, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall work, but the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
Implicit in the command to take a Sabbath once a week is the promise is that while we are resting and worshipping God will provide for our needs.
If we really believe that God will provide for our needs while we rest, we will obey the Sabbath commandment. The Sabbath commandment is not simply given to us so that
we can experience physical, emotional and spiritual recovery. That is part of the reason
God gave us the Sabbath commandment, but another deeper reason he gave us the
Sabbath command is so that we would learn to trust the living God.
Eugene Peterson in his book on the Psalms called Answering God points out that the
Hebrew conception of the day begins in the evening and therefore from the Hebrew perspective we begin our day in rest, and when we wake up we discover that God has been at work in the world: creating shoots on crocuses, tulips, and puppies.
Part of what the Sabbath commandment does for us is that it gives us the opportunity to say to God, “I trust you to take care of the universe and my life, as I take a day of rest and
focused worship on you.”
In the 10th commandment God says do not covet. The promise implicit in this commandment is that God will meet the deepest longings of our heart.
When we believe that the deepest yearnings of our heart will be met in the living God, we will become people who can obey the commandment “do not covet.”
Over the past year or so, I’ve become acquainted with a young woman named Catherine who has felt called to live a life of holy pilgrimage. She’s me permission to tell her story. Catherine was involved in a car accident where she sustained a back injury, she didn’t sue, but ended getting a financial settlement… and with the money she decided visit some of the holy places of North America and Europe… out of that pilgrimage God calling to a life of holy pilgrimage.
Last month over lunch, I asked her if part of that call to holy pilgrimage included a call to celibacy. And she said I’ve wanted to be single so my heart could be more exclusively focused on Jesus Christ. I decided I would not have children of my own because I’d like every child to be my child potentially (not in the legal sense, of course) but in a sense that if I don’t my own children I can care of for children of world, especially the poor children like Mother Teresa was able to do because she didn’t have any children of her own.
This young woman comes from well to do family, she’s well educated, fun, attractive, her decision to follow Christ has meant that she “giving up” a number of things that most people consider essential to happiness. But she’s a young woman of deep joy who doesn’t covet other people things, because she knows God will meet the deepest longings of her heart.
(As a PS, she now considering the possibility that marriage may be God’s will for her as man as devoted to Christ as she is has proposed to her).
This young woman that I have just described has a friend named Shane Clairborne. Some of you would know Shane, or know of him—he wrote a book called The Irresistible Rvolution. Shane intrigues me. Shane is a young man in his early thirties. He is radically committed to God and to justice for the poor. He feels a call to lead a celibate life and to own as little as possible.
Catherine met female met Shane, got to know him, when they were together at Princeton Seminary and she said Shane was wearing these old jeans that were fastened together with safety pins and had these long dredlocks that were died blue and he just seemed kind of out there, especially for a wealthy place like Princeton. She thought, I’ll reach out to him because he seemed so “out there…” on the margins. So she’s “hi” and he says hi back and she soon come to realize what a warm, winsome beautiful human being—she becomes good with him friends with.
They ended up going to India together with some others and to serve along side Mother Teresa.
My friend Catherine describes Shane as a modern day St. Francis of Assisi, about the greatest compliment, in my view, that you could give a person.
Shane has chosen a life of celibacy and to giving away almost at that he possesses, yet he is a person of luminous joy.
Shane is from an upper middle class family, was educated at expensive private schools, though he has almost nothing now by world standards, he does not covet people who achieve the North American success dream, he does not covet them, because he believes, he really believes that implicit the commandment that shalt not covet is the promise that God will meet the deepest longings of our heart… And he’s a person of luminous joy.
When we become people who believe that each of the commandments of God contain a promise from God, we will not view the commands of God as a kind of intrusion that will wreck our lives but as window of opportunity to trust the promises of God… As we trust that God will supply all of our needs as we will honor Sabbath, as we God trust to meet all of our needs, we will obey the commandment to give. As trust God to meet the deepest longings of our heart we obey the commandment not to covet. As we trust that we find our lives through by losing them Christ, we will our lay them for God.
And so Paul is not contradicting himself when he says that on one hand we are justified
by believing and the other hand says we are justified by what we do, because as James points out if we really believe the gospel, if we really trust in God, and continue to trust in God, and all of promises implicit in the commandments we will obey God.
We are justified by faith, but true faith is always demonstrated in what we do.
Remember the gospel is not just a one-time praying a prayer to Jesus. It is about a life of trust in living God.
In Romans 2:16, we read that on the coming day of judgment that we will be judged as
God judges everyone’s secrets. And on that Day of Judgment the secrets of our heart will
be revealed, and we will be justified on the basis of what we do. And if you say, “But ,
ah, I don’t get it, doesn’t Paul say we will be justified by what we believed?”
What we really believed in the deepest part of our heart will one day be revealed by what
we did.
A Christian pastor sits with a couple whose marriage has been severely tested by the husband’s having sex with another woman. The husband says my wife should get over it because the other woman meant nothing to me and I love my wife my more than any other person in all the world. Then pastor gently, yet clearly says. That may be true, but in the moment you slept with other woman, in that moment, you were saying by what you did that you loved yourself more than your wife.
What we really believe, what’s in our heart will be revealed in what we do.
That does not mean that we will lives of perfection. It does mean as we grow in our trust in God, we will become people who increasingly obey.
In the latter part of Romans 2 in verses 28 and 29 we read:
28 A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person's praise is not from other people, but from God.
Paul says a person is not a Jew…and here he is using the word Jew as a kind of metaphor to mean ‘the children of God, the true spiritual descendants of Abraham.’…a person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly. No, a person is a Jew who is a Jew who is one inwardly and real circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the Spirit (illus father in Washington State).
And when Paul says this, he is saying is (and we see this more clearly if we link what here says to other parts of the book of Romans, particularly Chapters 9-11) that when a person truly believes the gospel, truly trusts in Jesus Christ, they are reconciled to God through his spirit. And as a result of being reconciled to God who is Spirit, they receive God’s Spirit, and, therefore, a new heart.
Paul is arguing that in the book of Romans the covenant that God made with Abraham and his descendants to forgive their sins and make them new people there would bear the Spirit of God, what is sometimes referred to as “the new covenant,” is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
In Ezekiel, Chapter 36: 24…, we read these words concerning the new covenant:
24 " 'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws..
What the prophet Ezekiel is saying and what Paul is affirming is this; that when we put
our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we are restored to the God who is Spirit and we receive
a new Spirit; we become people who experience the promises of the new covenant, the Spirit and as God’s Spirit works in us, we will become people who by nature follow God’s decrees, God’s ways.
Some years ago I was speaking at a high school camp just outside of Ottawa. Most of the 50 or so kids were not Christians. I remember one evening where I was anticipating speaking. The evening got off to a late start as it hard to pull the kids together, they sat around a camp fire with all smoke wafting off blowing into faces of the kids, there mosquitoes buzzing around and then a rap group got up and performed…and then I got up and started speaking… I wasn’t connecting with these kids very well… I could they were distracted by the smoke and mosquitoes and hoping that I’d end ASAP…
At the end my talk, I had the teens bow their and if you’d like to give your life to Christ tonight to give your to Christ… raise your hand… only two kids, raised their hand… one of them was star athlete of the high school: football, basketball and baseball MVP… He was handsome and bad boy….
The next morning… he and some of his friends decided to take a canoe out onto the lake and they were not wearing life jackets… and they decided to tip the canoe in the middle of the lake…and race back… and this star athlete, ended up going under water and never surfacing—he ended up drowning in the lake
That morning in the tent some of popular, bad-boy jock friend were saying let’s do ________ when we leave this and they described something bad that boys like to do… and this star athlete…said, Last I gave my to life God, I can’t do that any more…
This high school athlete new nothing of Ezekiel 36 and the new covenant, but the morning after he had given his life to God, he showing evidence of hearted wanted to follow God’s ways. When we really trust in Jesus we receive God’s Spirit making us want to follow God’s ways.
It may be that some of you here are made a little anxious about this teaching of Paul and
James that we are justified both by faith and by deeds. To reiterate, Paul and James are
Not saying we are justified on the basis of our deeds. Paul us saying that we are justified on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ, but that true faith will always be demonstrated by deeds.
Some of you may saying to yourself, I’m not sure that that’s good news for me. I am not very disciplined…
I want to bring to your attention what the apostle Paul says in Philippians, Chapter 2…
continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Paul says in Phil. 2 work out your salvation with fear and trembling with more reverence and care than your preparing to go med school, your beginning a new job, than your starting a new relationship…as important as those things are because your salvation is more important than anything in the whole world… But know that as you work out, rest in the knowledge that it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose…
Rest in the knowledge that God’s Spirit will help you…
The gospel, according to the apostle Paul, is not that we are saved we are saved on the basis of faith and trust in the living God, but that faith if true ongoing faith will always be demonstrated by works. If we really believe are restored to God and receive the Spirit our faith will be demonstrated in what we do.
Prayer:
Paul says here in the Bible, one day you will stand before on the day of judgment… the way we can ready ourselves by turning to and trusting in Jesus Christ.
Romans 2:4 we are told that God’s kindness that leads us to turn to him, to begin to trust him…
Two weeks the ago paper carried a story about a newborn girl had left by your mother on
someone’s doorstep in Saskatoon. It was so cold that this little baby could have frozen to death in just a few minutes, but was rescued by the family living in that house.
Police service spokeswoman, Alyson Edwards came forward and said on television, “We want the mother to step forward, we you, that we are not going to throw handcuffs on your and throw you in jail. We want to help you… As a result of that kind police woman’s the call, the young fear mother came forward…
When we realize how kind God is… we can turn to God and offer him our trust, our lives… perhaps some of you want to do that now…
(The seron can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
posted by Shigematsu at 2:04 PM
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