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The Book of Romans is a giant among all scripture. Throughout
the Reformation it has been called the Gospel according to Paul. Paul had
never visited the Roman church, even though he had contacts with members of
the Christian community in Rome. Both the length and the content of Romans
give it its magnitude. Because Paul was not personally identified with the
history of the church, he deals with church problems only in a minor fashion.
The heart of the Roman letter is Paul’s theology of God’s great
act of salvation. Paul declares that in Romans 1 when he says that God had
revealed himself through wrath on all disobedience and lives lived in wickedness
and through the disclosure of himself. He has made himself known to the world.
In listening to this text, it is important to know its setting in the full
writing of the Epistle to the Romans.
It would be most helpful if you had the time to read the Book
of Romans in one setting. It is a letter and was not meant to be divided into
verses and chapters. We do violence to the text when we simply lift sentences
and verses from its context rather than seeing the big picture of their contribution
to the whole. The theme of Romans is not that the Law failed, but that the
Law was rendered powerless through our human problem. Our lives in the flesh
cannot fulfill the righteousness of God. God’s righteousness is brought
to pass by our receiving Christ in the Spirit. The life is lived out through
the Christ life itself. We in the flesh have not only fallen but continue
to fall. We have the will to do right but are continually faced with the impoverished
power of the physical being.
Our flesh is not sin. It is simply not spiritual. According
to Romans 8:1-2, Christ has accomplished what the Law could not accomplish
in that Christ, through the Spirit, invaded human flesh and thereby condemned
the sin that is in the flesh. He has made possible life in the physical that
will be pleasing to God because those being born of the Spirit and led by
the Spirit are living beyond the flesh while they remain in it. In our flesh
now we can serve the living God through the power of God’s life in us.
Paul reaches his great conclusion when he says, “They are the children
of God who are being led by the Spirit of God.” He will further state
that if you have not the “Spirit of Christ” you are not his.
Having reached that pinnacle, he is ready now to call us to
that step which will allow us to move beyond life in the flesh, while we are
in the flesh, into the life of Christ and his Holy Spirit. It is in this setting
that we come to our text.
Having given ourselves time to soak on the theme of the greater
Book of Romans, we can now come to the text itself. We must remember that
our people who have gathered for worship have not had the same time to prepare
themselves for the text that we have had. The first stage of the sermon is
to introduce the power of the invitation that is being given. Paul is inviting
the believers to a radical self-denial. While Christ was with us, he gave
us the standard of discipleship by stating that those who would walk as he
walked must take up the cross day by day and be crucified with him while following
in his steps. Now Paul calls upon the Christians to live a life of living
sacrifice. This is the radical step of self-disowning. Paul’s view of
the Christian life will be that we are not our own but have been purchased
by Christ. We live our lives as those who belong to him. We no longer own
our own existence. We have become the body of Christ. In this status of living
sacrifice, we are to now function.
In our hour, honest Christian people struggle with how to know
the will of God. In our text the Apostle gives the answer to this longing.
We can discern his will when we have surrendered ourselves to his life. When
he lives through us and we are his, then the steps of a righteous man are
ordered of the Lord. All things in life will be working together for the good
of those who are called according to his purpose. The outcome of the sacrifice
of life is the discernment of God’s good, holy, and right will.
(For a complete preaching outline of this sermon, click here)