Being Reconciled

What does it matter?

Who remembers their math’s from when you were in high school? If I asked you to explain trigonometry to me, or perhaps calculus, would you have any hope?

I wonder if you were one of the students that asked the teacher - why do I have to learn all this? When am I ever going to need Pythagoras Theory in the real world?

You’ve probably felt justified in that question because with the possible exception of when you needed to help your child through maths, you probably never have needed to know that ‘a’ squared plus ‘b’ squared equals ‘c’ squared, or that the sine of a number is the ratio of the opposite side of the triangle over the hypotenuse.

Sometimes we a similar kind of thing happens when we get into theology.

Even just the word theology sounds abstract.

It something that some smart Christians do presumably with too much time on their hands, as they sit around and pick to pieces what the Bible says about how God operates in the world. Actually, that’s not true. It is a very important function.

But part of the problem is that sometimes the concepts they discuss can seem rather detached from the real life.

Detached from real life

Now we’ve been going through the book of Romans, and I’ve said before and I’ll continue to say, it is a wonderful book full of so many great truths about God’s love for us.

But as we go through it, we have a few tendencies that mean that the concepts in the book become rather detached from everyday life.

In fact, this morning, I’m going to suggest two such tendencies and look how the fifth chapter is going to help correct this.

Only a ticket to heaven

The first is the tendency to only see these concept as our ticket to heaven.

You see, we’ve been talking about justification, a concept that Paul started to explore back in chapter 3. Then last week we talked about faith and how this is all that we need.

And so what is the significance of all this? Well, there’s a clear significance which we most likely naturally go to because it’s a quite simple concept to get our head around. That is, justification means that when I die and stand before the judgement seat, I’ll be counted as righteous and be allowed to spend eternity with God.

That is indeed very true. But here’s the issue.

You see, even though I recognise many of you are older than me, but the truth is, you’ve all still got a lot of living to do in this age. It’s great to know when you die, whenever that may be, you’re going to be all right. But what about now?

Does justification have any relevance to me in the present?

So the first tendency of seeing this all as something for in the far off future can make this a concept detached from reality now.

Individualism

The second tendency that I want to suggest is actually something that isn’t present in every culture, but it certainly has become a tendency in our Western culture. It’s the tendency to see everything through an individualistic perspective.

Now on one level, we can feel justified in this. After all, faith is not something you inherit. It’s something that you as an individual need to grasp for yourself. Being part of a Christian family or a Christian community isn’t enough. You have to take that step of faith yourself.

The problem however with an overemphasis on our individualism is that we get these blinkers that blind us from the bigger picture of what is happening.

You see, this tendency can also lead to these concepts being somewhat detached from our present reality. If we’re justified, then job done. But how does this concept of justification affect how we are living in community?

This morning as we move into this fifth chapter, my aim is to try move us away from these tendencies which make these beautiful truths into some distant detached thing, and instead explore how much this effects our day to day lives right here and right now.

Also, being the end of NAIDOC week, I’ll give some reflections on how this should impact on our efforts towards reconciliation.

Romans 5

Well let’s dive in and see what Paul says.

The opening line essentially reminds us where Paul has just taken us.

Starting with a “therefore”, which links us to what we’ve just discussed, “… since we have been justified...”

And it was this justification that was the focus in chapter 3. It was this chapter where Paul reminded us that despite all having sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, yet we have been freely justified by his grave through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

But he goes on to say, “…since we have been justified by faith...” It was this idea of faith that took the focus in chapter 4. It was the idea that it was always God’s intention that the only way we can really know righteousness is through faith. All other routes are impossible,

So in just this opening line of Romans 5, we’ve been reminded of these ideas of justification and faith.

Peace with God

But next comes the part where Paul is going to take us away from the tendency to think of this justification as just some future blessing for when we get to heaven.

You see, what he doesn’t say is: “since you’ve been justified by faith, well, you now don’t need to worry when you die”. That might be true, but Paul knows that the justification that we have received is so much more valuable to us right now.

You see, he actually says: “since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...” and just skipping half way into verse 2 “… in which we now stand”.

I just wanted to highlight those words: “in which we now stand”, because he’s saying that this peace with God is not some future reward, it’s what we have right now.

But let me come back to this idea of peace with God.

You see, this idea of peace has roots in the Jewish word Shalom, which is also translated as peace,

The concept is more than just the absence of hostility. You know, sometimes when we hear people today wishing for world peace, generally speaking, what they are wishing for is for all the wars to end. That would be wonderful if it happened, but we can do so much better than just ending the wars.

You see, the Jewish concept of peace was about completeness and even restoration.

In fact, included in this concept was the idea of restoration with creation, which given that this years theme of NAIDOC is actually “heal country”, we can actually see some cross over with this idea of peace.

While we will only fully know this peace in the age to come, but it has actually already come upon us with the justification we received.

Today, you’ll hear a lot of people bagging out the church, and to a degree, with reason. There have certainly been a lot of bad things happen in many many churches, and we can’t ignore that. Unfortunately this criticism hides the fact that within the church, we already can see shalom. While individual churches are only an imperfect image of this shalom, but it is still there.

It is in the church that you will find acceptance. It is in the church that you will find people of a very diverse background coming together and working in unison. In the church you’ll find people looking out for each other. Encouraging one another. Finding those who are falling through the cracks.

You may give me examples of when that doesn’t happen, but I’ll give you plenty more examples of when it happens beautifully.

It happens because God is among us and that is what he is doing. He declares us righteous through faith, and in doing so begins this process of peace.

Hope of the glory of God

So, verse 1 gives us this peace of God. At the end of verse 2, Paul then gives us another little phrase: “the hope of the glory of God”.

Now just like the word peace which has a much deeper meaning then how we normally understand it, the word hope means more than just this vain hope something good might happen.

Each week I say, I hope my football team wins this weekend. That hope is not really based on much. If my team has been playing well, and the opposition have been playing poorly, then my hope might have a little more basis, but its still a pretty flimsy hope.

The Christian understanding of hope, however, is the complete opposite to flimsy. It is the anticipation of what God has made known in advance for us.

And while part of that hope is that future glory, the getting to heaven like we described before, but if you look at the complete phrase here, it’s the hope of the glory of God.

It’s that anticipation that no matter what the situation, God is going to be glorified.

Hope in suffering

And here, starting in verse 3, Paul breaks off into different aspect of that hope.

Now it’s going to end in hope, but he states in verse 3 that not only do we have the glory of God, we also glory in our suffering. Something which at first glance sounds terrible. But it makes sense when you see what happens.

You see, what happens when you suffer. Well, you persevere.

The pain. The angst. The horrible feeling. It persists. But as you persevere, something else happens. You gain character. That character might be slightly different depending on who you are, but with the Holy Spirit in you, its going to be an amazing character that is developed.

And because of what the Holy Spirit does in this process, the end result is that through this renewed character, we again come to hope. That anticipation that God is being glorified.

You see, the key ingredient in all of this is God’s love, and in verse 5 we see that it is through the Holy Spirit that this love is poured into our hearts.

God’s love

Now, we’re talking about how the blessing of being justified starts now, and we really couldn’t go any further with this conversation without picking up on this ingredient of God’s love, because this is really what it’s all about.

It’s the fact that we can bathe in this love and no that no matter what happens, God’s love will always remain.

And Paul puts these beautiful words from verse 6 to 8 in to make this point.

You see, to remind us of his great love, he takes us to the single greatest act in all of history. The fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

It is truly the most amazing love, and the reason that we can know with certainty that whatever happens, God is always there for us.

I’m not saying he will be there for us at a later date. I’m saying that right now, even if you are in the midst of a crisis right now, God is there and holding you tight and getting you through.

Community

While I’d love to keep reflecting on these absolutely beautiful verses, I want to move onto the second tendency I described earlier which can result this teaching feeling detached from the real world.

I’m talking of our tendency to always think of this in very individualistic ways, and as I mentioned, there are some good reasons for doing this.

Now when we look through Paul’s letter to the Romans, there’s a little detail which is easy to miss but is quite interesting, and that is the pronoun that he chooses to use.

Way back at the start of chapter 1 when he introduces the gospel for us, he uses the pronoun of ‘I’.

In chapter 2, the pronoun shifts to ‘you’. He says “you… who pass judgement...” or “you… [who] rely on the law”.

But he then shifts to the first person plural - “we”. In chapter 5 then, this is the predominant pronoun used.

Now, what does that prove?

Well, it’s perhaps best not to read too much into it, but yet I can’t but help and see that Paul wants us to not think about these blessings for you as an individual, but us as a community.

We, have peace with God

We, have gained access into this grace.

We, boast in the hope of the glory of God.

Adam and Christ

And so I come to this section starting at verse 12, which speaking of theology as I was earlier, this can seem like an example of some detached theology.

Now I’m only going to give a very brief explanation of it, before I consider it from the perspective of justification and community.

Well, in these verses, Paul is making a comparison between Adam and Christ.

In short, through Adam, sin enters the world, and from this, death.

Through Christ, the gift of grace comes to the world, and from this, life.

Now you can examine Paul exploration of this comparison for yourself, I’m not going to add a lot of commentary to it now.

But let me just point you to verse 18. “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.”

Now, some people will try to use this verse to suggest that everyone gets to heaven. After all, it does say that justification and life is for all people.

But I believe that misses the point. You see, it would seem more likely that Paul is using this big language to really emphasize the effectiveness of what Jesus has done.

That is to say, many people will be saved by faith through the work of Jesus Christ.

Now, I know there are other lessons we can take from this section, but for now, I just want this to allow us to shift from thinking in individual terms, to thinking in community terms.

You see, the work of Christ is building communities of righteous people.

This comes back to that deeper understand of the peace of God.

NAIDOC application

Now let’s just think about this. If there is a corporate element to justification, then understanding the blessing of being in the peace of God is not just a matter between you and God, it is a matter between you and the people around you as well.

Now you might remember a certain parable that Jesus gives in response to a question about how often we should forgive. It’s a parable in Matthew 18:21ff.

Basically, one person has his very big debt forgiven, only for him to turn around and refuse to forgive a much smaller debt owed to him.

You see, we can’t look at Romans 5 with this wonderful promise in verse 11 that we have now received reconciliation, and then turn around and say that we refuse to enter into discussion of reconciliation with others.

That would be to completely misunderstand what this is all about.

Now today ends NAIDOC week. A special week where as a nation, our focus turns to our first nation people. To those who God had chosen to be stewards of this land before the Europeans arrived.

It is well documented what happened when the Europeans arrived. Terra Nulius was declared, that is, that the land was empty. The Aboriginal people were considered an inferior race, to the point that they were treated like animals, not like Image Bearers of God. Official government policy changed over time, but until relatively recently, it has always been based on the assumption that Aboriginal people were inferior.

While today, official government policy no longer sees them as inferior, due to successive policies that treated them poorly, big gaps remain between these proud first nation people and the rest of the population.

Now from an individualistic perspective we can throw up our hands and say: it wasn’t me that treated them poorly. And from an individualistic perspective, you may be right.

But were you paying attention to demonstration of God’s love. God didn’t sacrifice his only Son because he owed us something. It was because of undeserved love.

In this way, even if we were to stick with the individualistic understanding, you should be concerned about reconciliation whether you were part of the problem or not.

You see, we are part of a community, and when one person sins, we all need to be involved in the solution to bring the peace of God back - to enter into shalom.

I’m not suggesting we all have to go around feeling guilty. I am saying that we should all be engaged in finding solution that make a difference.

Conclusion

What we are reading in this letter of Paul’s to the Romans is a beautiful thing.

It’s beautiful not just because we get a ticket to heaven after we die. It’s beautiful because the difference of being with God starts right now.

There is a unique experience being a believer. It’s not that your life will necessarily be easier or harder. We live in the same broken world as everyone else does.

But for the believer, we get to be surrounding by the peace of God. We get to have the hope of the glory of God, even in the midst of struggles.

And we get to experience the true reconciliation. A restoration of all that was broken.

But these experiences are not experience we have in isolation of others. Rather, they are designed to be experienced in community.

And consequently, because we have been justified, we have all the more reason to be reconciled with others.

So let me pray...