Second Sunday of Advent

PREPARE TO BE SURPRISED

Suppose your good friend tells you that she is going to throw you a surprise party but doesn’t tell you when. This is very exciting. You feel great appreciation for the honor your friend is paying you.

            Days pass. Days turn into weeks and then months. Your expectation begins to flag and your doubts mount that this party in your honor will ever take place. You have given up walking into darkened rooms wondering if people are going to pop out and yell your name. Has your friend forgotten about her promise? Was she full of hot air?

            Years go by. You remember the promise bitter-sweetly but it is a pale memory. Life goes on. You have really lost faith that there ever will be a party. Hoping that it will come is futile. Trusting your friend again is challenging; that too seems futile.

            Can you imagine such a promise? How would it feel to be told a surprise is coming at an unknown date and time? How would you prepare for such an event? Would you even know what to look for?

            The season of Advent is a season of expectancy. The prophets of old had seen a day when the Messiah would come but the people didn’t know what to expect. If the season of advent is a season of expectancy for us as well, what is it we expect? We have Jesus, yet we wait for him to come again. He will come when we least expect him. Are we prepared to be surprised?

1. Signs of a waning faith

In the days of Malachi the prophet expectancy was at an all-time low. Israel’s faith in God was growing cold. People were becoming cynical and unbelieving.

            Let’s put this in perspective. After generations of disobeying God’s laws, God sent Israel into exile in the land of Babylon. Their temple was destroyed; their way of life in ruins. After 70 years of exile the Israelites were allowed to go back to the land of Israel and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and the temple.

            The temple was a central icon in the faith of Israel. When a Jew saw the temple he was assured that God was with his people. With God on their side they were invincible, the y believed. The temple symbolized “God with us.”

            So they rebuilt the temple but from what their grandfathers told them the original temple was glorious. It was a beautiful thing to behold. In comparison, the second temple was functional but gray and drab – anything but beautiful.

            Their grandfathers also told them how God was present in that temple. Read 1 Kings 8:10-11. When Solomon dedicated this first temple the cloud was so thick the priests could not perform and God’s glory stopped them in their tracks. There must have been some visible manifestation that continued to remind the Jews of God’s presence thereafter.

            Now with this second temple, the people expected God’s glory to return to their midst. But it didn’t. The prophets assured them God would return, but he didn’t. Disillusionment had followed the rebuilding of the temple because, though decade after decade passed, no supernatural event marked the return of the Lord to Zion.

            The Jews felt that they had been obedient and done their part, but God had failed them. His delays brought on apathy. God, they thought, favored the wicked.

            Malachi responded to the people. “You have wearied the Lord with your words. ‘How have we wearied him?’ you ask. By saying, ‘All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD and he is pleased with them’ or ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (Mal 2:17).

            God is wearied by their words? Does God grow tired of his people? He does when they keep raising doubts about his fairness. People were saying that the wicked do evil and grow rich. Why do the wicked prosper when the faithful grow hungry? God must favor the irreverent. So the people decided that being faithful didn’t carry any advantage for them. Let’s break God’s rules, live carelessly, forget our covenant relationships (marriage), because God is not just anyways. It makes no difference anyways. This kind of talk wearies God.

            I think we can relate. We get tired of waiting for God to act on our behalf. And when we see the unbeliever get whatever they want without praying, without waiting upon God, and without faith, we lose hope. We don’t expect God to answer our cries. Spiritual lethargy sets in, spiritual laziness.

            Some of the warning signs of lethargy are these: when worship and your church life become a matter of taste and preference or duty; when faith is not at the top of your priority list in making life-long relationships; when injustice in society doesn’t faze us; or when giving becomes a chore. These are specifically results from Malachi. And we can see them in our generation too.

2. The Lord is coming to His Temple

When the Jews were in the process of rebuilding the temple their prophets encouraged them. Haggai said, “I will shake all nations and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty,” (Hag 2:7). And Zechariah too said, “Shout and be glad, O daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,’ declares the LORD,” (Zech 2:10).

            It was some decades later when they started losing hope. To be looking for God to do something greater than they had yet seen was a natural reaction. How many of us have prayed, “Lord, show me yourself today. Encourage my faith”?

            Malachi echoed the prophets with his message, “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the LORD Almighty,” (3:1).

            Here is something Isaiah (40:3) alluded to but Malachi says even more clearly: a messenger will prepare the way. Look for him. At the end of Malachi we get a clue that this messenger is an Elijah-figure. When you see him, the Lord is close behind.

            We know who this is: John the Baptist. When John was born his father, Zechariah, found his voice after months of silence and possibly deafness. He sang about his son, “And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him” (Luke 1:76). His job was to turn the hearts of the people to God in repentance before the Lord comes. Think of it, from Malachi’s day to the birth of John there were 400 more years of delay. If you read the spiritual history of the Jews in those days there was a real spiritual deadness among them. John was the messenger of the Lord sent to wake them up.

            Then the Lord will suddenly come to his temple. Jews were expecting great glory; pomp and circumstance. But when the Lord finally came to his temple for the first time since the promise, he came as a nondescript, ordinary, little baby. And how glorious is that!?!

            Few saw it. An old man named Simeon saw it (read Luke 2:29-32); an old woman named Anna saw it (read 2:38). But they saw it; they saw the glory of the Lord!

            Who would have expected this visitation? It’s like that one day you walk into a party and you have no idea it’s for you. Something glorious has happened and we missed it.

            This is the messenger of the covenant – the promise. Jesus is the response of God to the question, “When and where will we see the glory of God in the midst of his people?” The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being (Heb 1:3).

            This says so much I haven’t got time to share it all. When you look for the flash, you may miss the ordinary. Glory may not be what you think it is. And a baby in your arms? Think of it: When God showed you his glory in the baby Jesus, he showed you a human being. Hold a child in your arms and you behold the image of God, marred but still the image. Jesus came as one of us, the perfect image.

            Suddenly, the Lord will appear. What do you expect that will be like?

3. To be made holy

Trouble and hardship come in many forms: sickness, money woes, relationships. At the root of most, if not all, of our troubles is spiritual difficulty. We fail to understand God and so we don’t understand why we suffer. This is why we lose hope. If we could see life just a little clearer we might understand what God is doing, why he delays, or what he has in store for us.

            Malachi asks who can endure the coming of the Lord or who can stand when he appears. These are battle terms. However, the battle with Jesus is not a swordfight; it is a battle of holiness. Who can stand and endure the holiness of Jesus? Who can engage him and not be changed by him?

            Two images are employed to help us understand this. The first is launderer’s soap. The Messenger is the launderer and he comes to clean us up, to make us presentable for the Lord. But they didn’t have soap in those days, so don’t think of Tide. Think alkali. This stuff took the colors, or stains, right out of the cloth and made it white. It removed impurities. Think white like the transfiguration of Jesus – shining white!

            The second image is of a refiner. The Lord sits and refines us as silver. Here’s what this means:

            A certain woman was curious how the refining process worked. So the woman called up a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him while at work.

As she watched the silversmith work, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire, where the flames were the hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot, and then she thought again about the verse, that "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver."

She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the entire time the silver was being refined. The man answered yes, that not only did he have to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on it the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left even a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "But how do you know when the silver is fully refined?"

He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that’s easy--when I see my image in it."

Now we have come full circle. God is not pleased with evil-doers or when the wicked prosper, as some were saying. Only people made righteous and pure by the refiner’s fire and who reflect the image of Christ are acceptable to God.

Being a Christian today is not easy. At times it is just downright hard. Waiting on God takes patience and trust, especially when we see others take shortcuts and get what they want right now.

            Preparing for the advent of Christ the first time was a long wait. From the moment God pronounced judgment on Adam and Eve following their sin, God also made a promise: that a descendent of theirs would crush Satan’s head. It took several thousand years before Jesus came to his temple. Waiting required faithful living in the meantime.

            Preparing for the advent of Christ again has been a long wait. Christmas time is a reminder not so much of angels, shepherds and wisemen, but that when Jesus came the first time it was a surprise. The church has waited 2000 years for Jesus to return and we continue to wait.

            The message of Advent/Christmas then is this: don’t lose hope. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

            Has God forgotten you? Certainly not. He is staring at the fiery trial of your life, not allowing it to destroy you, but holding on until he sees his image in the molten silver of your soul.

            Paul was confident of this truth, “…that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,” (Phil 1:6).

                                                            AMEN

Freedom Sunday

Freedom of Forgiveness – Part 1

Peter M. Ascough

Father Lawrence of the Monks of New Skete, Cambridge, New York, once preached a profoundly simple sermon about his annoying experience of walking a country road and having a small stone enter his open-toed sandal.  He first felt the pebble, but pretended it was not there.  He kept on walking.  Finally he began to wiggle his toes and then he tried to arrange his foot around the stone.  And he kept on walking.  In exasperation, he decided not to think about it.  But then, all he could do was think about it and feel discomfort.  Finally he stooped down, took off his sandal, and shook out the pebble.  As he stood up and looked around he realized that he had walked a quarter of a mile on a lovely road but had not seen a thing.  He had been preoccupied with the rock.

There are many things that can preoccupy our minds and our attention so that we miss the beauty of the world around us.  This morning we want to identify one, something which all of us have probably experienced.  Some will have shaken the pebble out and moved on while others may still be carrying the pebble around this morning.  For some it may be a pebble, while for others it may be a huge boulder that overwhelms.

What I am talking about is how we individually and as a church deal with those who have hurt us, specifically the sin of unforgiveness. 

We’ve all been hurt at some time or another.  We have all felt the sting of being offended by some word or action of another person.   Carrying this offense around is like a pebble in our sandals.  It rubs our feet raw, distracting us from the beauty around us and it traps us.

I want to tell you a story of my being trapped and why I have been so passionate about preaching on this topic.  Darryl and I have talked about it for a few months and feel now is the time God has led us to speak. 

Most of you know that I worked at a church in ON for about 5 years as their youth pastor.  It was a great place.  The youth were awesome, not quite as awesome as here but close, my co-workers were genuine and loving people and we had made a number of good friends in the congregation.  However, one of the pastors had issue with me.  I know that I am not perfect and am sure I played my own part but I could not figure out what was up.  There were a number of occasions where he hurt me deeply and publicly.  But he could do it in a way in which he still looked good and there was enough going on behind the scenes that was unknown to so many.  My desire is not to air the dirt to make him look bad rather it is to let you know that we agonized for a long time as to whether to confront him, whether to leave or just “suck it up” as it tore us up on the inside.  Through much prayer we felt God was given us the go ahead to leave but to leave well.  So we did.  I thought I was free.  It was over.  But it wasn’t.

I had taken the bait.  In Luke 17:1 Jesus said to his disciples, “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come…”  However, the New King James gives a closer translation to the Greek which says, “It is impossible that no offense should come…”  In other words, you will be offended.  The Greek word used here is skandalon which refers to the part of the trap to which the bait was attached.  Being offended is like the bait of a trap. 

2 Tim. 2:24-26

²⁴ And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. ²⁵ Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, ²⁶ and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

When we allow an offense to be planted in the soil of our hearts, it puts down roots of bitterness and produces fruit such as anger, outrage, jealousy, resentment, strife, bitterness, hatred and envy.  This fruit leads to insults, attacks, wounding, division, separation, broken relationships, and betrayal.  We become trapped in this attitude of sin.

As Mennonites, and probably other church cultures as well, there is sometimes the feeling that, well that was in the past, it’s over just leave it there.  Or they left so it’s a done deal now, no use in bringing up past hurts.  That’s a lie.  We don’t bring them up just to re-hurt people, rather we need to bring them up to deal with them, to find healing and forgiveness and freedom.  Leaving them alone only allows the seed of offense to grow.  We need to allow God’s Spirit to lead us, in his timing to deal with the hurts of the past as well as not allow the hurts of the present to take root.

This is what happened to me.  We left the church and although we left well, I still felt very offended by what had happened to me.  I became more and more absorbed by what was done wrong to me.  The pebble was rubbing my foot raw but I refused to stop to take it out. 

I was too proud to admit that I had been offended.  “No I’m fine.”  But this offence affected ministry I was still trying to do.  Sure God still used me to preach, to teach, to encourage and to serve but there was little excitement in it.  I was growing cold.  My attitude was becoming more and more critical.  Instead of pure living water flowing from me it was tainted with bitterness, criticism and negativity. 

The walls had gone up, I was not going to get hurt again.  Unfortunately, the walls not only kept people out, they also kept me in.  My focus became more inwardly focused and everything I did was filtered through this hurt and rejection and I found it harder and harder to believe God. 

After ON we were in Labrador for 3 years.  Our time in Labrador was a great experience.  Not just because of all the wonderful things we got to see and do, and the friends we made but also because it was the beginning of the healing process for me.  I began to see this offense I was carrying around.  I knew that is was directed toward this pastor and in fact had grown to include that whole church.  I knew he wasn’t planning to track me down and seek forgiveness but I knew I needed to forgive him. 

Mark 11:25-26

“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Matt. 6:14-15

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Strong words, my forgiveness is based on my forgiving others.

So, I prayed, “Father I forgive him.  I do not hold anything against him anymore.  I will not let his offence toward me hold me anymore.  I release him, he doesn’t owe me anything.  I say to Satan, get lost, I forgive him.”  You’d think this would be the end of the story right, but not quite. 

I want to pause here for a minute though.  You might be listening this morning and thinking, ok I get this story so how does this apply to me.  It applies to you because there are many here this morning who are in this same position I was in.  And don’t start looking around the room thinking, yeah he’s talking to this person, or that person.  There is a good chance the Spirit is talking to you.  We will all get offended.

Granted for some offense are like me being pushed by Reuben.  He tries to hit against me and he bounces off.  It has no impact on me.  But there are others that hit us like a sledgehammer.  They wound us deeply and these wounds don’t heal overnight and if not properly looked after, may never heal.

And the worst part is that they come from those who we are close to.  A parent, a brother or sister, a friend, a fellow believer, a person in leadership we trusted, a co-worker, etc.  See when we have no relationship with someone we have no expectations of them, like a zero.  So when they give us a 10 we feel blessed.  However, those we are in relationship with, those who we trust and share life with we have an expectation of them giving us a 20 so when they only give us a 10 then we’re offended.  And truly and genuinely we are offended.  I’m not trying to minimize the hurts that others have done to us.  There are many legitimate times that we have been and will be hurt.  I guess what I’m trying to say is my wrong action of unforgiveness going to make their wrong action of offense better?  Do two wrongs ever make a right?

Those who can’t forgive have forgotten what they have been forgiven from.  Jesus took the ultimate sacrifice to remove all sins from us so that we can be holy and pure and have eternal life and we then try to hold such a small offense in comparison against each other. 

 I could go on but let me quickly finish the story so that Darryl can give us the good news that we’re not stuck.  See I had forgiven this man but something was still bugging me.  I would think about him or the church and I would get all upset again.  We would go to ON and I refused to go there to visit even though the place was full of friends.  So I wondered, what’s wrong with me.  I have forgiven this guy, I have said it and believed it, I know God has heard it, so what’s missing.

What was missing was a change in the attitude of my heart.  See I had forgiven him while still holding the pain.  Like saying, “I forgive you cause you did this and this and it really hurt and you better ask for forgiveness but I going to forgive you anyway because I’m great and your not.”  Bitterness was still in my heart.  I was yet to be free. 

It was after reading this book (The Bait of Satan) which we’re preaching out of this morning that I found my answer.  Darryl is going to talk about this further but what needed to happen was that I needed to learn to love him the way that I would want to be loved and also needed to pray for him the way I would want to be prayed for.  This took time, but when it happened, I was free. 

I went back to the church this past summer for the first time in 9 years.  The pastor has since died so reconciling with him in person will never happen for which I regret.  But there is healing and warmth towards the church, I can pray for their blessing and growth, I can pray that God would richly bless the pastor’s family as they continue to minister in other places.  I felt freedom, I felt healed.  My prayer is that we can as individuals and as a church move from a place of bondage a place of unforgiveness, to a place of freedom to forgive and love. 

FREEDOM OF FORGIVENESS

Part 2

Darryl G. Klassen

Pete has shared with us a very personal part of his journey to forgiveness, and I can testify to the difference it has made in him. Since coming home from holidays this summer there has been a noticeable peace in Pete.

            When Pete shared the book The Bait of Satan with me, I was confronted with my own personal offenses and how I had handled them. It is amazing to think how badly we as Christians deal with our hurts. I know I have a lot to learn and I need to return to the principles Jesus taught us about forgiving others.

            To build on that thought I want to turn briefly to Matthew 18 and the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. We know this story very well and so I want to look at two aspects of the parable and make a couple of applications.

            This parable features three main characters: the king and the two servants. The king calls to account the outstanding debts in his kingdom and finds the first servant owes ten thousand talents or 4.5 billion dollars. This is an enormous debt that would require a hundred lifetimes to repay. There is no hope for this servant to pay his king what he owes. However, the king forgives the servant and sets him free without any future expectations.

            The servant turns on his fellow servant, however, and demands payment for a debt of a hundred denarii, or about four thousand dollars. The sum is not as large as the first servant’s debt but let us not minimize the figure. It is a third of year’s salary. If you think of losing a third of your salary in comparison you can begin to imagine the offense that this is to yourself and your family. What you have to do without is unforgiveable it seems: food, renovations, vacations. Now you have to scrimp because you are out a good chunk of livelihood.

            It is not necessary to compare the billion dollar debt with the thousand dollar debt. The point is that an offense is an offense; when you are hurt, it hurts. When someone wrongs you it sits like a weight in your stomach.

            On the other hand, compare your hurts to the pain we caused our heavenly Father. Our sins and offenses were so great we could not pay them in a hundred lifetimes. But Jesus died for us, an enormous cost to our Father, and forgave us our debts. Compare the great forgiveness of God with our personal hurts and ask yourself, “Do I have the right to carry this hurt?” Do I have the right to withhold forgiveness when God has so graciously forgiven me?

            The second feature of this parable that is worth pointing out is the audience Jesus speaks to with his story. John Bevere, who writes Bait of Satan, says that Jesus is speaking to people in the kingdom of God. He says the king is God and the servants are Christians. Being an exegete I thought, no they’re not, but promptly went to my Bible. Sure enough, the last thing the king says to the servant is this: “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” And then Jesus explains his parable. Jesus never explained other parables. He says, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Matt 18:33 & 35).

            The question is: how will God treat Christians who do not forgive? Three things stand out:

1) The unforgiving servant is turned over to torture. Having an unforgiving spirit is torture. Like they say, holding a grudge hurts me more than it does you. Bevere suggests that we allow demonic persecution into our lives when we harbor resentment.

2) The unforgiving servant has to pay off the original debt. That is an impossible task. We might say, “I love God but I don’t love the person who has hurt me.” Then you are deceived and you do not love God, for John writes, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4:20). In other words, we have not understood our salvation in Christ and we still live as those who are indebted to God.

3) God the Father will do the same to any believer who does not forgive a brother’s offense. This is not meant to be harsh but loving. Jesus is telling us that we need to settle our hurts with each other and get on with kingdom work.

            Each of us carries some hurt from the distant past or from very recent events. Someone has crossed the imaginary lines in your life and offended you at some time. You avoid them. You might even talk ill of them (we call this ‘getting it off our chests’ or in reality ‘collecting allies’). But the truth is, you are living in bondage to your hurts. Wouldn’t you rather be free?

            There are three steps to freedom that Pete and I would like to invite you to take this morning. You might be at different stages of this journey and so you and the Holy Spirit know where you need to begin or continue the journey. What do you do with your offender?

1) Forgive him/her – Paul challenged the believers in Ephesus, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you” (4:32). Admittedly this is a process. You may have to forgive them again and again (shades of 70x7).

            As Bevere says, forgiving someone is not going up to them and numbering their faults and then forgiving them (“you did this and this and this, but I forgive you…”). Forgiveness is heartfelt and true.

            Sometimes we wait to forgive expecting the person to know what they have done and to come crawling with tears. Not going to happen. Besides if God had waited to forgive us until we apologized we would still be in our sins. Christ’s example was to forgive us BEFORE we repented.

2) Pray for him/her – So you have cried before God and forgiven so and so. Then the old feelings come back and haunt your nights and your daytime lulls and you seethe again with bitterness. What’s going on? It’s a process. And part of the process requires going to our knees and praying for your offender. Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Mt 5:44).

            Praying for them is loving them. It is more than praying, “Bless so and so. Give him a good day.” When we pray for our “enemies” Jesus calls us to pray for them what we would pray for ourselves (love your neighbor as yourself). What do I pray for myself? I pray that God would reveal Jesus to me throughout the day, his love and his goodness; I pray that God would make me an encouragement to others; I pray that I would have success in being like Christ. Pray that for your adversary or the person who has hurt you. Pray a real blessing on that person. And do it again.

3) Reconcile with him/her – What? Please not that. Yeah, you have to go to him or her and refuse yourself a defense or an excuse for your actions. Wait, that sounds like an apology. Yeah, rather than go with a spirit of revenge or “I’ll show him” we go with a spirit of reconciliation, a spirit that is humble and ready to build a bridge not tear one down.

            Truly we have all sinned. And when you think of when you were hurt you have to admit there were things we did that were offensive in response. We may have to go to the person who hurt and say, “I have had a critical spirit towards you and spoken badly of you to others, please forgive me.”

            You know what I hate? I have a sensitive spirit. I always feel like I have to be the one to apologize even when the other person is seemingly at fault. But my curse is a blessing too. I don’t want to be at odds with anyone; I hurt when there is a rift between myself and a fellow believer. So we look weak – so what? Go and be reconciled to your brother or sister.

            Jesus said, if you are offering a gift at the altar and then remember you have a brother who has something against you “First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Mt 5:24). Why does he counsel us to interrupt our worship to make a relationship right? Because we just can’t worship God or serve God or be right in his sight when there is a broken relationship in our lives.

            Today we invite you to experience the freedom of forgiveness and to begin the journey toward healing. We want you to be healed and we want to help you heal your relationships. We can make an incredible spiritual impact on our lives if we open ourselves up the forgiveness of God.

                                                AMEN

Romans #34

TO GOD BE THE GLORY

As you know, I love to preach. It’s not some ego trip to be in the limelight that drives me to speak. I was called to be a preacher at the age of fifteen. The call was so vivid and tugged on my heart so earnestly that I know I did not make it up. God called me. I know this because there are times when I just want to quit, or there are circumstances that make me think I shouldn’t do this anymore, or I make myself so vulnerable up here that I feel quite bare and want to hide. But I can’t quit; God won’t let me quit; and I don’t want to quit preaching.

            I love to proclaim the glory of God. This is one of those times when I cannot keep quiet about the wonders of God and his Son, Jesus Christ.

            We have come to the very end of Romans. Unfortunately we are missing a very personal piece of the letter addressed to key individuals in the church at Rome. On the other hand, we end on a very high note, an exclamation point to the letter. We have come to Paul’s doxology…

1. Praise God for His Power

What do you thank God for as you reflect on the letter to the Romans?

            If you were Paul you would thank and praise him for his power. Paul wrote, “Now to him who is able to establish you…” (25a).

            John Stott said that the Greek construction of this sentence is best represented by the Jerusalem Bible which says, “Glory be to him who is able to establish you…” The sense that this gives is praise for God’s glory and power in establishing us.

            John Piper gives us a great definition of “glory.” Piper said, “What might help get at a definition of the glory of God is to contrast it with the holiness of God. God is holy means that God is in a class of perfection and greatness and value by himself. He is incomparable. His holiness is utterly unique and perfect divine essence….” The angels cry out “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). So God’s holiness is his incomparable perfection and his glory is the display of that holiness. Piper then said, “When God shows himself to be holy, what we see is his glory – the beauty of holiness. The holiness of God is his concealed glory. The glory of God is his revealed holiness.”

            Piper’s definition then is this: “The glory of God is the infinite beauty and greatness of his manifold perfections.”[i]

            Now you have seen this glory. And you’re thinking, “When did I see the glory of God?” You saw it partially in this last year’s exposition of Romans. You saw how he established you for salvation for his own glory and praise. He set us up when we were broken down fences, smoldering wicks, and bruised reeds – spiritual messes – to receive his salvation.

            Paul began this letter stating, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile,” (1:16). It is the power of God for your salvation. We were weak, but his power makes us firm, stable and able to believe in Jesus.

2. Praise God for His Gospel

This is the good news, the gospel, that establishes you to believe. “Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed…” (25b-26a).

            The establishment of our faith, the grounding of our salvation is expressed in three clauses:

            - (according to) my gospel

            - (according to) the proclamation of Jesus Christ

            - according to the revelation of the mystery

The first two are almost identical in identifying since the proclamation of Jesus is the gospel. Jesus is the heart of the gospel. He is the message that God wants us to hear.

            Churches today are in danger of watering this down or substituting Jesus with some cause or some related theology. Peace is a unique feature of the Mennonite Church but it must never be given the starring role of our faith. That belongs to Jesus alone. Peace does not save you; Jesus saves you. But peace is a true and desirable fruit of our salvation.

            His gospel is a mystery revealed. It is a truth that was hidden for long ages past. It was always there but men and women could not see it because of wickedness and sin. And when the gospel was revealed, Jesus hanging on a cross, they still did not see it. Only through the work of the Holy Spirit then and now today are we able to see this gospel. There remains a blindness in our world but praise God we can see.

3. Praise God for Calling us to Faith

God was not trying to keep this gospel hidden so much as we were unable to see the gospel for what it is. Now it is revealed “and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God so that all nations might believe and obey him,” (26b,c).

            The OT has been around for centuries, for 1500 years before Christ was born. Now it is making him known. That seems backwards. But it’s not, it’s prophecy. Following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God gave his people a new Christ-centered understanding of the OT as it bears witness to Jesus Christ.

            Too many people think “Old” when they think of the OT. And in our culture old is bad and new is good. One scholar has rejected the OT label and started calling those scriptures the Hebrew Scriptures. If the “Old” covenant is out of date or irrelevant, then why did Paul quote from it so much in his letter to the Romans?

            Do a quick check of your Bible some time. If you have the footnotes or references handy you can see that Paul quotes repeatedly from sixteen OT books. Habakkuk, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Malachi, Hosea, Leviticus, Joel, 1 Kings, Job and 2 Samuel are all quoted in this great letter.

            Paul was an excellent student of the Hebrew Scriptures before his conversion. When Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and the Holy Spirit got a hold of him, suddenly all those scriptures he thought he knew burst forth with Jesus. He saw Jesus all over the OT.

            What this tells us is that God has been aching for millennia to tell us about his salvation. His gospel has been busting to be told. He has yearned for humans to know Jesus and the forgiveness of sins that Jesus brought on the cross for ages. Why? So that all nations might believe and obey. Not just North Americans either – he wants Asians and Africans and Muslims and Hindus to see his glory in Jesus Christ.

4. Praise God for Jesus!

No other letter, in my opinion, lays out God’s plan for salvation like Romans. This letter reveals his wisdom and glory in such a way that you have to believe or not believe – there is no middle ground. “ – to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen,” (27).

            We have to give him glory. God deserves glory and honor. Look at Romans and try to withhold your praise of God:

1:5 “Through him and for his name’s sake (glory), we have received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.”

1:21 but men neither glorified God nor gave thanks to him

2:24 God’s name was blasphemed (opposite of glorify)

3:23 as a result “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

4:20 but Abraham believed, “he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.”

5:1-2 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

8:30 “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”

            In short, all of this tells us that God wanted to show us his beautiful self, to share himself with us, to give us his beautiful life.

            As Paul broke out in song, he sang, “Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” Paul saw this beautiful salvation story and sang and cried. When it was revealed to John the Evangelist, he too witnessed the future chorus we practice now: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen!” (Rev 7:12).

            You may not realize it, having been a Christian for many years, but this is what has made you so different – the hope of the glory of God. You are being changed, transformed and renewed by this gospel.

A man was walking through an art gallery when he came upon a picture of the Lord Jesus dying upon the cross. He stopped and looked at the beautiful portrait of Calvary's love. As he stared into the face of Christ, so full of agony the gallery guard tapped him on the shoulder. "Lower," the guard said. "The artist painted this picture to be appreciated from a lower position."

So the man bent down. And from this lower position he observed new beauties in the picture not previously shown. "Lower," said the guard. "Lower still." The man knelt down on one knee and looked up into the face of Christ. The new vantage point yielded new beauties to behold and appreciate.

But motioning with his flashlight toward the ground, the guard said, "Lower. You've got to go lower." The man now dropped down to two knees and looked up. Only then as he looked up at the painting from such a low posture could he realize the artist's intended perspective. Only then could he see the full beauty of the cross.

Is the same not true in worship? Only as we position ourselves lower and lower in humble submission can we behold more fully the glories of our wonderful Lord.[ii]

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[i] John Piper, sermon To Him Be Glory Forevermore

[ii] From David Moore's Sermon "In and Around Heaven"

Romans #33

“DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM”

To dream is to look ahead and have hopes and ambitions and plans, to see the impossible become possible and reach for it. In Christ we have found that hope we were looking for, the forgiveness of sins, release from bondage, and the promise of real life. With freedom in Christ we are able to dream.

            To dream the impossible dream. This phrase comes from a musical entitled “Man of La Mancha” which is based on the story of Don Quixote by Cervantes. Don Quixote was delusional; he thought he was a knight protecting his realm. When he was fighting dragons he was actually fighting windmills. This is where we get the expression “chasing windmills,” a euphemism for wasting our time.

            But the title song had a few phrases that caught my attention in regards to dreams. Don Quixote sings: “To dream the impossible dream; to fight the unbeatable foe; to bear with unbearable sorrow; to run where the brave dare not go.” And later he sings a profound verse: “To fight for the right without question or pause; to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.”

            Hope is such an energizing feeling that it drives us to reach for higher heights. These words remind me of Paul actually. He bore extreme hardships for the sake of the gospel. He went where few dared with the courage of Christ. He assaulted the gates of Hell with the gospel (remember, the gates of Hell will not overcome it). The hope of Christ made Paul dream of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

            In our study of Romans we have come to a peculiar place. Our passage (15:22-33) speaks of Paul’s travel plans and personal prayer requests. How do we apply Paul’s travel plans to the church today? What does this have to do with us? I believe that Paul’s dreams, which are shared with us here, inspire us to go beyond the ordinary in responding to God’s incredible mercies.

1. Dreaming beyond the borders of Normal

a) Dreams of fellowship – The travel itinerary is brief. Paul wants to go to Rome, but first to Jerusalem, and ultimately Spain.

            The amazing thing about his desire to visit the believers in Rome is that he has never even met them. Consider the depth of passion with which Paul wrote this letter to them, the details of our salvation, the work of Christ on our behalf, and then consider that these are basically strangers. This beautiful theological letter is written to people he doesn’t even know.

            But he longs to see them. Paul loves them even though he can’t picture their faces. Are they blond? Are they tall? Are they friendly? He doesn’t know. All he knows is that they love Jesus. And because of this he wants to meet them.

            Paul has been delayed in this plan (22) because of the work of the gospel. So many needed to know Jesus where he was that he could not get out to see them. “But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to see you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain” (23).

            So by way of introduction he writes this letter to them. In the beginning of Romans he testifies to the faith that they have in Christ which is being reported all over the world (1:8-10). Then he explains salvation to them from sin and the sacrifice of Christ. Finally he says, “I have written you quite boldly…as if to remind you…” (15:15).

            What does Paul want from these people? What is he getting at in telling people about faith in Christ which they already know?

            Fellowship! Coffee and sweets? No, fellowship, koinonia, a shared experience in the gospel of Christ. He says, “I hope to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while” (24). He longs to see them, to be encouraged by their faith, to enjoy them. Then he desires their partnership in the furthering of the gospel as he goes west.

            I dream of going to Rome, but not to visit fellow believers. I just want to see the ruins. Paul’s idea of vacation is to visit believers from around the world and rejoice in the spreading faith of Christ. He dreamt of going anywhere and calling someone brother or sister in that land. What a cool dream.

b) Dreams of a unified Church – Sometimes before dreams can be realized though, we have to do the hard stuff. Facing a conflict of personalities, resolving issues, or paying old debts of the heart often require us to put our dreams on hold. Some things need to be settled before we go on to further blessings.

            Before Paul could visit Rome, he needed to go to Jerusalem. Sitting in Corinth, where he wrote Romans, Paul was closer to Rome than to Jerusalem and halfway to Spain. But a mission of mercy called him to Jerusalem first. “Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there” (25).

            There may have been a famine in Jerusalem and the believers were in desperate need. One theory suggests that because the believers shared everything, selling property to give to the common needs (Acts 2:45) that they were all poor now.

            Whatever the situation, Paul was collecting a gift of money from the churches that he had planted. Here’s the rub: they were Greek or Gentile churches. We don’t fully appreciate the friction between Jews and Gentiles, so we miss the conflict. Good Jews, even Christian Jews, don’t accept gifts from Gentiles whom they consider unclean. If you are going to follow the ritual cleanliness laws of Moses you don’t accept money from Greeks – you don’t know where it’s been.

            Here is Paul’s second dream – to see one church under Christ, to see a church undivided by race or gender or class. If the believing Jews accepted the gift from the believing Gentiles it would show that the church was truly one in Christ. It would show that our faith in Christ is not divided by where you were born, to whom you were born, or to what race you were born. God has made for himself one new people out of the many, joined together by a common faith in his Son.

c) Dreams of breaking new ground – Once the Jerusalem quest was accomplished, Paul would go to Rome briefly, then on to Spain. Why Spain?

            Paul must have been an A-type personality. He could not stay in one place too long. More than that, he said “there is no more place for me to work.” And even earlier he wrote, “It has always been my ambition (dream) to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation” (20). In his perspective he had done all he could in Asia Minor (Turkey) and Greece, so it was time to branch out. Spain was the end of the earth as they knew it in those times. His dream was to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel of Christ.

            I suspect if he had lived long enough he would then have gone as far east as he could go. Wherever he went Paul was a foundation layer – a church planter. He loved to go where the gospel was new. “By the grace God has given me, laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it” (1 Cor 3:10).

            Robert Moffat was a nineteenth century missionary who worked in Africa. He came home to England one year to recruit missionaries. He made this statement, "Every morning when I get up and look at the horizon, I see the smoke from a thousand villages where the name of Christ has never been heard." That’s how Paul must have felt.

            Paul’s dreams could be summed up like this: Paul dreamed of a worldwide church of Jesus Christ where a believer could travel the world and meet brothers and sisters who had no barriers between them and worked together to spread the name of Jesus.

            If this dream seems foreign to you that is because it is not a human dream, it is a God-given dream. It is born out of the overwhelming realization that God has shown you incredible mercy and grace and you just can’t help responding to that mercy. Henry Blackaby said, "You never find God asking persons to dream up what they want to do for Him...Without doubt, the most important factor in each (Biblical) situation was not what the individual wanted to do for God. The most important factor was what God was about to do."[i]

            This is where knowing an untamable, absolutely wild God, is not safe, but terribly exciting as he shares his dreams with us. So what are you dreaming about?

2. Prayer, the Power of Dreams

a) Wrestling with God in prayer – Paul’s dreams are powered by prayer – this is where the dreams take root.

            Paul asked the Romans to join him in this prayer. He said, “I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me” (30).

            What is the struggle? Praying? Or the work he is involved with? Probably both.

            First of all, the “urging,” which is the same as 12:1, the call to serve, is to wrestle together along with Paul in prayer.

            It is not hard to picture Jacob in Genesis 32:24-29 wrestling with the stranger at night. Jacob was about to face his brother Esau whom he assumed was going to kill him. Jacob split his party into two groups so that when one is attacked the other might escape. Then he goes off by himself into the dark of night. He meets a man who wrestles him to a draw. “When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man” (32:25). The man told Jacob to let him go because the sun was coming up, but Jacob replied, “Not until you bless me.”

            It is revealed to Jacob that he had wrestled with God himself and if the sun had risen so that Jacob saw his face, Jacob would have died. So Jacob wrestled with God and received a blessing – God’s dream for his people. That became Jacob’s dream and his name was changed to Israel.

            We are urged – called – to wrestle with God in prayer, to cling to  him to and not let go. We find our blessing, our dreams by wrestling with God. We wrestle in prayer on behalf of others as well. We are told by Paul of Epaphras who wrestled in prayer for the Colossians (Col 4:12).

            Second, why is prayer such an ordeal?

            We wrestle against the self. Jesus said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Tiredness and repetition become obstacles to prayer. We let go instead of clinging to God because we grow bored with prayer.

            We wrestle against sin. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” Unconfessed sin hinders our prayer life. Russell Moore said, “One of the first ways you can tell that you are moving beyond temptation into a pattern of sin is if you find yourself in a time of prayerlessness…If you are reluctant to pray, it just might be that you, like Adam…are hiding in the vegetation, ashamed to hear the rustling of the leaves that signals He is here.”

            And we wrestle against an unseen force that discourages prayer in any form. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood…” (Eph 6:12).

b) Laying it out before God – As Paul struggled to realize his God-given dream he knew that he needed specific things to happen. There is a conviction in his words that he believed if the Romans prayed to God that God would answer.

            I lack this conviction at times, I am sad to say. I pray specifically like Paul but I confess I don’t always have my eyes open for the answer. It’s almost as if I don’t expect these prayers to be answered. The other day I challenged myself to pray about something trivial thinking that I needed to start believing that God cares about little things. I opened my eyes and to my astonishment the answer was there before me. I could not see the answer until I prayed.

            To pray specifically is a prayer of faith. To pray about the little things exercises our faith so that we begin to believe that God will accomplish the big things too. Faith is all-encompassing; it takes in all of life. So why not pray about all things?

            Paul asked for prayer for:

            Safety (31) – “Pray that I may be rescued…” Paul had been warned in Acts 21 that unbelieving Jews would try to stop him in Jerusalem and maybe kill him.

            Success (31b) – “and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there.” This request was aimed specifically at the dream of Jews and Gentiles being one in faith.

            Satisfaction (32) – “so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed.” Oppression and trials can steal our joy and we can’t see what God is doing anymore. Praying for satisfaction is really asking for the ability to see what God has done – even if we haven’t done much ourselves.

c) Trusting the God of Peace – There are three parts to Paul’s closing of his requests, and they are significant to the answer to his prayers and ours. He says, “The God of peace be with you all. Amen” (33).

            God’s peace – In the OT God is called Jehovah Shalom which means “God is our peace.”

            God’s presence – God is with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you.

            God’s power – From “Amen,” which means “so be it” or “it is so,” we declare that we are leaving everything in God’s hands to do what only he can do with our prayers.

            Now here’s the interesting thing: How did things turn out for Paul?

• Safety (Yes and No). Paul was rescued from three mobs and from a flogging and an attempted assassination but he was also arrested, tried and imprisoned (see Acts 21-23).

• Success (Yes). From what we can tell, Paul was able to deliver the offering and the believers found it acceptable. Acts 21:17: “When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly.”

• Satisfaction (Wait). Paul eventually made it to Rome but he had to wait about three years and the way he got there was not how he planned it because he came as a prisoner, suffered a shipwreck and was put in prison in Rome. However, this prayer was eventually answered as seen in Acts 28:15: “The brothers there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled…to meet us. At the sight of these men Paul thanked God and was encouraged.”[ii]

            What about Spain? As far as we know Paul never made it. Tradition says that he was executed in Rome under Nero. Does that nullify the dream? No, Christ was eventually proclaimed all over Europe. It was God’s dream, not Paul’s alone, and that’s why it succeeded.

“To dream the impossible dream,” Don Quixote sang, but with God all things are possible. Still, the song ends with an unintended meaning for us:

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Jesus is the focus of the believer’s dream. He is the man scorned and scarred from his death on the cross. Jesus is the dream, not a fantasy, but as yet an unrealized goal to strive towards. He is my destination. And because he loves me so well and so deeply, his dream is my own.

            What do you dream about?

            I dream of a church where the believers love each other so much that they forgive failings and errors and flaws. I dream of a church that never says “no” to God when he says “go!” I dream of a church that hungers for God’s Word and kneels regularly before the Cross of Christ in humility and declares Jesus Lord.

            What do you dream about?

                                                            AMEN

           

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[i] Blackaby, Experiencing God, p. 66

[ii] Brian Bill, sermon “Praying with Power”