Loving into the Body: Part 1 - Patient Endurance
Loving into the Body • Sermon • Submitted
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Thesis: Loving People into God's Kingdom takes Persistent Patience
For Kids: Patience not like holding something in line - like holding something heavy for a long time for someone. - Which shows more love?
Me
Dramatic reading of Romans 8:28-39
28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:
We
We
We get fired up by the hope and joy and expectation from those verses, in such a way that many scholars split the letter to the Romans in half right here… saying this is a great place to say Amen!, sing a hymn, and go home… and it feels like that’s true, doesn’t it? We want to end with good news and we want to end on a bang!
But Paul doesn’t know when to quit.
Or perhaps, all that was to set us up for something else?
God
Children of the flesh vs Children of the Promise
Children of the flesh vs Children of the Promise
1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; 5 to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Paul wishes they were more than just flesh children, that will not remain in Israel but will be sent into further exile.
Examples from the OT
Examples from the OT
6 It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, 7 and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.
Pharaoh in not an example of God making someone turn away from Him - because the Jews would never consider Pharaoh one of the chosen. He was the Anti-Jew the way Christians talk about the Anti-Christ.
No, the point is, God can still use those wrong choices to redeem others.
Even when Pharaoh was being nice and letting the Israelites have a little leniency in the early part of Exodus, he was never invited to join them, not by God and certainly not by the people.
The Big Point Here!
Wrath and Mercy
Wrath and Mercy
21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; 23 and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
We focus too often on the wrath
We focus too often on the wrath
Paul points out that God focuses on the mercy
"Enduring with much patience"
From The Prophets
Hosea
25 As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ”
26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they shall be called children of the living God.”
Isaiah
27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; 28 for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth quickly and decisively.” 29 And as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of hosts had not left survivors to us,
we would have fared like Sodom
and been made like Gomorrah.”
You
What do we do?
What do we do?
30 What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; 31 but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law. 32 Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33 as it is written,
“See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Striving in faith - patient endurance like God's example
vs Striving in works - trying to fix others instead of giving them the opportunity to choose for themselves
Vs Not Striving at all - giving it all over to God and ceasing to be Christ-like or Christians ourselves.
Which one of these do you find yourself doing?
Patient endurance in bringing others to Jesus?
Trying to fix them yourself?
Not trying to bring anyone to Jesus at all?
We
We win some, and we lose some
We win some, and we lose some
It's not our fault usually when we lose them
But it is not really to our credit when we win them either - it just means we were being obedient and God chose to work with us
But it makes a difference every single time with every single person, and we know that, because it makes a difference every single time someone shares the grace of God with us.
Paul, in a way, really did cut himself off from his own people, and most of the church initially, for the sake of taking the gospel to those who had never been invited because they just weren't considered the "right type of people".
What are you willing to give up to bring someone into God's Kingdom?