Why Worship?

Sunday, February 29th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 8:35-39

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
"For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered."
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

'Great is Thy Faithfulness’ is my ticket to worship, if there is such a thing. I remember singing it in Spanish as much as I do in English. The words speak to a place inside me that is always raw, vulnerable, and ready to recognize my shortfall and God’s overallness.

You probably won’t find that word in any dictionary, but I think I can define it for you. There is a Psalm that will echo what I am going to say, Psalm 139. When I can’t, God can. When I won’t, God will. When I fall, God picks me up and we keep walking alongside each other. When I am, in the words of the Psalmist, in Sheol, God is there. When I am on the mountain peak of spiritual experiences, God is there … you get the general idea. That is where ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ takes me. But there are other songs that speak as powerfully to me.

I remember the exact moment when the hymn “When I survey the Wondrous Cross” joined the ‘short list’. I was in college, it was my junior year, and Billy Orton was the Minister of Music at First Baptist Church, Bowling Green, KY.

The service was going along as usual. I had always liked the hymn, but it didn’t stand out any more than any other. Then we started singing it. there was an ensemble that played accompaniment when we sang hymns at First Baptist. First Baptist was, as is fairly common in that part of Kentucky, the biggest show in town. I don’t mean that in a negative way. It just happened to be the biggest church around. It had and continues to have, I hope, a dynamic, multifaceted ministry, fueled by a large, energetic congregation that is focused on being a part of the breaking in of the Kingdom of God. It is one of the leading churches in Kentucky, both in size and actual leadership.

But back to the service: it wasn’t a huge thing, there were no crashing drums or clanging cymbals, there was no flash of lighting, just a bridge and a key change before the last verse. Billy Orton, who went on to become the Minister of Music at Columbia Baptist, up in Arlington, turned to the congregation, and through his cues, the congregation knew that something was coming. When we finished singing the 3rd verse, he turned to the ensemble and they went into the bridge, and the key change, and the organ swelled to a … majestic tone … and we started singing …

Were the whole realm of Nature mine
That were a present far too small
Love so amazing so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

That was back in 1984.

That was in the still relatively early days of contemporary Christian music. Michael W. Smith was synthesizing the airwaves, and Amy Grant was bigger than anyone ever dreamed a contemporary Christian artist could be. Petra and Stryper were about as wild as you could get. There were a couple of songs that stood out, Michael W. Smith’s ‘Great is the Lord’, Amy Grant’s ‘Sing Your Praise to the Lord’, and her version of Michael Card’s ‘El Shaddai’ became the most popular praise songs on contemporary Christian radio… and were pretty popular in church services as well.

This isn’t a review of the contemporary Christian music of the early 80’s. The point in mentioning those songs and those singers is that somehow they touched a chord in the heart of a vast number of folks who went to church. I say ‘that went to church’ only because I don’t know that the songs did a lot of ‘chart hopping’. They pretty much stayed on the Contemporary Christian side of the music world. The words expressed, in contemporary language, a joyous, almost overwhelming sense of love, honor and worship that spoke from our hearts to God. El Shaddai was a more reflective song, but it still brought home the uniqueness of how God has provided for us through Jesus Christ.

Lets jump forward again to today. There’s a group out there called ‘Mercyme’. They are also a group that plays contemporary Christian music. They have a song that’s been out a couple of years called ‘I Can Only Imagine’ … the background to the song is that the lead singer, if I’m not mistaken, lost his father to cancer at the age of 18. And this song is him trying to come to terms with that loss. The chorus is a cry directed towards God -

Surrounded by your Glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you Jesus, or in awe of you be still,
Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine, I can only imagine …

What has become a phenomenon is that the song has crossed over. It is not only playing on Christian radio stations, but it is playing on mainstream stations as well. It seems the song touches that place inside each of us who has experienced the passing on of someone close to them. It raises the question of what things will be like when we are in the presence of the almighty. What exactly will that be like?

In the two chapters preceding this morning’s text, Paul has been talking about what the Christian life is like. Chapter 7 seems to be focusing on the hardship confronting new Christians. He goes into a sometimes dizzying litany of doing what he doesn’t want to do while not doing what he wants to do. The whole tone of the chapter is one of some confusion and disheartened struggle. It is made that much more poignant by Paul’s using the first person singular – he is talking about himself. This pillar of the church, the great missionary to the gentiles, is essentially confessing that he is what he spent the first 3 chapters of the letter laying out the members of the church in Rome as being: sinners, and here he joins them, he fully identifies himself with anyone that they might bring to him. He culminates this self-immolation with the cry, ‘What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?’ … then comes the worship: ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

It is in those moments when we are most aware of our greatest need that we are most able to worship in the purest sense of the word. It is when we recognize that all we CAN do IS worship that we are able to then begin TO worship.

Not only these songs, the more recent ones, but the sometimes centuries-old hymns we know by heart, carry the same impetus – ‘my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride’ – from ‘when I survey the wondrous cross’ – doesn’t that sound a lot like ‘what a wretched man I am’?
That hymn was written by Isaac Watts at the end of the 17th century and it still speaks to us today.

The act of worship and the form of worship are not the same thing. The act of worship has been going on for almost 2000 years. The form of worship has been changing constantly. At the risk of stating the obvious, while it is not limited to the music of a service, there are differences even within contemporary American culture that can be found in how we go about worship. Just compare a regular Sunday morning service at Mulberry Baptist Church down the road with our own services … or Rappahannock Church of Christ with St. John’s Episcopal.

We have a couple of friends, Kathy & David Arnold, who were Baptist at one time but several years ago joined the Greek Orthodox Church. Kathy has said that what stands out in that tradition for them is that the service, the litany of worship is exactly the same every single Sunday. What changes, what is changed, is what they as individuals bring to that service. It is a direct reflection on the unchanging nature of God – God’s faithfulness, in our lives.

The point is this: worship is not found in the form at all. It is found in the act and in the heart. It is a direct reflection of the richness of God’s grace that there are so many different ways in which we can find a place to worship. Even within a lifetime, different forms speak to different ages. What I found moved me into the presence of God 25 years ago doesn’t take me there today, and what I found repetitive and flat I now find to be a reflection of God’s constancy.

What does this mean for Jerusalem church?

In the words of the Psalmist, “God inhabits the praise of his people’. God is present in our worship, but we are changed through worship. We are made more aware of who we are, who God is, and WHOSE we are.

Why worship? Because when we find ourselves in the presence of God, it is our only response.

Let’s pray.

The Good Part

Sunday, February 22nd, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 3:21-30

Before the reading of today’s text, I’d like to first read the last verse from last week’s text, which is the 20th verse of the 3rd chapter of Romans. Think of it as ‘previously, from Jerusalem’s pulpit’

20 For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

And now, for today, in this reading of Holy Scripture, listen for God’s word to you:

21 But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

Shhhh! This is the good part!

I can almost hear it now. The story is so familiar, the children have it memorized. They’ve all heard it before and yet, each step is savored, each event recounted, each detail touched on, before moving on to the next place in the story. Heaven forbid you should skip anything, because it is all necessary. You’ll quickly be corrected if you miss even the slightest detail. Whether it is a story read to them or a familiar Disney or Veggie Tales movie, there is a purpose in the sequence.

It’s that way with all of us, isn’t it? Don’t we all have family stories that are told at most if not all gatherings and even though we may roll our eyes at the beginning of them, NOT telling them would somehow lessen the event? They don’t necessarily have to have a point, either.

Emma Key, my maternal grandmother, visited us twice while we lived in Chile, once in 1967 at my brother’s birth, and the second time in 1975, when my sister Karen went back for a visit. It was during that visit that she accompanied us to Mission Meeting, held that winter at a former monastery south of Santiago tucked into the edge of the Andes Mountains, called ‘La Leonera’ – “The Lion’s Den”

One evening at supper, the dessert was … if I remember correctly, a pudding or custard, served in a brandy … bath, I suppose you could call it … and this was brandy that hadn’t been lit on fire! So it was … um … in its natural state. Grandma Key really enjoyed the dessert. So much so that she had a second helping.

Later the next week, at the family night, the older MKs, including Karen, sang a song whose verses were made up of events that had happened that week – some of you may be familiar with the tune – ‘Boom Boom, Ain’t It Great To Be Crazy?’ … and you thought missionaries spent all their time in prayer and Bible Study … 

One verse was as follows:

“It seems the thing/to do this year/is grab your partner by the ear/Allison began this fad /we think she learned it from her dad!” (At the time, Allison might have been 5)

But the one that stuck with us, and which we as a family find ourselves humming occasionally, goes like this:

“The other night we had a strong dessert/everybody ate it with a slurp/ Mrs. Key, she had a lot/ she left the room with a bippity-bop!”

It is in the stories of our families that we find comfort, a sense of identity, a connection with our past, however recent or distant it might be, however far removed we may be in time and space. It is through the telling and retelling of these stories that we reconnect with who we are, with what and who has made us who we are.

Paul, in his letter to the church in Rome, is retelling our collective family’s story, and it is one that the church has been telling and retelling throughout the almost-2,000 years since it was first told, beginning at the empty tomb.

Paul is presenting a kernel of the story in these verses. A detail piece without which the story would be incomplete, it wouldn’t sound right.

There is a purpose in the sequence Paul has used. First, he establishes that no one is better than anyone else, Jew is no better than Gentile, Gentile is no better than Jew. This is what is considered ‘the rough part’, at the beginning of the letter.

What he begins in verse 21 of chapter 3 is ‘the good part’. It is beginning here, I believe, that what has made Romans such an influential letter is beginning to be uncovered. He touches on what he made obvious earlier in verse 23 – in the NRSV the wording is (READ FROM BIBLE) ‘since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; the King James version is probably the wording by which most of us may have memorized it – (READ FROM PEW BIBLE) ‘for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Paul is reiterating a point – we are unable, through our own righteousness, to obtain reconciliation with God. Indeed, Paul’s whole point is that even as a believing, practicing, observant, zealous Jew, there was no possibility, outside of purely having faith in Jesus Christ, through which we can regain communion with God.

So what is the good part? The good part is this: even though there was no way we were going to be able to regain that communion on our own merits, God made a way, through the sacrifice … through the atoning sacrifice, of Jesus Christ.

‘Atoning sacrifice’ is a term that makes me a little uncomfortable. For someone raised away from the practice of offering blood sacrifices in religious rituals, which would probably include most of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christianity, I think the whole concept of sacrifice is something that is to a greater or lesser degree foreign to us.

On the surface, it is understandable enough. We can wrap our brain around the words. Webster’s New World Dictionary that sits on the bookshelf in the study has the root word, ‘atone’ defined as ‘to make amends’, and in parentheses to the side, we find: (for wrongdoing).

‘Atonement’ is defined as ‘amends; expiation.’ Then it gets into a little more detail- there is even an additional qualified definition in reference to the term used in theology: ‘the redeeming of mankind through Jesus’ death.’

There it is. A non-biblical reference putting in 7 words the same detail of the Gospel that Paul is spelling out here in these verses. That is what it boils down to. God redeemed the world to God’s self through the death of Jesus. Unfortunately, that is ALL it says. We cannot, as an Easter people, speak of one – the death of Jesus – without speaking of the other – the resurrection of Jesus. If we were to mark the Christian Calendar and follow it more closely, I would hesitate to speak of the resurrection at any great length before Lent and before Easter, but it is kind of hard to get away from … in fact, I don’t know that I really want to get too far away from Easter when speaking about sin and death.

Let’s get back to atonement for a moment. We are, in fact, approaching that season of the Christian calendar during which we are called on to reflect on that very thing. Our sinfulness, our utter lack of recourse in resolving our sinfulness were it not for the expiatory, atoning, amending work of God in Christ. That is what atonement is about. That is the good part of the good news. That is the Gospel. That is the message. Verse 29 concludes the thought: (READ FROM THE BIBLE)

29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

We are presented with the simplicity of the Gospel, being spelled out based on the faith of the man whom God first approached. Abraham. It was based on his faith that he was reconciled with God, not on his being able to keep the law. Paul’s argument is that his relationship with God – God’s relationship with him PRECEEDED the law, based not on that law, but on love.

And that is where we meet the story. That is where Jerusalem joins the conversation and begins to add to the story. Relationships based on love and nothing else. Love between the members of this congregation, love between this congregation as a corporate entity and God, and love between each of us as individuals and God.

It is this that makes the story come alive. That we can read words penned centuries ago, thousands of miles away, and through the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, that life becomes in us the life of Christ, the body of Christ. We are a “local body of believers” – there is a reason we are called a ‘body’ – it is because we are in a very real and palpable sense the body, the voice, the eyes of Christ to the world.

The challenge for us is, will the world recognize Christ in us?

Let’s pray.

Sinners or Saints?

Sunday, February 15th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 3:1-20

1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much, in every way. For in the first place the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? 4 By no means! Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true, as it is written, "So that you may be justified in your words, and prevail in your judging." 5 But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) 6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world? 7 But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? 8 And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Their condemnation is deserved! 9 What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, 10 as it is written: "There is no one who is righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one." 13 "Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of vipers is under their lips." 14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery are in their paths, 17 and the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

“It scares me,” he said.
“The gap between what I know I should be doing and what I actually do … knowing that I am being looked on as a role model and knowing at the same time that I am so not anywhere near who I want to be … it scares me.” He went on to give a list of what he’d like to change about himself, all with the sole purpose of becoming more like the authors of the books we were studying, giants of the faith, men and women like Hudson Taylor, Lottie Moon, Adoniram Judson, Anne Hasseltine Judson, Billy Graham, Henrietta Hall Shuck and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. People who spent their lives serving God and taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to a world that had never heard of him. Last Sunday we heard the life stories of the women I just mentioned. Each one of them literally spent their lives for Christ, serving as missionaries in far away lands, and each of them was buried in the country they’d been called to.
My friend’s self-questioning, if not self-condemnation, was very Pauline. In fact, later in this very same letter, Paul is struggling with the same issue: chapter 7, verse 15, we find one of the better-known passages:
15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
In that sense, I suppose, he WAS emulating a giant of the faith, but perhaps not in the way he’d hoped. We can ALL make that same claim. It is an inescapable fact: there is not a single person among us who is not a sinner. Not a single one among us who has not, at some point in their lives, fallen short of the glory of God.
Paul has begun his letter to the church in Rome with one of the most gloriously strident statements in all the New Testament:
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith”(1:16 NRSV)
In our study on Wednesday nights, Mark Olson calls that, along with the next verse, Paul’s thesis statement, which summarized in a couple of sentences what he then goes on to spell out in detail in the rest of his letter. It is those details that we are going to spend a few minutes studying this morning.
The passage I read a couple of minutes ago, chapter 3 verses 1-20, are at the conclusion of what can accurately be called a ‘diatribe’. Though the tone at the beginning of the letter is positive, which would seem to make sense, since Paul is writing to people some of whom he knows, but most of whom he does not know, so at least at the beginning there is a semblance of … politeness, if not propriety. But it only goes so far. Verse 18 of the first chapter is where the gloves come off:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth.” (1:18 NRSV)
What follows is a blanket condemnation of both the Gentiles and the Jews who would be hearing the letter read. It is not a suggestion, or a hint, or a ‘read between the lines’ kind of thing. It is a literary two-by-four aimed right at their heads. Let’s just touch on some highlights of the first two chapters, shall we?

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools; 23 and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four footed animals and reptiles.

Can we reread those two verses again?

“Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for … what shall we insert here? Wealth? Security? Presence in the house of God substituting for a relationship WITH God?”
Keep reading: chapter 1, verse 28:

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die – yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them."

Whew! Let’s pause for a minute and catch our breath. I have to be honest with you. These verses are some of the hardest to read for me. There is an unrelenting character to them that is … discomforting. At the same time that I say that, I have to acknowledge that there is a really good reason for that discomfort, and it is that to some degree or another, that list could apply to me … some days less than others, but overall, there is nothing listed that hasn’t insinuated it’s way into my life at one point or another.
We spoke Wednesday night about that – having an awareness of our own sinfulness, our own fallen nature, well, I did of MINE, anyway. Since I’m the one standing up here, it would be best to stick to speaking for myself, when it comes to some things.

Let’s skip down a little – chapter 2, verse 4 … but first, an editorial note: beginning with chapter 1 verse 18, Paul is swinging the two-by-four at the gentile members of the church in Rome. Now, beginning with chapter 2, he turns and begins to swing the stick at the Jewish members of the congregation, who had probably, up until then, been sitting relatively comfortably, watching the gentiles squirm, since what Paul was speaking of were sins that were either being committed or had been committed by the non-Jewish believers before they became Christ-followers. It bears noting that, just as the reading of the text caused discomfort here, it could only have caused that much more discomfort in the people who first heard it read… ANYWAY … back to chapter 2 verse 4:

Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

How many of us would have considered recognition of God’s kindness to be something that is intended to lead us to repentance? What is it about kindness that would elicit such a response? If the person to whom you are showing kindness has just shown YOU a kindness, then there is an instant community – a connection that is formed when two like spirits meet. If, however, the person receiving the kindness has just finished … say … cutting in front of you in line at the grocery store, and you respond by pulling out your MVP card and letting them use it when they discover they’ve forgotten theirs, the reaction can be predicted … what is it? Discomfort. I speak from experience. You really don’t want to be caught in that situation on the receiving end of that kindness. There is no worse feeling. No more humbling, shaming feeling than when harshness is repaid with kindness. Human nature is revealed further down in the letter, chapter 12, we find this, you’ve probably heard it before:

19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." 20 No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads."

So here we are, in chapter 2, and Paul lets into the Jews, who have been ‘amening’ him for the last chapter – and he slams them just as much: beginning in verse 12 and going through verse 16, 2nd chapter:

All who have sinned apart form the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.

God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.

That is an unsettling thought. That at some point, God will judge the secret thoughts of all of us. if you want discomfort, there it is.

It boils down to this;

9 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Paul is telling the Jews and the Gentiles the same thing in ways that each can understand: whether you are being confronted with Christ from a background that has no point of reference with Judaic law or whether you are steeped in that law and can therefore identify any and all sins committed by omission or commission, YOU ARE STILL GUILTY and in need of Christ, through whom God was reconciling the world to God’s self.

What do we do with that? How do we, Jerusalem Baptist Church, take that message to the world without the world saying ‘forget you’, or something perhaps far more explicit?

We can take our queue from Paul himself. Let’s back up to Paul’s own greeting at the beginning of the letter. He opens, as was the custom, identifying himself as a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God. The next 5 verses are … a synopsis of what he is going to spell out in the rest of the letter. The meat of the letter is summarized in those 5 verses, but I think the conclusion of the letter is there as well. It is where he states to whom the letter is addressed:

“To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints; Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

We might be able to condense the study of Romans into those first 7 verses. It would make for a considerably shorter winter Bible Study … but here it is. After all is said and done, Paul does return to the Gospel – which is God drawing the world back to God’s self through the person of Jesus Christ.

Through him we are called to be Saints while still being sinners. How is that possible? Aren’t the two mutually exclusive?

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who wrote extensively on the contemplative life, says in his book New Seeds of Contemplation,

“True holiness is not found by striving or in our own efforts, or by competing with others. Indeed, true holiness cannot be created by us at all. True holiness is only found by losing ourselves in Christ, as we are transformed by the Love of God living and working in us and through us in all that we do.”

“A man becomes a saint not by conviction that he is better than sinners but by the realization that he is one of them and that all together need the mercy of God!”

In that, we follow Christ’s example, found in Philippians 2;

“He became human and dwelt in the flesh among sinful human beings. In fact, he too was considered a sinner. This was his holiness, his sanctity. It should be ours as well.”

Let’s pray.

A Servant of Christ

Sunday, February 1st, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Romans 1:1-7

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, 3 the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, 6 including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hello! Thank you for allowing me to come to your fellowship. My name is Paul of Tarsus, but you probably already knew that from my accent. I was born and raised there. As a boy I would go down to the docks and watch the ships come in and unload all sorts of treasures from all over the world; spices, fine wines and oil, and fine linen from Egypt. I can still close my eyes and smell the bay and the oceanfront, and hear the sea gulls’ cries as they tried to steal a fish or two as the fishermen unloaded their nets.

But I couldn’t spend all my time at the docks. As the son of a well-to-do Jewish family, I was made very aware that we lived in a city that was not itself one that honored God, and I took my task of showing righteousness to the gentiles VERY seriously. It was thus my responsibility to study Torah, and I did so under Gamaliel, a wonderful teacher, a HARD teacher, who taught me to love the word of the Lord with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind.

I memorized what needed to be memorized in record time, and could tell you what law you had broken the second I saw you break it, as well as what you needed to do to redeem yourself, what sacrifices, what prayers, what rituals. Anyone could come to me and I could answer with chapter and verse. It was simple, really. I was a guardian. I relished the responsibility of monitoring the activities of the Diaspora community in Tarsus and making sure that our righteousness before God was never really in question. We had a clear set of rules, and keeping them would bring us closer to God. The Gentiles of Tarsus were, if you’ll pardon the expression, not worth the bother. I don’t mean anything personal, but … well, I was one of the chosen people, and I had to watch out for my own.

As a young man, I heard of a prophet, a teacher named Y’shua Bar-Joseph, a carpenter, making the rounds in the region of Galilee, and occasionally heard from a traveler from that region, who spoke of a man who could command the waters and the wind to be still, who could turn water into wine and could heal, who could cast out demons, make the lame walk and the blind see … I was intrigued, for I heard that in one of his sermons he said he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. That phrase alone predisposed me to cautiously accept this man as a righteous prophet in the same spirit as Ezekiel and Samuel, Jeremiah and Isaiah, to name a few. Fulfilling the law certainly could only mean keeping it.

As time passed, however, I began to hear troubling things about this Y’shua, this Jesus of Nazareth. Things that more and more, convinced me that he was not a true prophet at all, but rather a dangerous heretic, who needed to be stopped. He ate with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors; he even spoke to a Samaritan woman. He performed acts forbidden on the Sabbath. Granted, some good may have come from a healing, but couldn’t it have waited until just a few hours later?? If you start making exceptions, you quickly find yourself on a slippery slope, and then what good does it do you to know the letter of the law down to every jot and tittle?

I remember the day I heard he was, himself, forgiving sins. Why, the NERVE … the sheer … chutzpah, believing yourself to be capable of forgiving sins when we all knew that the only one who is able to forgive sins is the Lord God Almighty, and then only after an acceptable sacrifice on the day of atonement … that was the greatest heresy to date. He had to be stopped. Shortly after that I heard of a terrible commotion at the Temple during Passover, and I must tell you that I was not surprised when I heard it was this Jesus who was responsible. He even called himself the Messiah. When I heard that, I knew then that he would not last much longer. To call yourself ‘King of the Jews’ when the Jews already had a King, and that one appointed by Caesar, well, he had overstepped his bounds, and as many who went before him, his days were numbered. I have to say, I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard he’d been crucified. I shuddered a little, for to die on a tree is to die a cursed death, one from which there is no redemption. I thought there might have been some good to his teachings, but that last detail, the way in which he died, so unclean, so humiliating, so painful, so public … so final.

I was a little saddened, if only because his actions and death reflected on the Jewish people in the eyes of the heathen people of the world, and they could not see that we held the truth to how to please God, by following his commands and keeping his laws, this Jesus’ teachings were a threat to the purity of our way of life. Nonetheless, I knew that with his death, his followers would disperse, and we could get back to the business of monitoring and keeping ourselves clean and holy.

I was astounded when I heard rumors, then reports that this Jesus had supposedly risen from the dead! Our teaching had always been that, yes, there IS a resurrection, but it is one to come at the end of time, a general resurrection of ALL the faithful, not just of a single individual. When we finally heard it from the lips of one of his followers, one named Stephen, we could not contain our fury, and I gladly held their coats while the man was stoned to death outside the city walls, as it should be.

So disturbing were the reports that he appeared and had spoken to the women and to his disciples … the women who were as much a part of his band of followers as the men (that was another thing, by the way … he paid way too much attention to women …), so infuriating were the continued proclamations in the synagogues and in the streets that I became obsessed with the need to cleanse the chosen people of these parasites, these impurities, these heretics, and took it upon myself to begin to ferret out these followers of ‘The Way’ myself by searching door to door in Jerusalem and bringing them bound and throwing them in jail until they recanted what they had been proclaiming and turned back to the pure way.

I heard that there were followers of The Way outside of Judea in other nearby cities. When they were reported to have been seen and heard in Damascus, I went to the leaders and chief priests of the temple in Jerusalem and asked for a commission, a letter giving me authority to find, detain, and return to Jerusalem any followers of The Way that I found there, and it was quickly granted to me.

I left early in the morning on the day after the Sabbath, knowing myself to have been purified and confident in my mission and knowing what to look and listen for, knowing what questions to ask these followers of Jesus, so as to catch them in their deceit and heresy. We walked hurriedly; there was no time to waste. I had traveled the road to Damascus many times, and we were coming around one of the last bends in the road, around a low hill outside the city, when I saw him.

To say ‘he appeared to me’ does nothing to encompass what the event was, and barely begins to describe it. I could tell you what he was wearing (a simple robe). I could tell you how his feet looked (a little dusty), and how he moved his hands gently, and with purpose), but it still wouldn’t get across to you what I felt. We came around the bend, walking fast; he was standing there, looking straight at me, on a low rise right next to the road, where it cut close to the hillside, so he was a little above me. I had seen him at a distance a couple of times in Jerusalem, before he was crucified, and I thought he looked familiar.

‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’

I was UNDONE. I was stunned, amazed, shocked, all those words and more rolled up into a single emotion. It felt like an almost physical blow, I could not breathe, and I felt myself falling to the ground. The light around me grew brighter and brighter, until I could not keep my eyes open. I knew who he was, of course; I had seen him from a distance a couple of times in Jerusalem, before he was crucified. But I asked anyway:

‘Who are you, Lord?’

His answer came back:

‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’

Those who were with me said they could hear a voice, but could not see him. I’ve thought so much about that over the years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they couldn’t see him for one of two reasons, either they weren’t looking for him, or he wasn’t speaking to them … yet.

In that instant I knew that the Jesus whose followers I persecuted was in fact who he had claimed to be. That he was standing there and talking to me proved beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that he did indeed rise from the dead, and confirmed all that he’d said – and equally as importantly – done during the time he was teaching and traveling around Galilee.

In an instant, he opened my eyes to how blind I’d been. I could feel my eyes, they were open, but I couldn’t see anything at all. Funny, in a way, it made it gave me a chance to realize in an all-too-real way what it was like before, to have my eyes open but to not see what was right in front of my face all along.

- I realized I’d been wrong about the resurrection.
- I realized how sinful we ALL are, even the most righteous of us all, especially ME.
- I realized that his crucifixion WAS that perfect and acceptable sacrifice for ALL of us, for the sins of the world, not his own, for he was without sin.
- I realized how twisted my understanding of salvation had been, that it COULDN’T be based on strict obedience to the law, because all the law does is show how UNrighteous we all are. That keeping the law was not the way to salvation, but that it is by FAITH that we are saved, it is a gift from God.
- I realized that the way we live our lives here on earth is not to be guided by a set of laws, by keeping separate from the world, despising gentiles as sinners and unclean, but to be guided by the Love of God and showing that love to our neighbors, and to be guided by the Holy Spirit.

I realized most of all that Jesus Christ, my Lord and Messiah, came not only for the Jew, but for the Gentile, and that was where I stepped in. Jesus showed me that I was the person whom he had decided would be the one to bring his message to the Gentiles. And I myself was going to live out and understand what it means to put the requirements of the law to the test and find them lacking. To realize in my heart of hearts that nothing I do, nothing I strive to accomplish, will make me any more worthy of salvation, that it is by God’s grace alone that I am saved, and what I do is in response to that.

Let’s pray.