Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany - Rom 1:8-17

 

Epiphany 3

                                                                                      Rom 1:8-17

                                                                                      1/22/23

 

          How do you feel when someone contacts you, and asks you to support something through your contributions?  It happens all the time via mail, email, and phone calls.  In truth, we are inundated with such appeals. That is true just in the Church. There are so many different ministries and mission efforts that you can never support them all.

          And then when you move outside the Church, there are even more causes that want your support.  These take in every aspect of life as we are asked to support groups that work for health, political groups, and groups that address any number of social problems. Again there are so many causes – many of them certainly worthy – that you can never support them all.  However, watch out.  If you send a contribution to a group just once, you will never cease to hear from them.

          I mention this because as we listen to our text this morning, we are hearing Paul ask the Romans for mission support.  We think of Romans as being one of the great statements about the Gospel and the Christian faith. While it is that, in practical terms it is also Paul asking the Romans to support him in his future missionary efforts.

          Unlike the churches in major cities like Corinth, Philippi, and Ephesus, Paul had not founded the church in Rome.  In fact we don’t know who first brought the Gospel to the heart of the Roman empire.  There was so much travel to the capital of the Empire, that it is not surprising that quite soon there were groups of Christians gathered in that city which was one of the largest in the ancient world. 

Paul begins our text and opens the letter with his typical thanksgiving as he writes, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.”  It was indeed a big deal that the faith in Jesus Christ was present in Rome. Then Paul goes on to speak about his prayer for the Romans – prayer that immediately includes his hope to come to Rome. The apostle writes, “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.”

Paul was the apostle of Jesus Christ – the authorized representative of the risen Lord.  He brought something unique  - he wasn’t just any other Christian.  So Paul goes on to say that his presence will benefit the Romans – even as he then immediately qualifies this by granting that he will be blessed by them too.  He writes, “For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you-- that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.”

We learn later in the letter, that Paul’s goal was to pursue mission work in Spain which was an important area in the western part of the Empire. This is the work in which he hopes that the Christians in Rome will be able to assist him.  Yet at the same time, Paul looks forward to preaching the Gospel in Rome. He tells them, “I want you to know, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.”

This leads Paul to comment on his charge as an apostle to the Gentiles – to those who are not Jewish.  He states, “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” 

When the apostle talks about Greeks and barbarians, he is referring to the way that Gentiles looked at the world.  Greek culture had spread throughout the Mediterranean world from the time of Alexander the Great at the end of the fourth century B.C. Those who were part of this culture considered themselves to be superior to those who are not – the barbarians as they called them.  Yet Paul says he is obligated to all: Greeks and barbarians – to those who are considered wise and those who are not.

Paul is eager to preach the Gospel in Rome.  In our text he goes on to explain why this is so.  He states, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” 

The apostle declares that he is not ashamed of the Gospel.  It is helpful to pause and consider why he says this. Why might someone be ashamed of it?  Well for starters, the Gospel is the proclamation that a Jew who was crucified is the Lord of all.  Gentiles looked down upon Jews as being an odd group of people with their circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath observance.  Yet the Gospel wasn’t just about a Jew. Jesus had died the death of a criminal. And he hadn’t just been executed.  He had been crucified.  He died in the most pathetic and humiliating way possible – something considered so horrific that polite society didn’t even mention it.

Jesus had been crucified.  Yet now the apostles were proclaiming that Jesus was Lord. This was the same word that was used to refer to the Roman Emperor.  There could be no greater contrast than between the most powerful man in their world and a Jew who had been crucified. To proclaim Christ crucified as Lord was foolishness to the world. Paul freely admitted to the Corinthians, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

The message of the Gospel might sound foolish to the world.  But in this case, appearances were deceiving.  Paul goes on explain why he is not ashamed as he says, “for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”  In the Gospel there is the power of God that gives salvation – a salvation received by all who believe.  This salvation is certainly intended first for the descendants of God’s covenant people, Israel. But it also includes the Gentiles – it includes you.

In the last verse of our text, Paul explains why the Gospel is the power of God for salvation.  He says, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”  The righteousness of God is God’s saving action to put all things right. The apostle says that it is revealed.  The word used here is the source of our word “apocalypse.” Paul declares that in Jesus Christ, God’s saving action has burst onto the scene.  It has been revealed by God because it was his action in Christ, and now he makes it known through the proclamation of the Gospel.

This saving action of God was necessary because of our sin.  Paul explains in chapter five that sin and death spread from Adam to all people.  He says, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” It is sin that rules the lives of all people, for the apostle says in chapter three “that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.”

Because that was our situation, the righteousness of God was revealed.  God acted in his Son Jesus Christ.   The apostle went on to say, “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”  God acted to justify us – to declare us righteous and innocent.  He did this by giving Jesus Christ as the atoning sacrifice that removed sin. By his death on the cross, Jesus won forgiveness for us.

Paul says that he is not ashamed of the Gospel.  This is a word that we need to hear because the world around us today heaps scorn upon the Christian faith.  We are told that there is no such thing as truth – an ultimate objective standard – according to which God can judge us.  Let’s face it, popular culture considers the Gospel to be a fairy tale – they think it is nonsense.  The world bristles when we proclaim Christ as the only way to salvation and fellowship with God.

Yet Paul says that he is not ashamed.  He is not ashamed because he met the risen Lord.  Paul thought it was all folly – until the risen Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus.  He wasn’t alone. The brothers of Jesus, such as James, didn’t believe in Jesus during his ministry. But when the crucified Lord appeared to them, they became missionaries and martyrs for Christ.

We are not ashamed of the Gospel because we believe in the risen Lord. We have faith in Jesus – we trust and believe in him. The power of God’s salvation is received by faith and faith alone, because faith leaves God in charge.  Forgiveness and salvation are received by God’s grace. They are a gift.  There is nothing that we can do. God has given us the promise in Christ, and so we simply receive the promise in faith. It is received by faith from beginning to end.

Paul says in our text, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”  The apostle calls us to confident faith because it is faith in the crucified and risen Lord.  

He urges us to confess Christ because in this way we receive the saving power of God. Paul says in chapter ten,  “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” And then he adds, “For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’”  Those who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord will not be ashamed because on the Last Day the Lord Jesus will raise them from the dead. They will stand before the judgment seat of God and hear the verdict that they are righteous and holy in his eye because of faith in Jesus Christ.