God's contract with the church

 Romans 16: 1-20

Well, we’re finally at the last few verses of the book of Romans, and I don’t really want it to end.  We’ve been studying Romans at both our Sunday morning and Wednesday evening services for almost a year now, and I know it has made a huge difference in my life, and I hope in yours as well.

As Paul finishes this letter, he has a number of personal messages that are sort of tacked on to the end.  I debated whether or not to have someone read aloud the first half of the 16th chapter, but I decided that would be mean.  In fact, I don’t want to read it aloud either.  So we’ll assign that as your homework.

But there are some important truths wedged in between some of these personal messages, and we want to look at the first part of them this morning and then wrap up the chapter this Wednesday evening.

First of all, we have received a lot of essential, immensely important doctrinal information in this letter, but now in this closing segment, we get a glimpse into what life was like in the early church.  I think if you look closely at this passage, you will notice that it’s broken up into segments.  First mentioned is Phoebe, a godly woman that more than likely personally carried this letter from Corinth where Paul was writing from to the church in Rome.  She is noted by Paul for her service and for what must have been a major trip at great expense and some danger.

And then starting in verse 3 Paul begins to list the people in Rome that he wanted to say hello to.  He had either heard about them, or in many cases he knew these people personally from other places he had been.  And these people were now living in Rome and were part of the church or churches there.  And my own personal opinion is that there were likely several house churches that existed in Rome.   Conservative estimates put the population of Rome at that time around 5 million people, though there could have been a lot more.  And so it would stand to reason that there was more than one church in a city of 5 million people.  However, there were no church buildings, and openly practicing  Christianity was a good way to end up in prison.  So the converts to Christianity were meeting in homes, and it is likely that each home had a pastor that headed up the fellowship there.  But at the same time, they seemed to know one another and probably passed letters and epistles around from one fellowship to the other, but simply due to the size of their houses and the need for some discretion the churches were not very large.

And so looking at these verses through that perspective, I believe that Paul is mentioning key members of several churches that were operating in that city, and in most cases he mentions them by association with their pastor, who more than likely hosted his church in his house.  Look at verse 5, Priscilla and Aquila have a church in their house.  Now this is the same couple that been mentioned several times in the book of Acts, and served with Paul and Apollos, and were now living in Rome.  And Aquila was undoubtedly the pastor of a church that met in his home.

This theory is further substantiated by the rest of the list, especially as you get down to verse 10 and beyond, where it says the household of Aristobolus, and then next verse, those of the household of Narcissus.  The word household is implied, but it isn’t in the actual Greek.   And so it could easily read those that were of Narcissus who are in the Lord.   In other words, Narcissus was the pastor/leader of the church in his house and the same was true in regards to Aristobolus.

And I don’t want to belabor this point, but you can see that pattern of naming people and then adding the phrase and all the brethren with them, or all the saints with them.  So I think the pattern shown here is that in the early church in Rome and I’m sure in much of Asia, the churches met in homes or in the open air.  And so I think that the Beach Fellowship is in good company.  But the practical implications of this is that you don’t have to be a mega church to be used by God.  In fact, I think once you get too big  the whole idea of a local fellowship becomes self defeating.

And there is another point that I think is worth mentioning about this first segment of personal addresses before we move on.  And that is how Paul describes these people.  These are great saints, marked out by Paul for special commendation.  Yet he gives these people a rather inglorious designation.  He calls them workers.  Laborers. For example, Rom 16:12 “Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, workers in the Lord. Greet Persis the beloved, who has worked hard in the Lord.”    V.9  “Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ.” Rom 16:6  “Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you.” V.3 “Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.”

I think this passage makes a point that is worth emphasizing.  Church is not a spectator sport.  The Christian life isn’t just about showing up once in a while on Sunday morning if you haven’t really got anything better to do and sit there for an hour and listen to some songs and announcements and a short, hopefully painless message and you’re good to go.  No, the Christian life is about Christian service.  And Christian service requires labor.  We have been given a job to do, a service to accomplish.  We have been given a mission to reach people for Christ and disciple them, to equip them as stewards of the kingdom of heaven.

I would remind you that Rom 14:12 tells us, “So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.”  My ambition, and I hope it is yours as well, is when one day I stand before God and give an account for myself Christ will say, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”  We are to be about the business of the kingdom.

1Pet. 4:1 “Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.  For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.” We no longer serve men but God.

So how do we labor for the church?  How do we work in the kingdom in a way that will not result in our works being worthless on the day of judgment?  Paul’s not talking necessarily about being on some committee at church or singing in the choir or helping out with a building project.  Those things might be part of it, but only in the context of the truth of the gospel.  Rather, our labor is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to our families, to our neighbors and to our coworkers.  To provide a true testimony by our life of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  Our labor is to serve the body of Christ in agape love, providing what is necessary for the sake of others in the fellowship, even when it means personal sacrifice to us.  To study the word of God so that we might give an answer to those that question us.  To reach out to the lost with the truth of the gospel.  It’s about bringing souls out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.  It’s bringing people into the church body so that they might hear the truth and the truth will set them free.  It’s about being obedient to the word preached and pressing into that truth, persevering in season and out of season.  These men and women Paul praises were obedient to that responsibility, note v. 19, “the report of your obedience has reached all.”  Proclaim, provide, participate and persevere.

You know, this is where the rubber meets the road in the Christian walk.  This is why so many Christians who seem to have come to a saving knowledge of Christ at some point in their life, many years ago perhaps, and yet many years later they still are basically in the same place they were when they were saved, or in many cases worse off.  Some crisis perhaps brought them to the point of repentance, they came to recognize that they needed God and called upon Him to save them and God was faithful and saved them.  He granted them salvation by grace.  And then these converts failed, either due to a lack of Biblical preaching or due to spiritual laziness, failed to mature in faith.  They failed to persevere in obedience to what God convicted them of.  And so they just kind of wander around in a spiritual morass – being hot for a while and then cold for a while.  They never really renounce the things that are holding them back spiritually. Hebrews 5:12 “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”  I know a number of people like this in this community, some of which have been involved in this ministry from time to time.  And they have never grown.  Ten years later and they are still immature.  They should have been deacons or elders or leaders in the church by now, and yet they haven’t even been able to present a consistent testimony to their own families.  They are practically useless for the kingdom and in fact they are in danger of being held accountable to God for their poor testimony, having been a stumbling block to their loved ones and friends due to their selfish pursuit of the world’s lusts and their lack of spiritual maturity.

There’s one more point I would make that is kind of tied to that thought and in relation to that passage.  And that is that God has ordained men to be the spiritual head of their household.  You see that principle revealed through that list. And it’s laid out explicitly in Ephesians  5:22 “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.  But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”  And Paul knows this is a difficult teaching, and so he adds in verse 32, “This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”    Unfortunately today I see men relinquishing their God given mandate to be the spiritual head of the family.  Most of them have no problem with the king of the castle concept, but many today fall far short of being the Christ like example to their wives and children and extended families.  We’re far too selfish for that role.  And so in this spiritual vacuum that exists in most homes the wife steps up to the plate and does the best she can to encourage the husband to come to church, and get the kids dressed and try to establish a spiritual threshold in the house that it was the man’s job to do.  And when that order is turned upside down either because of the father’s laziness or selfishness or lack of obedience, then you can expect problems in your home, you can expect problems with your kids, and you can expect problems in your marriage.  Men, God wants you to step up to the plate and take responsibility for the spiritual headship of your home like you take responsibility for your career, or like you take responsibility for your golf game or fishing or whatever it is that you have put before God.  Men are to be the spiritual leaders in their homes.

Now let’s move on, skipping down to Rom 16:17 “Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them.  For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.  For the report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.  The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”

Not only are we to be concerned about our own obedience which can hinder our service to the gospel, but we are also to be concerned with the false teachers that are a hindrance to the furthering of the gospel.  There are so many warnings in scripture concerning false teachers and false doctrine I don’t even know where to start.  Jesus and the Apostles save their heaviest criticism for false teachers.  And the Bible teaches us that the heaviest judgment will fall upon false teachers as well.

So how can we discern false teachers and false doctrine?  Well, without going to a lot of scriptures let’s see what clues Paul gives us right here.  First, note the urgency of Paul in these last few paragraphs of this book.  He is signing off and he grabs the pen back from Tertius the scribe and says, wait a minute.  Listen, I urge you, I urge you, keep an eye out for these false teachers.  It’s like a parent saying good bye to a child going off to college or a trip and pulling them back and saying, “listen, be careful now about such and such.  Don’t go there.  Don’t put yourself at risk in this area.”  This great love he has for the church demands that he warns them yet again before closing of the dangers of false teachers and that Satan would surely be sending them to ravage the church.

Paul gives two tactics that Satan uses in deceiving people through false prophets.  And they are dissensions and hindrances.  Now dissensions are disagreements, ways in which they divide the people and separate certain ones from the flock.  You ever seen a wolf pack attack a herd of antelope?  They always divide and then separate the group until they have isolated a weak member of the herd.  Satan wants to separate you from the truth of God’s word.  If he can isolate you, then he can deceive you and ultimately destroy you.  That’s why it’s so important to be in a Bible teaching fellowship.  You may think you’re fine doing the church roulette, but let me warn you that Satan loves nothing more than separating the sheep and getting them out on their own without any accountability.

And the other tactic Satan uses is hindrances or offences.  And these can take a variety of forms.  But the key is found in the phrase which follows;  “contrary to the teaching you have learned.”   Well, first of all, that is predicated on the  assumption that you have learned anything about the truth of the gospel.  I am amazed at the number of people that come to this fellowship that are introduced to me as someone who has been at a certain church or in a certain denomination for years, in some cases they are even prominent in that church, and yet after hearing the gospel they confess that this is the first time that they have heard the truth of the gospel.  But what is even more amazing to me is that having heard the truth of the gospel they fail to be obedient to that truth and eventually return to the same old, cold dead church that they are comfortable in.  They are like the parable Jesus gave concerning the good soil, they hear the word which was the seed, and for joy they spring up, but the ground was stony ground.  And so the word doesn’t take root, and when the sun and the heat of the day comes they wither away.

You know, the gospel can be compared to a contract.  Most of us are familiar with a contract, aren’t we?  Maybe a contract to by a property or a contract to do some work on your house, or whatever.  But I’m sure most of us at one time or another have signed a contract or two. And how much of that contract has to be in error in order for it to be a bad contract? That’s why we hire lawyers isn’t it, to make sure that all the information on that contract is factual and accurate?  Imagine saying in regards to a contract to build a house, “O well, I know that there is probably some things about this contract that aren’t really accurate, but who cares?  You got both our names on the contract, and the address on the contract looks good, and the object is to build a house and that’s more or less clear.  So what if we’re not sure exactly who is going to do the work, or how much it’s actually going to cost us, or what it’s supposed to look like.  After all, we are all interested in the same thing, that is building a house.  Let’s just have unity here.  Let’s all try to get along.  We’re all going the same direction aren’t we?

You would have to be a fool to go with that contract, wouldn’t you?  And you would have to be crazy to hire a builder that tried to present you with that contract.  And yet, people all over America today have blindly accepted a fraudulent contract  offered by false teachers for their spiritual house.  They have no idea who is doing the work.  They have no idea how much it costs.  And sadly, they are going to be surprised to find one day that they house they built was made of wood, hay and stubble and it will be burned up.  Christ will say on the day of judgment, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”   Satan deceived them with a bad contract.

Listen folks, the gospel is God’s contract between God and man.  Without this contract signed and sealed by both parties you have nothing and will end up with nothing on the day of judgment.  God offered destitute, sinful people a contract, a means to become righteous, holy children of God, and He paid for it with the blood of Jesus Christ. All He required of us was faith in His atonement. Our righteousness was paid for, our spiritual house is given to us by grace as a gift of God.  And as a deposit on this eternal dwelling that has been promised by God, He has given us a down payment – the Holy Spirit to live inside us – to be our teacher, to be our helper, to be our comforter – until that day when Jesus comes to establish His permanent kingdom in a new heaven and new earth.  And there is a second part of this contract;  in exchange for this grace, until that day when He comes again, we live by faith in this house, no longer for ourselves, we live for Him.  We offer to God our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is our reasonable service of worship.  We now are no longer to be slaves of sin, but slaves of righteousness.  We are to be obedient even as Christ was obedient, even if it means that we suffer the loss of everything dear to us in this world.

Now that is, ladies and gentlemen, is God’s contract.  And He has given His ministers the responsibility of preaching and teaching that contract.  There are no shortcuts.  There isn’t to be anything left out.  Because just like in an earthly contract, leaving something out could nullify the contract.  Or it could result in not getting what you expected to get from the contract.  So I have an obligation to preach the whole truth of the gospel - God’s contract with man - in it’s entirety.

And notice what else Paul says at the end of  verse 17 regarding false teachers, he says, “turn away from them.”  Jesus said elsewhere, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.  And Satan knows that the best way to couch a lie is to wrap it in enough truth so that you don’t think it matters.  Listen, I’ve been to many, many churches in my life and heard a lot of preachers and teachers.  And the problem I’ve found with most false teachers is they are far more subtle than to tell out and out lies or fabrications.  The problem more often than not one of omission.  Failing to teach the whole gospel.  Just teaching the parts of the Bible that they think won’t offend anyone.  It sometimes takes years of sitting in a church Sunday after Sunday to discover that they never preach about certain issues or certain scriptures.  Because the ultimate goal of these false teachers Paul says in vs. 18 is to deceive these people for their own benefit, to fill their appetite for fleshly things. “For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.”  Paul says turn away from such teaching.  Get out of there before it corrupts you, before you dry up and wither away.

2Cor. 6:17 "Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

And finally, Paul commends again those good workers of the kingdom that he has listed here.  Rom 16:19  “For the report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.”

Notice the phrase, “Your obedience.”  Paul makes frequent use of that word as well as all the Apostles.  1 Sam. 15 says, “To obey is better than sacrifice.”  Worship in the OT required that you bring a sacrifice.  And worship in the NT is that you are the sacrifice.  You sacrifice your will, to obey God’s will.

And for the church that is diligently working for the kingdom, where godly men are taking seriously their obligation to be the spiritual head of their households, where Christians are repudiating half truth gospel and turning away from it to serve the living God, where they are being obedient to the will of God, in that church that is being wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil, Paul says that God will soon crush Satan under that churches  feet.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.  I want to cleave to what is good and abhor what is evil.  I want to see God’s church established and Satan’s work destroyed.  I want to see this community come to know the truth of the gospel and to be obedient unto salvation.  I want to spend whatever time I have left on this earth in pursuit of the things of God.  I trust that you do as well.  Examine yourselves here this morning in the light of God’s word and don’t be like the hearer of the word James speaks of that looked at himself  in the mirror and walked away without doing anything. Let’s be doers of the word.  Persevere in obedience to Christ, no matter what the cost and God will crush Satan under your feet.  But if you hold on to the world, hold on to false teaching, hold on to fleshly lusts, then Satan will destroy you.  The choice is yours.  Let’s pray.

hallmarks of a godly ministry

Romans 15: 14-21

In the last week or so, for a number of different reasons and under a variety of circumstances, I have found myself on several occasions in a position of feeling like I had to defend my ministry.  Granted, the Beach Fellowship is a different kind of ministry, an unusual church.  And perhaps some would think that I have deliberately tried to construct this ministry in order to be different, to be unusual.  And yet I would assure you that is not the case. 

I believe that first and foremost that this is God’s ministry, and God’s church, and I am compelled, or as Paul put it in another place, constrained to preach the gospel, and God has constructed it in this way for His purposes.   And I think that part of the difficulty that some people seem to have with this ministry is that this isn’t church the way they are used to experiencing church.  And while on the one hand that is perhaps part of it’s attraction, at the same time it’s part of the reason that many find it hard to commit to the fellowship, because in their mind, it doesn’t fit the paradigm of what they think church should be like.  We don’t have all the bells and whistles that are normally associated with church.  And I yet in my defense of this ministry, I offer no apology for not having all those appendages that are associated with “normal” churches.  I offer no apology, because I believe that God has formed this ministry as a unique tool, a particular vessel, uniquely designed for this job, in this place and very importantly,  for this particular time which I believe is the end of the age.

Now in today’s passage as we continue in Romans, I believe the Apostle Paul presents some principles here in this closing address as to what a God centered ministry should look like.   Paul is not offering any apology either for the boldness of his letter.  He offers no apology for the directness of the message.  But he defends that boldness as a direct communication of God.  In the opening statements of Paul’s letter he makes it clear that he is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.  And that salvation is our goal, it’s our objective.  To save dying souls condemned to eternal damnation by delivering the saving truth of the gospel in a clear, bold, direct way that does not leave man unmoved, but puts the tip of the sword in their heart and forces them to make a choice.  Not just to go to church, or to try to look religious to your social circle, but to come to the point of complete surrender to the gospel of Jesus Christ and submit to it and be obedient to it so that you may live. 

Now there is an obvious, plain intention in the words that Paul writes here, but at the same time, if we look carefully between the lines, we can find several characteristics of a godly church, and particularly of a godly minister which I think are instructive as we examine our ministry and what we are trying to accomplish here.

And Paul starts off in verse 14 with the statement: “And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another.”  What Paul is basically saying is that I know you are good people here folks.  I know you have a sincere desire for knowing the truth.   And I would also hope that the majority of the people that come under my message have been born again, or at least they believe in God and believe in God’s word.  In today’s culture, going to church isn’t mandatory the way it used to be in America.  And so I would hope that those that are here are here because of a sincere desire to learn more about God and to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.   And I applaud that.  I want to encourage and stimulate that. 

But at the same time, I realize that not every one has been obedient unto salvation.  There is perhaps an intellectual assent.  There is an intellectual agreement or acknowledgment of certain basic truths.  But maybe there hasn’t as of yet been a genuine conversion.  Or in some cases, there may have been a genuine conversion, but your faith has lain dormant for years, brought out on special occasions perhaps, or called upon from time to time when you found yourself in a crisis, but for the most part, kept on a shelf or in a closet to be used only on occasion.  But perhaps there never has been a complete sanctification as you day by day surrender your will to Christ in obedience. 

And so my ministry has been to call the unsaved to salvation, and call the saved unto sanctification.  To urge a completion of their faith, to become fully conformed to the image of Jesus Christ and completely surrendered in obedience to His will. 

And I think Paul makes it clear that is what he was trying to achieve through his ministry as well.  Let’s look at the next verse. Rom 15:15            “But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”

Paul says I have been bold in this ministry in order to remind you of what is necessary for your sanctification, because I have been appointed a minister of Christ Jesus, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, and you are my offering which I present to God, you being accepted and set apart by the Holy Spirit. 

And this is my ministry as well.  This is my mandate from God, my mission which was given to me from God.  Not that I would build a building and call it a church and attract a lot of people with a variety of programs and yet have a large majority unsaved, unaccepted by God, untaught in the gospel which Christ died for, unknowledgeable of what is required of them by God.  No!  God forbid!  2 Cor. 5:14 says I am  constrained by Christ to preach the unadulterated, unfiltered truth of God, whether or not it is popular, or whether or not people accept it, or whether or not we ever build a building, or whether or not I can ever make a livable income from it.  My goal, my ambition is to minister as a priest of God, handling accurately the word of truth, preaching in season and out of season, reproving when necessary, rebuking when necessary with all patience and long suffering.

One of the verses that God used in His call upon my life is 2Tim. 4:1 Paul says, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

And I have tried to be faithful to that mandate.  Yet not all endure sound doctrine.  Many turn away from the truth and return to teachers who tickle their ears.  But I have learned that I cannot control that.  Rather I should be steadfast, sober, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill my ministry.  God will take care of the results.  God will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Therefore, since it is the ministry of God then it’s not what I do but what Christ does through me.  Paul says in verse 17, “Therefore in Christ Jesus I have found reason for boasting in things pertaining to God. For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me…”  And while it would be self defeating for a minister to declare that he is humble, I will let you be the judge of that.  But I will tell you that a true minister is a servant of the church.  And humility is a hallmark of a godly pastor.  I will not take credit for anything, other than what God has done through me.

I will tell you this.  God had to break me before He could use me.  He had to humble me.  I used to be fairly successful, and in my field I was well known on a national level, and I thought I could be an effective witness for Christ because I was so successful and had it so together.  I could point to my successes and say, see there – this is how God blesses you if you’re living for Him and wouldn’t you like to be blessed like I am blessed?  And God used a long, long period of trials and testing to pretty much strip me and humble me in every respect.  I may still not be a perfect picture of humility, but brother I can tell you that I have been humbled.  And God keeps me in humbling circumstances to keep me from exalting myself.  And I think due to human nature this is not unique to me only.  God probably will have to do the same thing to you.  And I know that He is already doing it to some of you, so that you will not rely on your own strength, but completely learn to rely on God.

And secondly, another hallmark of a godly ministry is that the minister preaches obedience. Paul preached obedience to the Lord. He not only was humble but he was faithful to preach the necessity of obedience. In verse 18 he says, "For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed…”

Paul saw the message of the gospel as calling people to obedience, calling them to submission to the lordship of Christ. Remember in chapter 6 verse 16, "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness."  Listen folks, make no mistake, salvation is to obey from the heart the gospel delivered to you. It begins with an obedience to Christ.  It is the message that I have endeavored to preach from the beginning.  Nothing less than a complete, full submission in obedience to the word of God.  Grace is not a substitute for obedience, but grace is merely the means to obedience.  It is the means of righteousness, and now we are no  longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness.

The third hallmark of a godly minister here is he had personal integrity. And we could say Paul was authentic. He was not only humble and faithful but he was genuine. Notice the end of verse 18; "He preached his message to make the Gentiles obedient and the message came by word and deed." And the godly preacher is the preacher who proclaims the genuine word of God, not his own words. I’m not here to tell funny stories, or sad stories.  I’m not going to try to prove how great an orator I am.  I would rather read 10 words of God empowered by the Holy Spirit than speak a thousand words of oratory that comes out of my own wisdom and conceit.  I have come to realize that if our ministry here is to have any power, any worth, it will be because we focus on the word of God, we preach the word of God and we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to take that word and drive it into men’s hearts, dividing between soul and spirit, joint and marrow and thoughts and intentions of the heart. 

Hebrews 4:12  “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  The word of God isn’t dry and dull, an afterthought to my message, but the Word of God is alive, and John 1 says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  The Word is the living power of God, and it is the central thing in this ministry.

And notice also that Paul was authentic because his deeds backed up what he preached.  He lived what he preached.  There is no greater deterrent to the working of the power of God than a disparity in the life of the preacher between his word and his deed. That’s the essence of hypocrisy - of a phony. I can’t help but think of these television preachers who tell you that you need to sacrifice and support their ministry and then live in million dollar mansions and fly all around the country on private jets.  They aren’t feeding the sheep, they are fleecing the sheep.  They are preying on the sheep for their own profit.   And it should come as no surprise when we find out so many of them have lived double lives of debauchery while pretending to be something spiritual.

Fourthly, another hallmark of a godly minister, Paul’s work was given divine affirmation. He was not only humble, he was not only authentic, he was not only a genuine preacher but he was also one who was powerful. And power flows out of everything else, the right message, the message of obedience; the right character, authentic. Out of that comes the flow of power as God authenticates that genuine servant.

Notice verse 19, "in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit;" Accompanying the ministry of Paul were mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Holy Spirit. God used those to confirm His word spoken through Paul.  Paul was an apostle, part of the apostolic age.  And the apostles were particularly ordained by God to be the foundation upon which the church would be built.  And so God gave these men the power of the Holy Spirit to work signs and wonders as an affirmation that the revelation they received was from God Himself.  And I believe that this is borne out in scripture.  Whenever God gave new revelation of scripture, He would affirm it with signs and wonders, whether or not it was the apostles, or Old Testament prophets, or Moses.  Each time God gave new scriptural revelation He also gave a authentication through miraculous signs and wonders.

In 2 Corinthians 12:12, Paul said that he was given the signs and wonders and mighty deeds that are the marks of an Apostle. He bore the marks of an Apostle. In Mark 16 verse 20 it says, " the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following." The signs were to authenticate their message, that it might be made known that their message was true.

There is a denomination that exists today that bases it’s whole ministry on the idea that they are able to perform signs and wonders as the apostles did.  And in their attempt to make that claim a reality, I’m afraid they have completely abandoned the word of God, and have become part of this whole new emergent church movement where experience is more highly valued than God’s word.  And as a result, they are quickly becoming apostate.  In other words, rejecting the truth of God’s word for experience.  And the devil can give you an experience.  Don’t be deceived about that.

But God still does signs and wonders today.  I believe in the sovereignty of God. He heals when and where He wants.  But we don’t have the power to manipulate God’s healing.  I was at a Bible conference a couple of years ago and some missionary was speaking and he claimed that somewhere in Africa God brought a dead person to life during a baptism.  And I’m not going to argue whether or not he was telling the truth, or if he was mistaken or deceived, I don’t know.  But this large congregation of over a 1000 people stood up and gave a standing ovation for the statement that a person had been raised from the dead.  But then later on in his message, the man stated that an entire village became saved after hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And I waited for the applause, for the standing ovation, but I didn’t even hear an amen.  Listen folks, there is something wrong with that picture.  God’s greatest miracle and the greatest miracle of any ministry or minister, is seeing men and women saved from spiritual death unto spiritual life.  Jesus said it was a perverted generation that seeks for a sign and neglects the power of the gospel.

Remember when Jesus healed the paralytic that had been let down through the rooftop?  And Jesus said to him first, your sins are forgiven.  And the Pharisees had a problem with that because they said He was blaspheming.  And so Jesus answered, which is easier to say, your sins be forgiven or rise up and walk.  Now, so that you know that I have the power to forgive sins, I say, rise up, take up your bed and walk.  Listen, the greatest miracle is the power of salvation.  The power to forgive sins and change lives.  And the godly minister is going to be concerned with saving souls, not running around claiming to be a faith healer or so called miracle worker.

Finally, the fifth hallmark of a godly ministry is that the minister  preaches the full gospel.  Notice the end of verse 19, Paul has preached all over Asia, and he says, “so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.”  Paul said in Acts 20:27,            "For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”

I made a commitment over 7 years ago when I started this church, to preach the Bible word for word, chapter by chapter and verse by verse.  And one of the benefits of that is it’s difficult not to preach the full counsel of God.  You can’t cherry pick your way through the Bible and just preach stuff that won’t offend people.  Or just preach the stuff that is easy to preach.  You know, there are some preachers that get their messages in the mailbox.  You send off for a series that some group some where cooked up, and they have every thing all laid out for you.  All you really have to do is just deliver it.  They even include all the small group materials and graphics for your video screens and the whole package is available for a price.  And that has become pretty much standard fare today in most pulpits.

Our message doesn’t come out of our mailbox, I can assure you of that.  I may read my messages, but let me tell you that I write every word out of blood, sweat and tears.  But my message comes first and foremost from the exegesis of the word of God.  It comes from a lifetime of Bible study and a lifetime of living out my faith and having it tested in the fire.  It’s not another man’s message, but it’s the message each week that I believe God gives me from His word for this particular time and place.

And in conjunction with this idea Paul says that he didn’t build upon another man’s foundation.  Look at verse 20;  “And thus I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man's foundation;

but as it is written, "THEY WHO HAD NO NEWS OF HIM SHALL SEE, AND THEY WHO HAVE NOT HEARD SHALL UNDERSTAND."

In response to one of the men to whom I was giving a defense of my ministry this week I said that if there had been a church in this area, that I felt was really preaching and teaching and living out the full counsel of God, was basing their ministry on the unadulterated truth of God’s word, then I would have joined that ministry.  I would not have started another work.  But as I looked around this area, I was a part of a couple of different congregations for a while, and I became convinced that while they had some good people there, some good intentions perhaps, there was not an emphasis on the gospel as the power of God unto salvation that there needed to be.  There may have been a great deal of emphasis on programs, and building a building, or attracting a crowd, but the truth of the gospel was lacking.  And the Bible says that for lack of knowledge, and for lack of vision, the people perish. I saw that people were perishing for lack of a preacher who preached the word of God, and so I volunteered. Rom 10:14 “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?”

And so I commit my ministry to what Paul committed his ministry to, the preaching of the full counsel of God so that the people who are perishing shall have their eyes opened that they might see, and they who have not heard the truth of the gospel would understand. John 8: 32 Jesus said, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

For Paul, this passage presents a definition of his ministry. He was a priest who offered a sacrifice to God and that sacrifice was people who had offered their lives as a sacrifice to God to be used for His glory. And Paul’s ministry is the standard for my ministry. I want to follow his example.  Not to follow man’s paradigm for church planting, but to follow Paul’s paradigm. And I trust that you also are challenged by this commitment to proclaiming the full gospel of Jesus Christ, in word and deed, in signs and wonders, through changed lives in this community, and through the visitors that come who carry this flame back into their communities, wherever they are from.  I pray that you will have a genuine commitment to obedience, to follow the Lord fully, completely and offer your own life in a sacrifice to God to be used for His glory.  God invites you to participate in this ministry.  I pray that you will.

zeal for your house

Romans 15:1-6

As we are continuing in our ongoing study of Romans it is apparent that we will be finishing this book soon.  We’re beginning chapter 15 today and obviously the book ends with chapter 16 and so I expect that by the time we are finishing up on the beach and moving inside we will probably also be finishing our study of Romans.  But it’s important to remember that verse and chapter designations are not inspired parts of the scriptures.  Paul didn’t break it up this way, he was just writing a letter, and even though someone hundreds of years ago decided to begin a new chapter here, it is a continuation of the thoughts that Paul began in chapter 14.

And the context here is that of the Spirit led believer sacrificing his liberty and freedoms for the sake of a weaker brother in Christ.  We talked about this last Wednesday evening.  In that day and in that culture, there were Christians that had been converted out of paganism where there had been all kinds of idolatrous practices associated with certain holidays and eating certain foods.  And there were also Jews that had been saved out of Judaism, and they had traditions in their diet and ceremonial days that continued to be a weakness for them.  In both cases, Paul was warning the church  about doing anything that may be a stumbling block for these new believers.

So, Paul makes the point in Romans 14:13, “Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way.”

He expands on that a couple of verses later in Rom 14:16 “Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”  In other words, now that you are born again and given the righteousness of Christ, the Bible tells us that there is no more condemnation.  The penalty of sin has been paid by Jesus on the cross.  But even though I may be free now, I am not to let my liberty, that which may be something that is lawful for me to do, become a stumbling block to a weaker brother.

This principle is explained further in 1Cor. 10:23 “All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor.”

See, in the new covenant, Christ summed up all 613 laws in only 2;  love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and the second is like unto it -  love your neighbor as yourself.  Love your neighbor (then especially your brother or sister in Christ!) as you used to love yourself.  Put his good above your own good.

Paul takes this principle so far as to say in Romans 14:21  “It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.”  In other words, to use his example, you may think you don’t have a problem with drinking, you say you don’t get drunk and the Bible doesn’t prohibit it, but your liberty might cause a weaker brother to get drunk.  Satan is always there in the ear of the problem drinker whispering that just one drink won’t hurt you.  You can have just one or two and it’s not going to be a problem.  But for that person, one drink may be the straw that broke the camel’s back.  In my case, when I was in my late 20’s, I had been sober and living for the Lord 3 ½ years and then while on vacation I had one beer with dinner.  And it started a binge that lasted a year and a half and almost killed me.  So I can sympathize with the weaker brother and I want to keep from being a stumbling block to him.  The other day I was driving down 26 and remembered that I needed to go to the post office and whipped around in the liquor store parking lot to head back down 26.  And as the devil would have it, there was a never ending procession of cars that streamed by at that moment which meant that I had to sit there looking like I had just been shopping in the liquor store, waiting for all this traffic to clear so I could cross the road.  I was going to sit real low in the front seat and then I realized I was in my big red Suburban which everyone in town recognizes is mine and so I was stuck there.  And I just prayed that I wouldn’t somehow become a stumbling block for someone who thought that if it’s ok for me to drink then it must be ok for them to drink.

Now I’m sure I just lost some of you here today who think that I am just trying to be hyper spiritual and legalistic, and certainly God doesn’t care about whether or not you have a drink or two.  And it may be that God doesn’t care, strictly speaking.  But let me tell you something, God does care if a weaker brother falls because of your freedom.  That brother or sister who may have fallen into sin because he was looking at you to be an example of Jesus Christ.  Jesus said he who causes one of God’s children to stumble it would be better to have a millstone tied around his neck and thrown into the middle of the sea.  So yeah, God cares about stumbling blocks.

Then Paul continues this thought in our text for today, verse 1 of 15, “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.”  And as Christians, we need to understand that this isn’t an option, this is a requirement.

But the key word here is edification.  It’s not talking about being men pleasers, but edification is talking about the spiritual building up of a brother.  See, we can be philanthropic or appear to be altruistic, and volunteer for every charity that comes around, but our motives may not be for that person’s spiritual benefit, but rather for our benefit.  It may be the politically correct thing to do.  Or it may be the socially acceptable thing to do.  Or it may be so people can see what a good person you are and that might be your motivation.  There was an example of a man named Absalom, who was the son of King David.  And he wanted to take the kingdom away from his father.  He wanted to be king, and so he played politics with the people who came through the city gates and asked them about their welfare, and asked them about their problems, and he showed great sympathy towards the citizens of the kingdom, but he had improper motives.  He didn’t really care about the people, he cared about furthering his political career.  2 Samuel 15 said that “he stole the hearts of the men of Israel.”

 So it’s not just a matter of doing good deeds, and especially deeds to be seen of men and gain their approval, but it’s the motive and the purpose that count.  We are to be concerned with building up, or edifying others spiritually.  That’s the goal.

In vs. 3 Paul gives us an example of the way edification is supposed to be done.  “For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, "THE REPROACHES OF THOSE WHO REPROACHED YOU FELL ON ME."  Now Paul is quoting from Psalm 69:9.  And Psalm 69 is what is known as a Messianic Psalm.  David, probably unbeknownst to him, is prophetically speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit about Jesus Christ, the Messiah who was to come.

And I want to quote you the entire 9th verse from Psalms 69 because there is a phrase there I want you to see. “For zeal for Your house has consumed me, And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.”

See, Paul is referencing Jesus not pleasing Himself and to support that  he quotes this one line from Ps. 69 about the reproaches towards God falling upon Jesus, but when we see the entire verse then we can understand why Jesus was reproached.  He suffered reproach because zeal for the house of God had consumed Him.    Listen, if you have a zeal for the house of God ladies and gentlemen, then like Jesus the reproaches of the world will fall on you too.   We don’t have to go looking for reproach or persecution, if we’re living for God, if  zeal for God is consuming us for the things of God, then we will suffer reproach.

As I said, as Christians we don’t have to go looking for trouble.  Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble.  But folks, I am here to tell you that today most Christians don’t suffer any reproach, because they aren’t consumed with a zeal for God.  There isn’t any holy distinction in their lives.  Listen, the world or the devil for that matter could care less if we go to church once in a while, especially if we are just going to be seen of men, or because it’s socially acceptable.  The devil  could care less if we volunteer at a local charity once in a while.  But if you have a consuming fire in your heart for the things of God, if you begin to share the gospel that all men are sinners and on their way to hell unless they repent and trust Jesus as their Savior, if you have that zeal for God, then believe me, reproach is going to come.

See, even the devil believes in God and trembles, the Bible says.  But the devil gets worked up when we start talking about the truth of the gospel, that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, and there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.  The devil gets worked up when we start talking about man’s sin and the need for repentance.  But if you listen closely to the message of most churches today there is very little said about Jesus being our Savior.  Their anemic gospel likes to present Jesus as our example, and He is our example.  But please understand this; He cannot be our example unless first and foremost He is our Savior.

If Jesus was just our example then there can be no remission of sins, because there is no way that even a good man can atone for the sins of millions of people.  In order for Jesus to atone for the sins of the world, then Jesus had to be God.  God took on the robe of a servant, and the flesh of a man, and the word became flesh and they called His name Jesus, and He came to earth to save man from His sins and by believing in His name - Savior, Everlasting God, Emmanuel (which means God with us) - men might be saved and receive eternal life.

If we truly believe Jesus was really God in the flesh, then we have only one choice, to bow our will, to submit our lives, to give ourselves in service to Him for His glory.  But if Jesus was just an example, a good teacher, a prophet perhaps, then like Paul said in 1Cor. 15:19 “We have hoped in Christ in this life only, and we are of all men most to be pitied.”  If our hope in Christ was just to have a good example for how to live an exemplary life, a successful life, a prosperous life here on this earth, then we are of all men most to be pitied.

No, our hope is not to be found in this fallen world, ladies and gentlemen, but our hope is in heaven.  Verse 4 tells us “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”   Hope of what?  What are we to hope for?  We already saw in 1 Cor. 15:19 that our hope is not to be just in this life, but our hope is for glory and what will be revealed to us when we see Jesus.

Last week we had a young boy visit that had become seriously deformed and handicapped due to an illness he contracted when he was a baby.  And he asked Mike when they brought him out to the beach in his wheelchair if we could play “In the Sweet by and By.”  I didn’t know the song and it wasn’t in our books.  But the Holy Spirit I believe brought the words of that song to my mind and we were able to sing it for that boy.  And that tragically deformed young boy sang that song louder than everyone.  You know, for him, his hope is not that there is going to be some miracle cure that will restore his body.  His hope is not finding that perfect girl one day that will make his life complete.  His hope is not that he will be able to live his best life right now.  No, his hope is in glory.  In the sweet by and by, when he shall meet Jesus his Savior on that beautiful shore, when his sorrows will be no more, when he will receive a new and glorified body like Christ, when he shall see Christ in all His glory, in the sweet by and by, when he shall be like Him, when the Father will show him all the glories that He has prepared for him, when God will say, welcome home, my faithful and true servant, enter into the joy of your master.  That boy’s hope, and my hope, and I trust your hope, is in heaven.  The hope of glory.

The hope of glory gives us the perspective of Abraham, of whom it says in  Hebrews 11:8 “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;  for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Abraham’s hope wasn’t in the promised land, Abraham’s hope was in heaven.

Folks, you need to examine yourselves today and ask if you have a consuming zeal for God or if your zeal is for the things of this world.  Is your zeal for God founded upon your recognition of Jesus as your Savior, and in response to that salvation, is the desire of your life now to live for Him and to be used by Him for His glory?

Rom 10:2 says,  “For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.  For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.”  It’s entirely possible to have a zeal for God that is not based on the truth of God’s word.  It’s possible to have a zeal which is little more than enthusiasm, that is little more than temporary emotionalism.  And it’s entirely possible to have an enthusiasm to do good works, but yet not be found righteous by God.

I  quoted someone the other week who said that enthusiasm is easier than obedience.  But that’s why verse 4 tells us that “whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”   Because perseverance in  obedience to the scriptures is the key to faith in Jesus Christ.  Perseverance is being obedient to the revelation through scripture that God has given you so far.  As God shows you something in His word, through the preaching of the word, you submit to His will in obedience and then God will reveal more to you, and you persevere in submission to that revelation through scripture, and then God will reveal to you more and so forth.  That was the perseverance of Abraham. The faith of Abraham and God credited him with righteousness.  Zeal for God produces obedience.

But I’m afraid so many people that profess to be Christians have never really been obedient to what God has revealed to them.  For one, the average Christian doesn’t read scripture.  The Bible is the best selling book in the world and yet the least read.  So we’re not obedient because we don’t read it and study it.  We don’t know what God says.  Rather than as that verse tells us that scripture being our encouragement, we often find ourselves discouraged and disillusioned with our faith, because we have a zeal for God that isn’t based on the truth of God’s word.  It’s based on what some crack pot preacher said on TV.  Or worse, our faith is based on what some movie said, based on what some Hollywood producer thinks it’s all about.  Or even worse, our faith is twisted by some vision or revelation from a false prophet that is an instrument of Satan to take you back into captivity again.  Faith isn’t blind, faith is founded in the promises of God, and He wrote them down for us that we might know them and believe them and be obedient to them.

But there is a godly perseverance and encouragement for the Christian that results in glory to God.  Let’s look finally at verses 5 and 6 in closing. Rom 15:5  “Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And what that means is that God is the author of scripture from which comes strength for perseverance when we rely on Him and submit our will to Him.  And God is the author of encouragement not only for you, but you also for others when you live your life in submission to Christ’s example.  As Christ laid aside His glory for our sakes, so we who would follow Him should lay aside our glory for His sake and the sake of the kingdom.  As Christ came to be a servant, so we should also serve the church for His sake.  As Christ laid aside His rights as King of Kings and Lord of Lords to become one of us, so that we might be saved, so should we lay aside earthly riches and fleshly pursuits so that we might not put a stumbling block in anyone’s way.  And this perseverance and encouragement happens when we are found to be in accord with Christ.  Or the way it says in another scripture, when we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

1Cor. 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”   We have been bought and paid for and purchased to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  And if we are living in accord with Jesus Christ, then we will be in accord with each other  that are in Christ, and then in that unity, with one voice, we will bring glory to God, because that is what Christ did.  Christ is our Savior, and Christ is our example, in that order.  Because I am saved, the Spirit of Christ lives in me and is changing me into the image of Christ.  I trust that Christ is your Savior, that He lives in you and that you are being conformed to His image.  And if you do, then I’m sure you have a zeal for God’s house, even as Christ had a zeal for God’s house.

Jesus came to the temple in John chapter 2 and found men making money and profiting from the temple.  Instead of feeding His sheep, the religious leaders were fleecing the sheep.  Not much has changed in that regard in the last 2000 years.  And Jesus took a whip and went in there and cleaned house.  He said, “stop making my Father’s house a house of business.”  And it says the disciples remembered that it was written, “zeal for Your house has consumed Me.”

I pray that as Christians we would have a consuming zeal for God that is founded in the truth of God’s word.  And that zeal would  drive us away from self serving false religion, that we might persevere in obedience to the truth of God’s word, and that our zeal and passion and commitment for God might be an encouragement to those around us.   Let’s pray.

brunch at the beach

not your own

Romans 14:1-9

I think it’s fair to say that most of you here today would be considered regular church goers.  Especially those of you that are visiting from out of town.  The fact that you choose to go to church while on your vacation is commendable, and is evidence of the fact that you’re probably consistently in church when you are at home as well.

If I were to guess, I would suppose that many of you, like me,  were raised in a home where you were expected to be at church every Sunday. In my case, I was a preacher’s kid.  I was in church every time the door was opened.  Sunday school, Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service, Wednesday night service, youth group on Saturday and anything else that was going on.  And if you’re my age or older, then chances are you were brought up in the kind of home where one dressed up for church.  Women wore hats and some of them even wore gloves.  The men wore suits and ties.  We were told we should look our best for church.  And so people wore what they called their Sunday best.  And if you didn’t dress up  for church, then you stood out like a sore thumb.

But as you are all aware, back in the late 60’s and the early 70’s, we had something of a cultural revolution in this country.  The hippy movement inspired a whole generation to grow their hair out, jeans and t shirts became the popular dress, and there was a colossal culture shift in the way people started thinking about things.  Young people in particular were calling for freedom to do whatever felt good, freedom from what they considered the hang ups of the previous generations.

Freedom and individual rights became the mantra of the Civil Rights Movement, the Equal Rights Movement, the Peace Movement, and the Sexual Revolution and it all was set to a musical cocktail blending booze, drugs and rock and roll.  And if you were alive at the time, it seemed like everybody was drinking the koolaid.

Coming somewhat late to the party, so to speak, was the church.  Some hippies discovered Jesus and began what became known as the Jesus Movement.  That led to more and more churches doing away with many of the social standards that were at odds with barefooted, longhaired Jesus freaks.   Gradually, the mainstream church in America began to change along with the culture.  Some of the changes were good and some of them have not been so good.  In our rush to be culturally relevant, the church in some cases threw the baby out with the bath water. 

Today the Jesus Movement and hippy inspired culture has been replaced by whatever the latest trends and fashions are today.  But there is one hallmark of that time period that still is a pervasive attitude of not only our culture today, but also of the church today.  And that is this fixation over what we perceive to be our freedoms, our rights as an individual.  It became ingrained in our society in the hippy generation, and it still continues with us today.

But the freedoms that inspired the hippy generation to try drugs and free sex and all these things that once were considered taboo just turned out to be an empty promise of the devil that enslaved a generation to alcoholism, drug addiction and wasted lives.  Kris Kristofferson wrote a song about this freedom called Me and Bobby Magee which was sung by the late Janis Joplin who eventually died of a drug overdose.  Ironically, Kristofferson was one of the first rock musicians to produce what would become known as “Christian rock”, with a song called “Why Me Lord” and another hit called “Sunday Morning Coming Down.”  But he didn’t last long in that genre and began a career which was known for heavy partying and drinking. But in that song “Me and Bobby Magee,” there is the line that says a lot about what the freedoms of the 60’s ended up revealing.  It says, “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…”  A generation lost their innocence, lost their virginity, many of them lost their sanity and even their lives trying to exercise their freedom to live like they wanted.

Maybe it’s an uniquely American phenomenon, I don’t know.  But there is still this overarching attitude that our personal freedoms are something we have a right to exercise, no matter what.   And what I think that Paul is getting at here in this passage, really starting all the way back in chapter 12, is that this idea of personal freedom is at odds with mature Christianity.  When we as a church are overly concerned about exercising our personal freedoms and protecting our personal rights, then it goes against the teachings of the Bible.

At the root of this problem with freedoms is the concept of grace.  If you were here last week, then maybe you will recall that I spoke about our misconception of what grace really means.  It’s not a license to sin.  It’s not freedom to do whatever we want without fear of condemnation or repercussion. Romans  6:1 says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”

But rather grace is the loving gift of God whereby He redeemed us from the price of sin, by paying the penalty for our sin with the blood of Jesus Christ. “God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Jesus.” 2 Corinthians 5: 21   That was grace.  God paying for what we could never pay for.  God giving us what we could never get on our own: righteousness, holiness, made acceptable to God.

Now then, having been made righteous by grace, 1Cor. 6:19 says “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

Well, wait a minute, you say.  I thought Jesus said He came to set the captives free?  And that if He sets us free we shall be free indeed.  What happened to our freedom? 

Well, the answer to that is if you have exchanged your old life for new life in Jesus Christ, if you’ve exchanged your sins for His righteousness, if you have been changed from death unto life, then you are free.  You are set free from the wages of sin.  Jesus paid the price of it.  You are free from slavery to sin.  Sin no longer has dominion over you.  You are free from the condemnation of the law.  Jesus fulfilled the law for us.  And you are free from death, because Jesus has given you eternal life.

This passage we have been looking at in the past couple of weeks and are continuing in today is only really understood when we understand what it means to be bought with a price, our bodies are no longer our own, but we are the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. 

There is an Old Testament illustration of this principle in Exodus 21.  And in this passage there is a law written regarding a Hebrew slave that must be set free in the seventh year.  "But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,' then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.”  

The slave was set free, by law he was a free man.  But because of the love that he had for his master and his master’s house, he choose to live with him permanently, forever as his bond servant.  And Paul uses this terminology repeatedly in his gospel.  He starts off in Romans 1 identifying himself as a bond servant of Jesus Christ.  In Philippians, Jesus is described as a bond servant.  James called himself a bond servant.  Moses was called a bond servant, as was Peter and Jude, and  many other disciples.

And this is the principle of freedom then that must be preeminent in our lives.  We have been set free from the condemnation of the law and from the bondage of sin when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,  and yet we become because of our love for God and by choice bond servants of Jesus Christ, willingly relinquishing that freedom, our rights, for the sake of the church and the work of the kingdom.  We realize that we have been bought with a price.  Therefore our body is not our own.  And so we offer to God our bodies in chapter 12 verse 1 as a spiritual sacrifice for His purposes, to do His will.   The Holy Spirit indwells our bodies so that Christ may live in me.  That Christ may live through my body here on earth. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, that is such an amazing thought.  It should galvanize you into action.  It should humble you.  It should energize you.  That God has chosen you to be indwelled by His Spirit so that your body would be the vehicle through which Jesus Christ lives on earth.  This is the underlying foundation of these last four chapters of Romans.  That in becoming Christians there is this great exchange; Christ gives us His righteousness and we give over our lives to Christ to be used for His purposes.  We no longer live according to our desires.  We no longer live according to our purposes.  No longer live according to our will.  But we willingly surrender  our bodies, even our freedoms, even our rights, to Jesus Christ to be used for His will. 

Listen, if we got hold of this principle and really, fully accepted it, and lived it, we would see another cultural revolution that would put the hippy movement to shame.  If Christians embraced this concept the way that the world embraced the hippy movement, then we would see a world wide revival that has never been equaled.  Instead of the sham love that the hippy movement proposed which ended up in disillusion and destruction of lives, we would see agape love that would impact the world to turn their lives over to God. 

But unfortunately, the church is a far cry from any sort of bond servant mentality today.  Somehow, Satan has duped the church  into thinking that God is our servant, He is our genie in a bottle, that we can rub it and say a few special words in  a special way and presto, God pops out and says, “Your wish is my command.”  And preachers are preaching that if you just have enough faith, God will be at your beck and call to do your bidding.  The gospel has been turned on it’s head.  It’s upside down.  It’s me first and God only to be used in the case of emergency.

No, the gospel according to Paul is summarized in his statement, “for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  He’s saying, if I am going to live, it’s going to be for Christ.  He is my reason for living.  He is my purpose.  His will be done in my life as it is in heaven. 

So how is this bond servant kind of love lived on a practical basis?  How do I live as Christ would live, how do I let Christ have the preeminence in my life?  How do I live in the Spirit and not in the flesh?  Well, Paul said first of all in chapter 12:1 that I will offer my body as a living sacrifice to be used by God for His purposes.  Then in 12: 3-8, I will serve the church using my spiritual gifts that God has given me for the building up of the body.  Then in 12: 9-21 he tells us to love those that are even persecuting you and not take revenge, but rather helping and showing hospitality to those in need, to overcome evil with good. 

And then in chapter 13 verses 1 to 7, he talks about our relationship to the government. We are to be model citizens; submit to the governing authorities and pay our taxes. Then beginning in verse 8 of chapter 13, he talks about the relationship we're to have to our neighbors.  We are to love and serve our neighbors the way we used to love and serve ourselves.  If we really love God, we will love our neighbors the way we say we love God, therefore we can’t sin against our neighbor.  He tells us to live in the light of Christ, constantly looking for His appearing, constantly putting on Jesus Christ and putting to death our fleshly desires.

And now in chapter 14, Paul begins a section which will take two chapters to cover, and that is the subject of serving the weaker members of the church in order to prevent them from being offended and to keep them from stumbling.  And here is where my freedoms are tested.  Where I am tempted to resort back to the worldly attitude of exercising my rights and freedoms and if someone’s got a problem with that then that’s too bad.  No, Paul will show us in these verses that the strong in the faith, must give way for the weak in the faith. If there is a possibility that something I do in the exercise of my freedom will be a stumbling block to another brother, then I won’t do it.  Because I love my brother more than I love my freedom.

In the church in Rome, there were new converts coming to Christ from all sorts of backgrounds.  And we don’t have time this morning to go into all of these details.  We will address them more fully this Wednesday evening at our Bible study.  But suffice it to say that you had converted pagans who had been involved in idol worship and temples where they had all sorts of feasts and ceremonies and then at the other extreme, you had converted Jews coming out of Judaism and the Mosaic law with all their dietary restrictions and special days that they observed.   And when these new believers came to Christ, some of them had a hard time embracing the freedoms that others seemed to embrace.  The converted idol worshippers may have not had any problem learning to worship on Sunday instead of the Sabbath, and weren’t concerned about Jewish feast days.  But maybe they had a big problem with meat that was sold in the marketplace which had once been offered to idols and then resold by the temple to the meat market down the street.  And so some Christians in Rome were offended that others were buying meat from the market that resold sacrificial offerings, and some new converts from Judaism were still struggling over a lifetime tradition of keeping the Sabbath or other important feast days. 

And so Paul, rather than addressing all the do’s and don’ts and trying to give these new Christians a bunch of rules to live by, just continues with the principle of agape love that the church is supposed to have for one another.  The principle of giving preference to one another out of sacrificial love.  He is saying that rather than exercising our rights and freedoms under the banner of grace, we submit to one another out of love and restrict or control our freedoms for the sake of the weaker brother.

Vs.  1.  Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. 2.  One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. 3. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. 4. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.    5.  One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.    6.  He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God.

Paul simplifies this in a way that is instructive for us as well here today.  We may not have the same traditions and cultural backgrounds that these Romans had.  But we still have the same attitudes and the same temptations to put our priorities above someone else.  To hold to our freedoms and our rights at the expense of another. 

But the key to this whole passage is found in the next couple of verses. Romans 14:7 “For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.  For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”

And so the question that I would leave you with today, that I pray you would examine your hearts over this morning, is this.  Are you really living your life for the Lord or for yourself?  Paul says the Christian is living for the Lord, that we do not live for ourselves anymore.  We are bought with a price, we are not our own, the life we live in the flesh we live for God.  And I would ask you to examine your heart and ask yourself if that statement characterizes your life today?  Is Christ living through you?

I’m not asking you if you prayed the sinners prayer at some point in your life.  I’m not asking you if you have been baptized or joined a church somewhere.  I’m asking you have you responded to the redemption offered by the blood of Jesus Christ by offering back your life to Him as a living sacrifice?  Are you putting to death your flesh so that Christ is able to live in you? 

Or are you still trying to hang on to your freedoms, your rights to live life the way you want to live?  Or do you just want to keep God on the side to help you achieve your purposes, but you haven’t got much interest in living sold out as a vessel for Jesus Christ?

Listen, I’m not your judge here this morning. I am not deciding who is born again and who isn’t.  But verse 11 says one day we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.  Our motives will be made known on that day.  God will reveal our hearts.

You may be here today and you can’t say for me to live is Christ.  You know that Christ is not the purpose or the center of your life.  But He can be.  He wants to be.  And if you will just humble yourself right now and call on Him for forgiveness He will come into your heart and live in you and you with Him.  He will change you from the inside out.  Call on Him and invite Him into your heart today.  The psalmist David said, “a broken and contrite heart you will not despise, O Lord.”  Invite God to take over your life today.  To live in you and through you to do His will.