July 15 Sermon

Romans 15:22-32

Paul’s Plan to Visit Rome

 This is the reason that I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, with no further place for me in these regions, I desire, as I have for many years, to come to you when I go to Spain. For I do hope to see you on my journey and to be sent on by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things.So, when I have completed this, and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will set out by way of you to Spain; and I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.

 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf,that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my ministry to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.

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Alright—we’re going to start out with a little physics quiz today—how many of you know how many laws of physics Newton came up with?

Ok—we’ll skip straight to the third one—for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Let’s do a quick quiz on this—what happens when you hear someone sneeze?

What do you do when you are driving and see a green traffic light turn yellow?

Ok—what happens when you walk through a spider web?

For each and every action, there is a reaction.  For everything that happens in our lives, there is a reply, a response, some change that occurs.  When the sun comes out, we put on sunglasses, and when the rain comes out we reach for our jackets.  When the world changes, we change right along with it, willingly or not.

This isn’t just a rule of physical actions.  It’s true of emotions as well.  When someone smiles at you, it changes the way you feel, doesn’t it?  When someone gives you a compliment, do you feel better about the world, about yourself?  If someone ignores you, how does that make you feel?  Our emotions are captive to this rule as well.

What I want to spend some time talking about today is how this rule should govern our spiritual lives as well. 

We’re going to begin with our example from Romans of the Greek community.  Paul lifts them up here in Romans 15 as an example of generosity—they’ve taken up a collection from their resources to share with the Jews in Jerusalem who are in need.  Paul says that they were pleased to do it, and then goes on to say that they did owe it to the Jews anyway, because it was the Jews who shared their own spiritual blessings first with the Gentiles in Greece.  See, when we look back on it, the whole movement of the Christian church originates in Jerusalem with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  From there, the movement spreads, but it all originated in Jerusalem.  They sent out missionaries to the rest of the known world to tell the Good News of the Gospel, and the Greeks have reason to thank them, because they now know the story of Jesus Christ.  They are so grateful for this spiritual gift that has transformed their lives that they are willing to give back.  The generosity of the first disciples, who shared freely the message of Christ at the risk of their own lives, cultivates a generous spirit in the Greeks, who suddenly see an opportunity to give back.  The action of the Jews prompted a reaction in the Greeks.  See, Newton knew what he was talking about.

So we begin with Newton’s laws of motion, discussing how actions breed reactions.  Then we move beyond motion and talk about how the generous action of the Jews caused a reaction in the Greeks.  Now we’re going to move onto an even bigger scale.

I want you to think back to what we talked about last week.  We discussed salvation.  Anybody remember what the point I stressed, over and over again, was?  If you don’t remember, the main thing we need to remember when we think about salvation is that it is a gift.  A free and generous gift.  You cannot earn it, you do not deserve it, you are not entitled to it—it is a gift, given by our loving, generous and merciful God out of his abundant grace.  You can only accept it. 

So salvation is a gift that is given to us by God.  This is the action.

What’s the reaction?

This is where we get into service.  The point I want to make is that salvation is a gift given to us by God.  God is the one who performs the initiating action—our lives are then intended to be the reaction.  We respond to God.  Now, there are ways that we can respond directly to God—we do this in our prayers and our worship.  There are also ways for us to respond in which we serve God by serving others.  This is what a life of service is intended to be—it is our response to God.  The generosity of God, sharing spiritual blessings, should cultivate within us a heart of generosity in which we look to share our blessings with others.  This may mean that we share our material blessings with others in the world, in our community.  It could mean that we share our time or our gifts to serve others.  It doesn’t necessarily matter how we serve—what matters is that we do it and why we do it. 

Why do we do it?  Again, it’s because we are so grateful to God because he has given us a free gift of salvation that we then want to give back.  We want to be a part of what God is doing, so we look for opportunities to join in with God’s mission.  Serving others should become our way of life, the way that our hearts beat.  The Greeks clearly picked up on this—though they received spiritual blessings, they gave back material blessings.  They weren’t necessarily able to match the kind of blessing they received, but they didn’t need to—those in Jerusalem had spiritual blessings.  They needed material blessings.  In the same way, we need to look for the needs in the world, in the community, and share our blessings.  Maybe we can share spiritual blessings, but let’s be sure we share our material ones as well. 

What does a life of service look like?  How could I describe a heart of service?  I don’t have time to answer those questions.  But let me say this—there are abundant opportunities for you to get involved.  What’s most important is that your service is rooted in your gratitude to Christ—that you let the Holy Spirit transform you, and you go forth in a spirit of gratitude to serve others.

Maybe you’re looking for ways to give your time?  There are ample places and ways to do that.  Maybe you have gifts that a nonprofit or other charity could use.  Perhaps they don’t need your money, or maybe you don’t have extra money to give, but I bet they could use your passion or your energy.  Some of you may feel limited in that you don’t have any extra time, or perhaps you don’t have the mobility you once did.  I believe prayer is a form of service—and every charity in this town could use some more prayer.  For those of you without time, maybe you could cut back on another activity and make some time to serve others, to show your gratitude to Christ by serving others the way he selflessly did.

I can’t answer every question you have today about a life of service.  But I want you to hear this—it’s so important that we, the church, let the Holy Spirit cultivate a heart of service within us.  We need to be looking for opportunities to bless the world.  We have had a free gift of salvation given to us—how are we going to respond?  What will be our response to this incredible action that God has taken?  Will we focus on us?  How will we let God turn our vision outward to the world, so that our blessings might be shared with others?  Will our lives tell the story of grace?  Or focus on ourselves?

Friends, our service does not and cannot earn our salvation.  That is a gift—but it invokes a response, and I pray that we may respond with passion and energy to show the world our gratitude through our works of love.

Let us pray