Speaking The Truth in Christ

 

Sunday, August 3^rd, 2008

Proper 13A/ Ordinary 18 A/ Pentecost +12

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Romans 9:1-5

Theme: Lost Opportunities and the redemptive action of God

 

 “¹I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit— ²I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. ⁴They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; ⁵to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.”

 

Can you hear the anguish in his voice?  Yes, he SAYS as much, but can you read into the passage this morning the profound sorrow that Paul must have struggled with his entire ministry?  Having once been on THAT side of the divide?  KNOWING what it was like to NOT see Jesus for who he was and realizing as each day passed that more and more of his fellow Hebrews were going on with their lives in some cases INTENTIONALLY turning their back on what to him had become as plain as the nose on his face?  That the long-awaited Messiah had come, and they had rejected him so completely as to turn him over to their Roman oppressors to hang him on a cross to die a blasphemous death? 

 

Yes, there was some positive response, even some glimmer of hope from the church in Jerusalem, but the folks who were coming out of Jerusalem were coming out with a stunted understanding of what had – again – been made clear to Paul – that Christ had come not ONLY for the Jews, but for the Gentiles as well, and the Gentiles were ‘getting it’ much more readily than the Hebrews were. 

 

Can you imagine?  Can we imagine for a few minutes what it would be like, to belong to a group of people who had documented proof that God – the Lord God Jehovah, creator of Heaven and Earth, had entered into a covenant with them and called them his own?  What would it feel like to belong to that select a group of people?  What would it be like to grow up with your identity completely undergirded by the understanding that YOU are part of the elect, that you are one of the chosen people, from the tribe of Israel. 

 

I suspect it would give you a certain air, a certain confidence, a certain attitude – to be so blessed.  I’m not sure we can relate completely to what that might feel like … but then, maybe we can.   Maybe we are not so different from our Hebrew Brothers and Sisters in first century Palestine. 

 

After all … with a few exceptions, I think we can say that the majority of us here today cannot remember a time when we weren’t somehow connected to church folk – somehow we got the message that belonging to a church meant you were “in.”  And since it has been an element of our own individual “universes” all our lives, it isn’t that different from what the Hebrews experienced on at least ONE level. 

 

This is what  Paul was lamenting:  that with all the rich heritage the Jewish people had received over the centuries, by way of the prophets, scriptures, songs, worship, the whole shebang, so to speak, when the time came to really understand what it was all about, they just didn’t GET it.  It didn’t register with them that all that they knew was leading up TO Jesus. 

 

Let’s not forget, Paul didn’t get it either.  Not right away.  As you remember, he spent a good deal of time PERSECUTING the followers of Christ until he actually ran INTO Jesus on the road to Damascus one day.  There’s a reason we call it a ‘Damascus Road Experience’ when someone undergoes an epiphany – a revelation SO intense that it transforms one’s entire life to the point of becoming a totally different person from the one you were the day before – so much so that a NAME change may be in order – THAT kind of transformation is what Saul – now Paul – HOPED for for everyone of the tribe of Judah, but never saw happen. 

 

Since father’s day, when Judson made HIS profession of faith, I’ve had a few moments to contemplate the fact that there is an immeasurable degree of comfort in the knowledge that if something were to happen to one, some or all of us – the Park family – tomorrow, there would be cause for grief, yes, but there would be a degree of consolation in knowing that that death would not mean eternal separation from one another.  Please understand, while I BELIEVE in eternal life, it is not the sole focus of the reason I follow Christ and have received him as Lord and Savior – that has to do as much with what we can do in this world FOR God as what happens to us beyond this world, after our lives are spent. 

 

So we are faced with Paul being willing to give up HIS place in the Kingdom for the sake of the salvation of his people – it weighed that heavily on him.  His statement that he could wish himself accursed and cut off from Christ for the salvation of his people echoes a similar emotion expressed by Moses to God, while wandering in the wilderness.  He, Moses, recognized that the people of Israel had sinned so profoundly that God was justified in his condemnation of them, and yet, he interceded on their behalf and asked God instead to blot HIS name out of the book of life instead – to cut HIM off – and allow through his sacrifice for the redemption of the Israelites. 

 

Hmmm … sound familiar?

 

What does it mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton – meaning, I hope this is understood – what does this mean for us as the people who make up this congregation named Jerusalem?

 

There is a central aspect to the life of a disciple – of one who is seeking after God’s own heart, who is WANTING to do God’s work, who is, in our terms, WANTING and working to be Christ’s presence here and now that overrides pretty much all others – and that is to be a living sacrifice.  As people given to God and to God in Christ, and to God in the Holy Spirit, we are just that – GIVEN.  We are no longer our own.  We belong to someone else.  And that someone else, of course, is Jesus.  Belonging to Christ means we are more about doing what God wants than what we want.  It means that the FIRST question we ask is “what would God want me to do/learn/say/be?” in any given situation.  And by any given situation, I mean that as broadly as it sounds.  ANY – GIVEN – SITUATION.  Wherever, whenever, with whomever we are with.   

 

You see, as his church, as Christ’s body, WE are the ones that are going to be carrying out his redemptive work in the world.  We TELL about his redemptive ACT in history, but we LIVE out his redeeming LIFE through the way we live our own.  It’s that simple, that profound, that demanding, that all-encompassing.  We are the ones that the world will look to and say ‘Oh, so THAT’S what it means when someone says ‘God Loves You!’  The question is, what is the ‘THAT’ they will be talking about?                    

 

Let’s pray.