Up Close and Personal

Now we're going to spend a little while this morning looking at our study which

we've began last Sunday morning and is going to take us we're only going to do

the first five chapters of Romans but that's going to take us up to the summer

so we're looking at in some detail okay and last week we looked at the

introductory section of Romans chapter 1 which is on page 9 3 9 of your pew

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Bibles if you don't have a Bible we didn't get one when you were coming in

or if you want to look at a Bible then there's some at the back and you can put

your hand up and any of the ushers will take it to you but we're going to read

from this time from Romans chapter 1 and we read to chapters to verse 6 last

Romans 1 · chapter mention

week by way of introduction and now we're going to read from verse 7 to the

end of that next section which is verse 15 which is again an introduction to

this letter that Paul writes to the church in Rome to all those in Rome who

are loved by God and called to be saints grace to you and peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for

all of you because your faith is proclaimed in all the world 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 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 I do not want

you to be unaware 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 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to

barbarians both to the wise and the foolish so I am eager to preach the

gospel to you also who are in Rome okay so we're gonna look at this for a while

this morning and then we'll celebrate the Lord's Supper together and it's

really an introductory sermon again before we kind of plunge into the whole

of this letter that Paul has written to the church which is inspired by God

which has remained part of the Bible and is inspired for us to learn from and

what we have here and the elders and the deacons here and the leaders will gulp

when they read this section and I do because it's a great example of biblical

and Christian leadership and it's a challenge to us and I'm gonna say a

few things to us as elders and preach to myself today it challenges us about

what is true of us as Christians and also what's true of us as Christians

together in the church and what we should be becoming by way of understanding

who we are and remember that this this this letter is written to ordinary

people please bear that in mind this is not a theological treatise for the

academy on its own or any specific group rather it is for a church which

included all kinds of people from all different walks of life who left the

reading of this letter to them and went to their everyday jobs please remember

that they had day jobs this wasn't for professional Christians if there was ever

such a thing this is for people in their day-to-day lives because what Paul is

or God is trying to get across to us is what we are in Christ what we are as

Christians changes us to the very core of our being elders deacons people in

the church whoever we are because this book is about the doctrine of salvation

and it's saying how important salvation is and what it does in our lives so

before revealing theology before beginning to teach about this doctrine

of salvation what salvation is Paul reveals himself okay before he starts

revealing theology he reveals himself and that's a great challenge to you and

to me I think in our Christian lives so I asked the question of you this morning

are you a closed book are you a closed book spiritually do people know the real

you the person who is kind of peeled back under the layers that the real

individual that you are do people know you elders and deacons do people know

who you are do you give of yourself and do you expose your inner heart and your

life and who you are your very core being it's not enough to use your culture

or your personality as a reason for remaining private and unknown to anyone in

the Christian community there's this great reality that the Christian is

someone who is at many levels I know no it's at different levels because we're

all different personalities but with an open book what we say is what we are

okay and Paul as he reveals himself in this passage he also reveals who the

church is who we are as a church the family of God because he's just naturally

just drip feeding information about what a gospel community looks like and that

it's core to our being not peripheral I think it shakes us to our very core

because graced by its nature it shuns an isolationism and an individualizing of

our faith alone not faith alone but individualism alone there's there's a

there's a community aspect that is important and we're gonna sit the Lord

we're gonna sit at a table but we're gonna participate in the Lord's Supper

together leaders and people under Christ and this passage helps us to

understand a little bit more about who we are and why unity together as we

celebrate the Lord's Supper is very important so I'm only gonna look I'm

gonna look at two areas this morning briefly and I hope it's okay to do so

the first is leadership and the second is lady so we're gonna look at what Paul

says in terms of being an example of leaders and what that means in terms of

relationship with our people and also just as people what it means to belong

to the church and be Christians so leadership firstly and Paul is a great

example of Christian leaders now you will have received something in the

email this week about new elders so please remember as we think about

electing new elders new leaders in the church and please pray for them and

please consider what we're saying today and examining about ourselves and also

about our role because the characteristics of leadership will also

apply to all of us to a greater or lesser degree so one or two things about

Paul is a great example of how to lead in the church and his character in

leading in the church and the first I'm only gonna say a couple of things about

him in each case the first is he had a boat he had bone marrow faith okay he had

bone marrow faith what I mean by that I mean that his faith was was a part at the

very core of who he was it wasn't peripheral it wasn't professional it

wasn't extra it was at the core of who he is in verse 8 he says I thank my God

through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is proclaimed in the

world and he goes on to say for God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit or

whom I serve in my spirit or in my soul or whom I serve from my heart it could be

all of these things that it could be translated in all of these ways and he's

basically saying he's a servant of God he's a Christian he's a believer he's a

leader from the soul out from his very inner being out from his spiritual bone

marrow as it were right out he that's who he was you know and that's what he's

saying he's saying this is what you see is what you get is what he's saying he's

saying I have I've no identity crisis I I have met with the living Savior and

I've known the spiritual rebirth I've been born a new born afresh and in my

inner consciousness in my ego in my very self in my very being I am in union

with Jesus Christ there's no for me there's no keep out signs he's saying

there's no saying you can come thus far Christ and no further Christ is at the

very core of who he is is his identity as a child of God he's not a Jekyll and

Hyde character he doesn't do one thing on a Saturday night and another thing in

a Sunday morning and he doesn't act outwardly as a believer or an apostle and

then inwardly he's a raging maniac for sex or for drunkenness or for whatever

my idolatry of one means that another he wasn't a hypocrite he was someone who

God was his God my God and he served him from his soul out he'd been one by the

love of God he'd been changed by the love of God I'm not speaking about romance

and a softness here I'm speaking about his life he recognized his need he was a

sinner who actually was out to destroy the church and he recognized that he was

fighting against the living God and God met with them with that famous Damascus

Road and his self understanding and his self love was transformed it was

dethroned and he understood the gospel so he could say my God and my serve in my

spirit from my heart with my soul it was it was it was body and soul to him you

know and it wasn't peripheral and it wasn't perfunct it's a great word that

isn't it perfunct today he didn't just go through the motions for him I hope

nobody's going through the motions in their faith today I can't stand that

because it's so it's so destructive of who we are if we're simply going through

the motions and we're not really we're not impressing anyone we need that

absolute rip roaring honesty in our hearts with who we are what about our

hearts who who hold your bone marrow who's got who's got your very heart and

soul to whom do you give your life and your allegiance who is it that you're

willing to say my God to I serve my God with my heart and soul or are you

closed a closed book are you known by people who knows you who knows who you

are you a completely different person here to who I am as you go into your

working life and who's to whom are you known because Paul was he wasn't flash

and he wasn't trying to impress he was simply exposing who he was as a person

that is very heart and soul that he belonged to the living God so that's a

very important part of his life he had a bone marrow faith and we can learn from

that as leaders we need to learn from that we need to learn the importance of

exposing our hearts and our lives and who we serve and all the inadequacies that

we have to our people but along with that so the second thing and it can apply

to us all of course is bone marrow faith but he also had an outward looking

heart yet an outward looking heart and that's the paradox really isn't it of

of this passage we're looking at because I've just said that his faith was

intensely personal it was right at the heart of his soul of his being that he

believed in Christ he served Christ he loved Christ he lived for Christ his

identity was in Christ absolutely individual but interestingly interestingly

it didn't make him private in his faith it didn't make it simply a personal

faith ironically it made him hugely self-forgetful that his life wasn't

bound up in his own relationship with Christ and it all matters all about him

and Jesus and nobody else mattered wasn't like that for him rather this

having this foundation of Christ who he served in his soul gave him a

tremendously outward looking heart and was made himself forgetful just like

anyone who has the love of Christ in them and in our lives we see others when

we are right with God through Jesus Christ we see others not as a threat not

as people we need to compete against not as an inconvenience especially in the

household of faith can't be bothered with anyone else but we see them as Christ

sees them we see them as people who are to be loved who are to be served so what

we have with Paul is the greatest example of servant leadership he was

someone who was able to express powerfully who he served in his heart

and that gave him a great heart for people it gave him a quote what the

Bible calls meekness which is a great word because it's related to the word

for controlling a horse you know that a horse that is broken you know used to

many young ones will and will know this but when I was young used to watch cowboy

films and there was always a horse that was mental and there was always a great

hero cowboy that could just get on the back of that horse and break it somehow

so it stopped being wild and it became a useful servant horse in technical terms

I'm sure there's another way of explaining that but that's what meekness

means it means the controlled strength of a horse that is bridled and reigned

and can will go where it's it's bidden it's bidden to go and meekness is often

in our society associated with weakness but that is not what we have at all in

Paul and in Christ we have meekness which is controlled strength channeled

love and Paul reveals that in this introduction in the way he speaks about

this people he never visited them he never actually been to see them we know

that from the letter he does we do know that he knows some of them because he

he gives his greetings to some of them at the end of the letter some of them

would have traveled and ended up in Rome and he knew them but he didn't know

them all but this letter is powerfully filled with his love and compassion for

the people he longs to go and meet so he's thankful for them in verse 8 I thank

my God for all of you for because your faith is produced in all the world so he

recognizes immediately that he has a debt for the family he now belongs to the

family of God and he's thankful for them now was he thankful for them because he

didn't know them maybe he's gonna be thankful for people you don't know and

for churches you've never been to but if he really knew the church he'd probably

be just pulling his hair out well no that well there may be an element of

truth in that but he was very thankful for the church in Corinth and we know the

kind of battles and difficulties and struggles that were in that church it

wasn't perfect but he was grateful and in being grateful he was self-forgetful

he was able to be thankful for them and give thanks and express that thanks to

them now his elders and his deacons and his leaders in the church what is our

default position for our people very often for us we're critical very often

we're finding fault very often we're thinking more about ourselves and what

what what they should be doing and how they should be acting towards us maybe

you're worried and leading maybe you're resentful you thought my goodness not

again do I have to do they have to do and we can have that attitude and it cannot

be one of thankfulness because we've lost sight of the grace that belongs to us

by God's gift he was thankful as he looked outwardly he was also prayerful

in verse 9 he says for God is my witness who my serve my spirit without

ceasing I mention you always in my prayers and goes on to explain what he

says and earlier on he he gives a benediction to them in verse 7 he says

grace and peace to you from God my father so he was he was prayerful as he

looked out and as he served he he can he was concerned this is broader isn't it

just in leaders isn't it I hope you're not sitting back there all kind of

here are getting a hard time today because it applies to all of us in many

ways and we should all be prayerful but particular as leaders praying for grace

for ourselves and our people that is to know that we are more sinful than we

ever believed and yet more loved than we ever dared hope and praying not just for

grace but also for peace what does that mean I think and I'm not going to spend

time on this I think the best description of it shelter in the storm

it's not a kind of soft gentle life without stress and hassle and then

difficulties it's saying that as Christ's we can know shelter in the storms

of life in the battles in the difficulties in the struggles not just

praying for everyone to have a great time but it's recognizing the need for

that foundation which gives us shelter in the storm and Paul prays without

ceasing for those people he prays for their strengthening he prays that they

will grow you know and that's an amazing thing I don't know how he did it I

don't know how time for anything else because all his letters all as an

apostle all his letters say I'm praying for you I'm remembering you in Galatia

remembering you in Ephesus and remembering in Rome I'm remembering you I'm

remembering Timothy I'm remembering the leaders I'm praying for all of these

people you this incredible prayerful ministry and yet he was probably one of

the most active leaders that has ever been known to the world the Christian

world elders deacons are we praying for our people are we praying kingdom prayers

are we sacrificial in our prayer times are we making city groups our people a

priority in prayer so thankful humble prayerful briefly also he's humble we

recognize that as he expresses his prayer to them and says that he longs to

come to them but that he's dependent on God allowing him to do so because he's

long to be with him in the past and hasn't been able to come he wants to

strengthen them and impart a spiritual gift and to be mutually encouraged

isn't it great he's really humble because he's saying look he's not demanding of

God he recognizes that up till now he's not been able to get to them and he

sees God has had other purposes for him up to this point and ironically his

prayer is answered he does get to them but he gets to them in chains he gets to

them with Roman guards because he has to go and meet Caesar not how he expected I

don't suppose that prayer to be answered he is both strong because he sees that

he is something to offer them he is gift spiritual teaching and learning and

encouragement but he's also needy because he needs to be mutually encouraged

by them great great great leadership so he goes to the Corinthian church and he

says I come in weakness and fear and in much trembling so there's a vulnerability

in his strength and a vulnerability that matches his humility that we need to

stop giving the impression of spiritual invincibility we need to stop thinking

that we've got all the answers or stop giving the impression that we have all

the answers this is a dual where it's a corporate sense of mutual encouragement

between leaders and people and you need to encourage your leaders as well as us

encouraging you and being encouraged it's a kind of backward and forward thing

together so let's stop pretending we're invincible and let's stop pretending

that we don't need one another as Christians and then lastly we see about

him and then I'll speak briefly about the loyalty his kingdom centered he's he

recognizes that they have a calling they have a calling under Christ I'll say a

little bit more about that again that there is a harvest that he's eager to

preach the gospel that he's obligated to them all and he sees himself as part of

the kingdom answer he's longing to be used in God's kingdom and his service

so that's Paul okay briefly and finally we'll look at the laity what he says here

really and explains about the Christian church of which we're a part as well I

think sometimes maybe you want a how-to isn't it we all want a how-to we want to

know the steps have been a better Christian what what can I get practically

that will help me tomorrow when I go out of here and what we find often is that

the Bible isn't like that it's it's not a it's not primarily a moral guidebook

while it is that it's primarily is deeper than that it's more foundation it's not

a how-to seven steps to eight things you should do nine things you should avoid

eleven things you should practice it's not it's it's not a self-help book it's

a book that introduces you to the living God and that's what Paul

prioritizes here in the doctrine of salvation the first eleven chapters then

he speaks about how you go and live your life and so I hope that you find the

truth that you get through the word and through preaching it's something that

you take as these people to enter their day-to-day living so that people a

couple of things here very briefly first is they were saints okay they were

saints grace and peace to you to called to be saints in verse seven he says okay

these were ordinary people they were absolutely ordinary people he knew some

of them and they were going about their everyday lives but they were saints so

you could you could you could re translate this if you want to bring up

and today I say to all those in Edinburgh and St. Columba's who are loved by God and

called to be saints because it's the same truth for ourselves called to be

saints could maybe it's not the best maybe not the best translation it could

be you could it could be who are loved by God or beloved of God called comma

saints it's not called sometime in the future to be saints or not called you'll

be saints when you die or you'll get a sainthood one day but it's called and

we're saints it could might be better translated saints by virtue of having

been called so everyone who is a Christian is a saint that's what we

believe that's what the Bible teaches all of us because being a saint simply

means to be set aside set apart to serve and it's used 67 times in the New

Testament this word and in all but one of its instances it's used in the

plural so it's the church it's all the saints everyone's a Christian every

believer you've been made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ and you're called

to be holy to be set apart to serve in the same way that Paul speaks about

it's bone marrow stuff again in other words and that's why he wants them to

understand the doctrine of salvation in this book because it's so important to

understand that we are saints that we are set apart you know it's not Saint

Derek set apart and everyone else does their own thing now I'm sure Colombo

was a gray guy but he's no saint compared with everyone else we're all the

same together so you could be Saint Martha and you can be Saint Don and you

can be Saint Annie and you can be Saint Neil we're all saints here together

because we're all set apart we're all bought with a price we're all called to

serve the Lord Jesus Christ so all the saints and that's very important

beloved he says are loved by God now let's grasp that that God's love for you

as a Christian it precedes it accompanies and it follows after your love

for him you're engulfed in it before you were born as elect children your love

by God is a purpose and a calling and a work for you to do how many was

strong I think a lot of us struggle with that particular truth in Christ your

loved you've always been loved you always will be loved how hard is it to

understand that that circumstances will not make a difference to his commitment

to you as a believer that he loves you and he continues to love you how much

does it change the way we act when we know we're loved but accepted with

adopted how much does it change our self-worth our security our stability

our attitude to others when we know we're loved I got a book for Christmas

called humans of New York I probably told you that already I don't read very

much but when I read I enjoy them and this was a great book it's a book that

is written by a guy who has gone out and interviewed lots of people in the

streets of New York and a lot of them in their lives of it all kinds of

difficulty and hardship many of them are dysfunctional in where they've arrived

and 99% of them say well immediately almost in the first or second set

sentence of their interview say that their parents didn't love them that they

were rejected that they were thrown out or that they were abused or battered or

whatever it happens to be because so much of our lives can be molded by that

sense of not being loved as a child not belonging not being cared for and

however that can manifest itself in our lives in Christ it can be redeemed and

renewed and we can know that we are loved in this remarkable way so we're saints

and then lastly we see that we're saints together we're saints together Paul makes

that clear when he speaks to the church twice he says to all he says to all in

Rome that is all in the church and then he goes on again to say it all of you

first of all I thank my God for all of you not just for the leaders not just

for the special few I thank my God for all of you and the letter is to all of

them and then in verse 14 he goes on to say his obligation is to Greeks to

barbarians to the wise and to the foolish he doesn't he doesn't differentiate

that there's this great saints and saints together that he recognizes as the

truth of the gospel that he's been given by God and that's a great challenge to

us in our Christian life unity in diversity so challenging for the

Christian church for you as a Christian as part of this church to recognize

unity and diversity and there's a lot of now I'm going to be controversial here

because there's a lot of missional studies missiology that examines and

looks at churches and looks at how churches grow and and how things develop

and many of them say that generally churches grow and and plants will grow

church plants will grow along socioeconomic lines so that mainly they

will grow because you know you speak to your friends about the gospel and your

friends are in the same socioeconomic group as you and so the law will grow

that way so that since he's primarily you know we're an educated middle-class

professional sometimes highland kind of flavored church and that's basically

what we are and if you go to Nidra it's different it's a working-class scheme

community church that that sees people coming to faith from that community and

it's this homogenous at that level we're homogenous at our level now okay I'm

being radical maybe it's true of course it's true and to a degree it's to be

expected because you're gonna reach out to those who are closest to you aren't

okay be what you work with the people your neighbors with and and that's

that's absolutely normal however I think at another level it's profoundly

disturbing to only accept that because true grace isn't selective like that and

it's not just for my friends and for my social circle and oh they'll be great to

be converted because I like them anyway and they're the people that I got on with

the gospel works against natural snobbery and inverted snobbery because it

can work both ways and we don't believe in reaching out only to the elite of

society with the gospel because they're the ones that will affect the rest of

society in some kind of drip down spiritual economics we don't believe

that because that's that is not how God works gospel communities and these

churches changed the world because they broke down the divisions and there was

Greeks and barbarians there was wise and foolish all together sitting on the

eldership there was there was there was people who swept the streets and there

was people who did the economics for the society who were leaders together in

the church families of educated uneducated rich and poor together and

it confounded the world and it changed the world of their day they were

reputed for their faith their faith in Jesus Christ which brought them together

and which brought them together in a Christ motivated love it was big news

and that I think is challenging for us that our grace is something we share

and live with with whoever happens to be our neighbor the people that we come

across so within that we see a paradox a paradox of a strong church that their

faith was being proclaimed in all the world but one that sensed its own

weakness and the threats the theological threats that it was under that Paul goes

on really to address Paul could see that you could see that in their own life in

his own life and in theirs he needed strengthening and they needed to come

together and they need to learn the doctrine of grace and they needed to

forgive and care and love together as a people and he wanted that reputation to

continue because their faith is proclaimed in all the world I wonder as

I close what's our reputation as a church what part do you play in enhancing

that reputation of the church of Christ in St. Columbus here what do you see

you're calling as as part of the church of Jesus Christ here what's your

relationship to this body of people as well as your relationship to Jesus

Christ do you have one now I want to finish with an encouragement for you

okay sometimes the preaching you can be just wagging the finger and I was

sorry I didn't mean to wag my finger okay it wasn't the finger of wagging it

was the finger of encouragement kind of okay but I want to finish with a real

encouragement for you because I got a letter this week beautiful letter I've

asked for permission from the person who wrote it to read it but the person

never got back to me but I'm gonna read it anyway okay because it was really to

the whole congregation it wasn't just to us as a family you might guess who it is

I'm not gonna say who it is and one of the words will certainly give away where

he comes from okay this past fall okay autumn if he was only educated this past

autumn we launched a community group through our church with a vision for

providing a meal every week to those who come at the very first meeting I told

our group a story about how he came to know the Lord for the first time in an

intimate way in a church in Scotland the dinner is both a symbol of the church as

the gospel envisions it and a weekly reminder on all those meals you and

members of St. Columba's provided to the spiritually and physically hungry to

people like me or any number of those street walking souls who might be

tempted to keep walking always rather than find peace among a beautiful

imperfect community of God's people whatever they're found what you do and

the spirit with which you do it is nothing short of a miracle such an

acute expression of the love of God that there's part of me worried I'll be

blinded if I stay too long among the amazing people of St. Columba's remember

that and be encouraged and keep going and serve Jesus Christ from the soul out

from the bone marrow of your life out because it transforms some people's

lives not as many as we want we want to see this place filled to the rafters

but maybe that'll come by God's grace and by God's favor I've gone on longer

than I said I would today so we are very shortly going to celebrate the Lord

supper which is a great way of concluding our worship here and remember as

we celebrate and as we participate that you're a saint as a Christian remember

you're set apart because of what he has done for you and meditate on that for the

few minutes of quiet that we do have and the eaten bread eat the bread and drink

the wine is saints together that's one of the reasons that in the setup that we

have now that we take the bread and the wine and we go back to our seats and

then we do it together we eat the bread and then we drink the wine together

because it's a sign of unity together and consider what place grace plays in

your relationship with the church I'm going to give thanks for the bread and

the wine and for the Lord supper and we remember the privilege that we have of

celebrating that together before I do so I'm going to read that's another this is

actually the passage that I was reading for today from the Bible in a year and

it's just the in many ways the institution that we are given in Mark's

Gospel when they'd sung of him they went out to the Mount of Olives and Jesus

said to them you will all fall away for it is written I oh no sorry

14 years 22 it's the section before sorry as they were eating he took bread and

after blessing it broke it and gave it to them and said take this is my body

and he took a cup and when he had given thanks he gave it to them and they all

drank of it and he said to them this is my blood of the covenant which is poured

out for many truly I say to you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine

until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God so we're going to pray

together and then I'll explain a little bit of what we're going to do Father God

we thank you for this day we thank you for your word we thank you for the Lord

supper for this visible practical experience of eating and drinking

remembering your death your body and blood which you shed and remembering it

because you're risen because on this first day of the week we worship a

crucified and risen Savior for whom life is gifted to us as we come in

forgiveness and faith so may we know your presence in a very powerful way as

we celebrate the Lord's supper together in Jesus name amen