Romans 14 vs 19  What Leads to Peace

Materials for this message come from the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and from a few commentaries.  This was written for a small church in a rural area and redone for a church in an urban setting. It includes references to the Lord’s Supper celebration which would take place the next week.

It had already been a long week, when yesterday, I was about to sit down and finish preparation on a message for this morning. Just then the phone rang and a tearful voice on the other end of a long distance connection said, I gotta talk to you. This person was calling me about a mutual friend. This friend of ours is a pastor who  a little over a year ago, moved from his pastorate in the callers church. To a church hundreds of miles away. But things had gone dreadfully wrong in the new pastorate. The person calling me has been in contact with this pastor and his wife many times over the past several weeks, and was finally to the breaking point herself.

 In our conversation together, I found that the truth of the text this morning was becoming very real to me. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification. What had happened in that church was just the opposite. Every effort was made to do what does not lead to peace and mutual edification. Now there is a man who is so at war with himself that those who love him are very concerned for him. He has separated himself from his Church for a while, just in hope of again finding peace with himself, his family, and his God.

By the time I was through with that phone call, I too was very agitated. For the devil is the one who causes these problems, and he had struck another pastor and another church. He has disrupted the church again. In these days, it seems to be happening so often. We look for peace and there is no peace. So many hospital beds, a high percentage in our country, have mental patients in them. Evidence that peace is not present in our personal lives. Institutions are plagued with factional disputes that paralyze their efforts. Nations struggle with one another to prove points in a world society that no one understands. Then we hear the word of God saying, Let us make every effort to do what leads to peace.

We have disruption in our lives as well. We are not immune from the onslaught of Satan. We even argue over what Bible study group to belong to. And peace evades us. We get caught up in the dog-eat-dog mentality of the world and then we wonder what the Bible means when it talks about the peace of God, which passes all understanding. So it is imperative that as we look forward to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper next Sunday that we begin to listen anew to God’s call for peace in our lives. When we come to the Lord’s Table, we need to come at peace with ourselves, with each other, and with our God. For the Lord’s Supper is the Feast of Peace.

Now, having thought about the need for the Lord’s peace in our lives, I want to spend the next while seeking to help us all understand something about what Paul is speaking of.

In the Roman church, there was a lot of opportunity for arguing. There were several small churches in Rome, and since Rome was such a cosmopolitan place, there were people from all different backgrounds making up these churches. It was a perfect opportunity for Satan to build tensions. Customs were different among them all, Who was truly the Christian? None, if not all, says Paul. All of you are Christians, and you each must decide how you are going to live faithfully before the face of God as living sacrifices. But, Even if you are fully convinced of the rightness of some activity, you must see that you make every effort to do what leads to peace. The Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking, It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Paul doesn’t want fights in the church where one person looks down on another, where one says that if you do such and such, you aren’t Christian.  Of course, There are the things that are spelled out in the word as being absolutely. Unfit for the Christian. But that leaves a lot for us to decide.

 And Paul says, Now look, If you want to have a principle to judge it all by, make every effort to do what leads to peace. If that is how we judge our activities, I think we here too will start to look at things differently. Then we won’t be looking for ways of causing pain or disruption. Then we’ll be seeking to promote peace. And yet that doesn’t tell us what this peace is. In order to know what peace is all about, we need to let the whole message of scripture come to bear.

For this peace isn’t just an absence of war or tension. One of the Old Testament prophets denounced the false prophets of his day for proclaiming peace, peace, when there was no peace. So what is this thing called peace?

Peace is a gift of God. But it is something that we hold ambiguously in this world. For Satan is still at war with God. He doesn’t want God’s people to find peace. Instead, he seeks discord. Just the moment we feel we have arrived at peace, no, something else flares up. So peace as God’s gift is something we hold as a promise. We’re always engaged in doing what leads to peace.

Yet we have a real longing for peace in our hearts. Everyone does. It comes with our being. It’s part of our makeup. We long for Paradise Lost. We long for the peace with ourself, others, the world, and God that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the days before the fall into sin. We long for a perfect world. Where we won’t be at war with ourselves and others. We long for a time when we could call the world our friend and not our foe. We long for the time when God walked with Adam and Eve in the evening. Doesn’t your heart cry out for that? Don’t you get a little misty eyed when you realize what sin has done to God’s perfect, peaceful creation? Does it touch you at all? I asked that in all sincerity, because if it doesn’t touch you, then I know you won’t be much interested in a Christian lifestyle that has this principle: Make every effort to do what leads to peace.

The world out there, with its evolutionary idea of the survival of the fittest, says the very basis of life is to struggle with what is around us. Nothing is at peace, says evolution. We are locked in a life and death struggle with the world. That is the sort of idea that many live with. And when they just can’t cope anymore, a quiet suicide is the answer. There is a popular song which we sometimes hear that has a line, let the carbon monoxide take my troubles away. All that does is lead to distress for those who cared about you.

The Kingdom of God brings peace in the Holy Spirit. Just think of how we get to be at peace with God. Jesus had to give his life so that we could have that peace. That’s what the Lord’s Supper is about, too. So as we seek to bring in the Kingdom of God, we need to also be praying for the destruction of the work of Satan. The Bible seeks to tell us that the peace of God is not that God will give us a pill to bring peace and blessedness. No, The Bible, when it speaks of peace, of the peace of God, is saying that Satan will be destroyed. For Satan is the source of all our discord. Christians can hold different opinions on a lot of things and can even hold opposite ones, as Paul shows in Romans 14. But Satan brings the argument over the different opinions. Christians who are fully convinced of something don’t have to fight with someone who believes something different. Only people who don’t know where they stand become defensive and seek to impose their idea on the others around them. Too often we do that ourselves. And so we have a lot of tension when there’s no need for it at all. If we work for what leads to Peace, we will build one another up, and then what happened to my friend and his church need not ever be repeated. Are you willing to seek Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit? If yes, you are seeking the Kingdom of God.

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–Romans 8 verses 18-27 

A Meditation for Advent or Christmas

Context is a congregation in a small city in the Upper Midwest of the USA. This is focused on pondering what happened at Christmas. It dates back to about 2005.

There are two Voyager spacecraft flying through outer space. They were launched in the mid 1970s. These two spacecraft have just recently passed an important milestone. They are the first man made objects to officially leave the solar system. After about 27 years of traveling at around 34,000 miles an hour, they’ve reached the edge of the solar system and have left the House of our rising sun. The wonder they have caused as people have for the first time gazed on the wondrous beauty of Neptune and Uranus has been phenomenal. I think that one thing that space travel does is it reminds us of the wonder of the planet we inhabit. The fact of planet Earth is most astounding. And we don’t often think of the beauty of the Earth when we’re driving down a potholes road. Yet one of the basic teachings of our faith is our world belongs to God. But that statement of faith is tested each time we have to deal with water pipes that are corroded or the broken beer bottle that has been tossed onto our sidewalk. I don’t know what goes through your mind, but in my mind, I don’t have my mind going. Our world belongs to God each time I see a discarded tire in the ditch alongside the road.

Our world belongs to God, but it is a world that groans. Paul comes right out and says we know and, and the word he uses is one which is used to refer to a head knowledge. It’s not a matter of faith, this hearing the creation grown. It’s something we all know. We sense it all around us. We see it in the pollution that hangs low over cities on the stale summer day. We hear it in the crackling of the fire that destroys a precious possession. We smell it in the pungent odor of the diesel exhaust from the gravel truck in front of us. This is a knowledge that isn’t new to us in our times, either. Paul already 2000 years ago, heard the groaning of the creation.

But as he heard it, he placed it in a new context. He heard the creation groan with ears that had been made new in Jesus Christ. And so, he heard those groans, but he knew that there was a reason for it. There was an explanation for the groaning, and the creation did not groan by itself.

That groan is one which we do well to pay attention to because there is a deepening and a widening of the idea of groaning in just a few verses here. What is this groaning? Is it only a deep wordless sound that is expressive of the pain or grief? The dictionary defines it like that. Does it mean that in the Bible. Does it mean that also in the Bible? Yes, And it is more because the groan is directed toward God, who knows what is being communicated even if no words are used.

Can you hear the groaning of the earth? Do you hear the earth grown each time another bomb explodes that destroys not only human life, but leaves holes in the ground and what were once buildings in ruins? Do you hear the creation groan when a polluter needlessly pours some toxic chemical on the ground and hopes no one will ever find out? Do you hear the creation groan when a massive storm like a hurricane sweeps over sea and land and leaves the path of destruction in its wake? Do you hear the creation groan as volcanic lava pours out of a fissure and incinerates everything in its path? Do you hear the creation groan the way God hears the creation groan?

Do we sense our oneness with the world we live in? Do we have ears that hear the gospel for the creation when we hear, for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son? In our society, we quite easily, it seems to me, dismiss the idea that God even cares for the earth. We limit God’s love to human beings and only to certain elect within that group. But the Apostle Paul hears the creation groan, and so do we. The challenge for us is to make the connection between our groaning and that of the creation. For both of us long for the appearing of Jesus upon the clouds of heaven.

 In this Christmas season we celebrate the coming of the Savior of mankind, But when He comes again, He will be the Savior of the earth as a planet as well. Jesus loves the earth too. Jesus died to cleanse the earth from its effects that our sin did to the creation. This universe is more affected by our sin than we ever give a thought to. Our sin has brought about the groaning of the creation as it longs to see us be set free from the curse of sin, for then the creation itself will be set free from the bondage to decay. That is what it is dealing with as well.

The creation groans. It longs for the day when Jesus will come again. The more you and I will open our ears to the groaning of our own hearts deep inside of us, the more we will realize that we are longing for the day when Jesus will be revealed upon the clouds of heaven, for then our groaning will all be over as well.

This Christmas season calls to us to observe a season when we will once again get our hearts in the right direction. We don’t have to long for just the right gift. Or just the right situation for us to arrive. The truth is that we have already received the best gift possible. We have had God give us His Son. And now we groan inwardly as we long for the day when Jesus will come again and we will be set free from the bondage to decay.

Even though this is the Christmas season, the bondage to decay continues in all of our lives. The flu is promising to be a nasty thing this year as it has already taken several lives in our country. Whooping cough is suddenly making the rounds. And if you are ill, It is a period when many times the only thing you can find to do to express your desire for the illness to be over is to groan.

I have been in on that groaning. I have heard it at the bedside of many who lay dying. I’ve heard it as parents groaned over the problems they were having with their children. I’ve heard the groan as I’ve sat near those who are mourning the loss of a loved one. Words fail us. And all we can do is to groan. That says more than any word words could ever express. And that groan is a plea with God for His redemption to come to us. For the promise of Christmas and the Christ child to be made fully real in his coming again. For then we shall be free indeed! Oh for the day when that will be true for us! And for the whole creation!

Oh, Lord Jesus, your birth in Bethlehem was a promise also to the earth that you would set it free, And today we hear the earth groaning still. We long for your appearing. For when we see you on the clouds of heaven, dear Jesus, we shall be set free from sin, and the earth itself will be set free from the effects of our sin. And all of the universe will be made new. And we will live forever in your holy presence. Oh Lord Jesus, come quickly!

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Romans 15 : 1-13

On the Road to Emotional Health

Some of the materials for this message are drawn from Robert Hudnut’s book, This People, This Parish. Context is a one hundred year old congregation in a medium sized Midwestern USA city

Robert Hudnut is a pastor with a pastor’s deep and caring heart. If you have ever been in my study and noticed the books on display, one of them is a little book by Robert Hudnut, entitled this people, this parish. This morning I’ll be using some of his stories to help us see that the church is the place where we can be building one another up. It is here that God chooses to work in a way that is different from any other.  As Hudnut tells stories of real people in his churches, he helps us to realize the power of the word of God to heal broken people.

For example, he writes, the woman was telling me about her father. You see, her older brother was accidentally killed by her father. He fell off the back of the car as his father was backing up. Oh daddy, the boy said in his father’s arms as he died. Her father never got over it. She says he was broken down for two years and then it was with him for the rest of his life.

There are such things that we walk with for the rest of our lives. They haunt us day and night. They’re the images of failure and despair that we can’t seem to break. Of course, there are major images of success and hope, too, which we also have with us day and night. The object is to make sure the first set of images does not overwhelm the second.

Emotional health is that which is realistic. It doesn’t sugarcoat the evil and the effects of evil. But neither does it wallow in despair and give in to evil. We were created to be whole people – -people in whom our physical health, our spiritual health, and our emotional health are all balanced. To be on the road to emotional health means that we are pursuing a set of principles that I want to share with you this morning. I do not intend these to be a complete guide to emotional health, rather they are principles we can glean from God’s word knowing full well that God wants us to be emotionally healthy. The ones I refer to this morning will all be taken from Romans 15, our scripture.

The first one is this from verse 7, accept one another, just as Christ accepted you.

Acceptance by God in Christ is the place where all emotional health begins. Do you know why? It’s because our lives are full of rejection. We can’t take it when someone turns away. Our feelings crumble when another person is chosen over us.

Boys and girls who aren’t athletes know what I’m talking about. You know, don’t you, what it’s like to stand there in the middle while others choose sides for a ball game and you’re one of the last ones, or maybe even the last. No matter if the last to choose had to take you and they said, OK Andy will take you. You know you were last. you knew rejection. You know the pain, don’t you?

But when you come here, I want you to know that God in Christ, accepts you. He chooses you. He sets his sights on you. God doesn’t look to see if you are talented. He doesn’t check your resume to see if you’ve ever been fired. God accepts you. When the greeting is spoken from God, he makes us all his friends, he makes us all equals. In Christ, no one is better than someone else. So, then we can accept each other, too.

Do you know what that means? It means that we do not play favorites as Christians. It means that each of you is important to me because you are my brother and my sister in Christ. It means that when one of you gets a promotion, I feel happy with you. It means when one of you is suffering, I suffer along with you. And so do all the rest of these people.

Here’s another story from Robert Hudnut

My young friend came to us, her church, for help when a friend of hers committed suicide. Now when this teen faced the bleakest moment of her 16 years, she came to this people, this parish. She had been coming regularly since she was 11. We had given her the strength sought. We had been there for her, cried with her, laughed with her, shared her troubles.

Her friend had no church. She had no place to turn, no very present help in trouble as the Bible says. She had no kids her own age to love her unconditionally, the same way they felt God loving them. That was it. That was the key to what went wrong. Throughout all her failures, throughout her inability to measure up or to get good grades and to be the perfect daughter, throughout, in other words, what the normal teenager goes through, there was no one anywhere in her life, who loved her unconditionally, who mediated grace to her. And so, without grace, there was no hope.

Accept one another, as Christ accepted you. Or as the apostle John put it, love one another, for love is of God.

The second principle grows from the first one: and that is this: God is the God of hope. We accept one another as we are in order that there may be a new future.

This shows up in verse 4 and in verse 13. Verse 4 has the line, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. And then in verse 13 it says may the God of hope and so on.

What Paul is seeking to have us realize is that we should never be content with the way the world is. There’s a whole different world awaiting us. There’s a new future that is in the hands of the one true God. When we confront the evil of our world, we cannot be content that that’s just the way things are. Such is not the case. The God who is in charge of the world is our God, our father. He wants us to see that we can grow to be more and more like him. He wants us to know that emotional dis-ease comes from a too easy relationship with sin. For then, our conscience plagues us and we find there is no hope for the future. There’s no way to escape. Depression, one of our country’s most pervasive and debilitating illnesses, is nourished by despair. As Kevin Lehman puts it, depression is doing housework after 8:00 PM. There’s no hope of ever getting done.

Until we get our lives in tune with God, our despair and depression sound like a noisy gong playing in our everyday lives, until the hands of the Potter stills the Clapper, and instead he works in us until we find the tune he created us for. And then he sets the Clapper free and we sound a beautiful note of hope. He is, after all, the God of hope.

Here’s another story from Robert Hudnut.

My wife came after me with a butcher knife. My son decked her. She tried to drown our nine month old baby. She kidnapped the two smallest children, and I didn’t know where they were for eight months. And one day they appeared on my doorstep.

My friend is asking for a blessing. He wants to be able to see God in the horror of his life. I, his pastor, am the one he has come to.

I have a hunch the reason people seek out their pastors is a need for God. They want God to cut off the runaway spiral of their lives. My friend’s life is off course. He knows that. And he knows that he needs something, someone as powerful as God, to get him back on course.

That’s hope. That’s what God gives us. That’s what you and I need in the midst of our struggles with our lives and our sufferings.

The God of hope fills us, says Paul, with all joy and peace as we trust in him so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Emotional health does not come easily in our world. We’re all at least a little bit off center. But God calls us to move on down the road toward him, toward healthy emotions.

Principle #3 was there at the beginning of chapter 15. I put it third, not because it is less important, but because for this one to be put into practice, we need numbers one and two first.

Principle #3 is this, we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not please ourselves.

In our world which is so affected by the line, the survival of the fittest, it isn’t easy to bear with the failings of the weak. Notice now, this isn’t just some tolerance we’re encouraged to have for one another. It is actually to bear with them, that is: we are to be there with the weak in their weaknesses. Being God’s compassionate hands in a world that understands a clenched fist, or lives by the creed, looking out for #1, being God’s compassionate hands in a world like ours requires that we believe God has to come to us first.

You and I have an inborn desire to be in charge of our own destiny. We want to rise to great heights. We want to be the best. And we don’t have time for weak people. We don’t have time for the dumb things people do. We live with the desire for success, and weak people usually aren’t a part of how we plan for success.

But the reality of life is that weak people are all around us. In fact, each of us is weak somewhere along the line. Not because we have necessarily weaknesses, but because we live in a broken world. We are broken people. And the strength of my brother or sister in Christ is what heals my brokenness. That’s what Paul calls building each other up. It’s what people who live in God’s presence know to be the best way to deal with life and with reality.

Robert Hudnut puts it this way, we miss the screams. The person beside us in the Pew could be dying, and we would never know it. What do you get in church that you don’t get anywhere else? The chance to share how you feel? Last Sunday a man talked about his son on drugs. A woman asked for help with her excruciating back. A man shared every week for four weeks  the progress of his dying friend.

Would life be any different without churches? Without this people, this parish, we might never hear the screams. We might not even hear the groans. We would be so intent on pursuing our own lives that we could be out of touch with the rest of life. Churches give us perspective. They keep us in touch with reality. Churches won’t let us get along with avoiding life.

So who wants to get up on Sunday morning for that? About a billion people.

God is interested in how you are emotionally. He’s giving you these people to care about you. By opening yourself to them, you will be on the road to emotional health.