Rhythms of Grace

Good morning, Ambassadors! Good to be with you again this week. We are once again in the twelfth chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. Last week, we read the first 8 verses of the chapter, and today we will be taking a closer look at verses 9-18. If you have your Bibles open, some of you will see the title of this final section of the chapter entitled, “Marks of the True Christian.” This is obviously an excellent summary of this chapter. As we read these verses, we must ask ourselves, are these marks evident in my life? Are these fruits bearing out in my actions? Is my community blessed by my spiritual disciplines? Or is the lack thereof detrimental?

Our Scripture reading earlier in spoke of the life of the church as it began and as it was intended. Their devotion to the apostles teaching in verse 42 was the at the root of their lives, and it was in that devotion that they bore the fruit of holiness, worship, and evangelism. The world saw a community of changed people and began to inquire to the nature of this change. When the early church showed them Jesus, it radically shifted the world around them. How true that can be of us today. Let us read together these verses and begin to work through them.

Romans 12:9–18 ESV

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

So much of this text has to do with activity, but the activity explained here goes back to the beginning of the chapter. It begins with presenting ourselves as living sacrifices to God, ready to be used by Him and to worship Him in all things.

There are so many verses we could sit and marinate in, but I’d prefer for us this morning to focus on a few key words. The title this morning is the “Rhythms of Grace.” Last week, we focused on how using our gifts only comes through presenting ourselves to the Lord daily. Today, let’s look at how the gospel mind for the daily grind is really all about the hope that is in us and living in the joy of that faith. Our pursuit is to find the joy in Christ to outweigh grief we experience over sin. If Jesus’ sacrifice for us outweighs the death penalty of sin, ought we not live in victory? How would our lives change if putting on the gospel mind simply meant daily living in the joy of Christ that doesn’t come from our circumstances or experiences, but from the Holy Spirit and the comfort that He gives.

I can’t help but think of the “Greatest Generation” that defeated Nazism and Fascism in 1945. If you’ve ever seen photographs of people celebrating their freedom in France, Belgium, England, Canada, and the United States, you see a joy that supersedes all the pain of that 6 year war. The joy of that victory far outweighed even the future work ahead of rebuilding and restoring life again in those countries. The joy that we feel over that victory today is rooted in gratitude for those brave men and women, but we can’t begin to understand how they must have felt.

The beautiful thing about victory over sin in Christ is that it is something we can tap into each and every day! It’s the hope that today I will be holy as He is holy. It’s the joy that says my life has purpose, vision, and beauty, even when my circumstances don’t reflect that. What a beautiful sentiment. So, really, what we are saying here is that

The Daily Grind can’t defeat Daily Grace

The outpouring of God’s care and love for us doesn’t change every day - there’s no magic in going to bed and getting up a few hours later. But Scripture does remind us that God’s mercy and grace never ceases! Each day there is new grace for us to receive as we seek to operate in our daily lives to bring about “on earth as it is in heaven.” This is very well reminded to us in , where Solomon recounts the glory of God renewed mercies and the strength He provides to us.

Lamentations 3:22–24 ESV

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

I love these verses. They have been the inspiration for many hymns and spiritual songs, including one of my all-time favorites, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” It was a song I sang often growing up, and I’m glad I did. There is so much richness in songs like this. What I’m speaking of goes like this:

Great is Thy faithfulness Great is Thy faithfulness Morning by morning new mercies I see And all I have needed Thy hand hath provided Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto me

A beautiful song. Praise God for His faithfulness to us, to give us the faith we need to get through the daily grind. Let’s continue and break down a few of our verses here.

Romans 12:9–11 ESV

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Romans 9:

Verse 9 is about as straightforward as it gets it seems! But let’s ask ourselves, let love be genuine to whom? The love of God be real in us to those around us. We ought to be inviting in the love of God into our hearts so that it may pour out of us and be a light to people who have not yet experienced that love.

I love what verse 10 is all about. It’s a beautiful picture of how living the daily grind isn’t something we do alone. It’s something we do in community, in support. I think if you or I were to read this at face value alone, we see the commandment - we see the doing. But really, we should see the receiving. As long as we place ourselves in church community, verses like this are our aim, our pursuit. This morning, I’m not going to ask you the cliché, “have you worked to outdo one another in honor?” No; I’m going to ask you this morning, how have you seen God put people in your life that have outdone you in honor? If you have seen that, take a moment to simply give praise and thanksgiving to God for those people in your life!

Romans 12:12 ESV

12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

here in verse 12, we have encouraging commandments and recommendations for us. What does it look like for use to rejoice in hope? How easy is it for us to be patient in tribulation? I would argue that these things do not come to us with ease. They take spiritual discipline, spiritual maturity, and the right kind of gospel mind. Rejoicing in hope is a key element to getting through the daily grind. It’s keeping at the forefront of our lives the idea that life’s most important ideals and practices have much more to do with the goodness of God than the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Basically, what that says is this:

The Gospel has a way of prioritizing our hearts when the daily grind of life begins to wear on us.

Think of what Jesus’ ministry looked like - He healed, taught, and loved on people constantly; and then, without warning, he’d get in a boat or go for a hike and disappear entirely from the community to commune with the Father and maintain a close relationship/

Now, you or I may not have the capability to leave and take sabbaticals when ever we want, no. But, we do have the capability to place a high priority on the grace of God in us each and every day. Not by our own effort, but allowing ourselves to be filled with Holy Spirit and using God’s gift of faith as the driving force for our holiness.

Lastly, I’d like to skip ahead to verse 16 to observe further what it means to have a gospel mind.

Romans 12:16 ESV

16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

The most surefire way to be worn down by life, to be beaten up without recovery, is to rely on the wrong people in your life for happiness. Namely, yourself, and any other living, breathing human being you meet. Now, this may seem counterintuitive to what I said earlier on community and how we need each other, but this is not coming in it from the same direction. The prescription here in verse 16 is to be humble. Humility is a practice/ a discipline that requires us to rely less on ourselves for success or happiness. It’s realizing that we make mistakes and we are going to mess up and we need the grace of God to be poured into us.

This verse reflects how that can be lived out day to day. We pursue the lowly, because Christ pursued us when couldn’t have been any lower. When we associate with the lowly, we are put in position to comfort, encourage, and lift up; when we are haughty, we shut out people of all classes and classifications around us and create more blindness to the gospel.

If you are a believer in Jesus today, as you read through these descriptions of the marks of the true Christian, what rhythms of grace are you seeing God bless you with in your walk? What characteristics have you seen grow? What characteristics have you forgotten about? How can you put on this gospel mind going forward? My charge to you isn’t to fix it, work hard, and make it better. My charge to you is to lift up your cup to God and say, “Fill it up, Lord.” Create in me a new heart.

If you aren’t a believer in Christ, or maybe you aren’t sure what this whole Church thing is about - what about these verses sounds like it isn’t worth it? Sure, you have seen hypocrites galore. You’re even in a room full of them now. But, these marks, these rhythms of grace, this is what we are striving for. This is our aim. What a world it would be if all of us lived this way! Combine the renewed life and the holy ambitions with the eternal hope of life with God, sharing in his joy. Nothing should be holding us back from jumping in with Jesus and experiencing something that the daily grind can never overcome.