THE GOSPEL AND THE POWER OF GOD speaker: Steve Froehlich; date: January 17, 2016 text: Romans 1:1-17: Gospel

Romans 1:1-6; 14-17 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, 6 including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. 14

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16For 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. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

The force has awoken. The latest Star Wars film is breaking box office records around the world, and it appears JJ Abrams has rebooted the franchise. Some of you have seen the film multiple times – you know who you are. I was talking with one of our college students last week, and once again, I have to trot out that sage piece of wisdom given to me by Doug Houge on my first visit to Ithaca. Talk about what you know about; don’t talk about what you don’t know about. Clearly, I know little about the Star Wars universe and mythology. But I know the big stuff. Central to the story is the Force. What is the Force you ask? Early in the film series, Obi Wan Kenobi says, “The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” Now according to Star Wars theology, a popular riff on Eastern religious thought, the Yin and Yang of the Force was light and dark, or good and evil – the Force could be used for either. But the goal, the great quest of the Star Wars mythology, is to find the one... the saviour who could maintain the balance of the force. Now while all this talk about balance in the Force makes for some fun dialogue between Yoda and Luke, the story line of the film will utterly collapse if it buys into that view of life. When we get to the end of the first 3 films, we may be sort of glad that Darth Vader sees a glimmer of light, but we will not be glad at all if the Death Star doesn’t get blown into oblivion. The audience will have none of the happy equilibrium at the climactic moment of the story. The audience doesn’t want to see Obi Wan and Darth having latte at Gimme! Coffee... being Facebook friends... getting together for a SuperBowl party. No, like all great stories about the struggle of good and evil, we want evil to be

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destroyed. We want good to win. We want the bad guys to go down in total humiliating defeat. Let right be done! And that’s what we get when we come to the gospel. No Star Wars balance of the Force. And, not just some abstract good, but THE Good, the One True Good, God – Father, Son, and Spirit – we get the God who wins. God wins decisviely, ultimately, finally so that evil is no more. There is no lone Tai fighter or Corellian cruiser that jumps to light speed and escapes to the far reaches of the galaxy. Suffering and sin are obliterated from the universe. God doesn’t hold good and evil in balance. Darkness cannot endure the light. God is an enemy of evil, and he hates what it is, what it does to his world and those who bear his image. As John Donne wrote, in the end, Death thou shalt die. All that remains will be life... life that comes from God alone... everlasting life in the perfection of the world made new. Before we return to our study of the Beatitudes, I want to bring you back to these opening verses in Romans. Several times we’ve come to these verses at the beginning of the year because I want us to start the year by refocusing us on our mission – What is God doing in the world, and how are we a apart of it. Nothing is more central to the mission of God than the gospel. And if we are confused about the gospel, we will not understand or have confidence in what God is doing in our lives, in the world, and in history. While we could mine these opening verses of Romans for months, I want us to focus our thoughts on the gospel and the power of God. What is the power of the gospel? I. The gospel is the power of God alone The gospel not only describes someone who is full of power, but the gospel is the power of God The gospel comes from who God is His character His purposes... It is God in action The gospel is God at work with the fullness of his being: His omnipotence His eternality His asceity – that is, his self-sufficiency His omnipresence The gospel is how we know God and his purpose in creation and in redemption. Look at the opening vss of our text Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5through whom we have received

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grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, 6including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ Here is God at work in all that he has spoken – his holy Word, both written and spoken by his ordained messengers He is at work in history, so that from ancient times long ago God knew how he was going to display his glory in Christ, and how he was going to bring salvation both to the world, to all the nations, as well as to you and me. Here is a power at work in all that he as created... a power so immense that time and space yield to his will. And yet, no detail is lost. The power of the gospel is so great, that as Jesus says in the Gospels, “I will not lose one of my sheep.” As Paul writes to his friends in Rome and to us, the power of God in the gospel is at work in you... and you... and you. This is no impersonal force or some tidal wave, tsunami, force of nature This is the person of God, the creator of the world... this is the Triune God conspiring to bring creation to completion – the Father sends the Son, who by the power of the Holy Spirit was revealed to be our Saviour and Lord by his resurrection from the dead. Only our God has the power to bring this world into being. Only our Gopd has the power to so work in history that it tells His story and fulfills all he has purposed and promised. Only our God has the power to raise Jesus from the dead to be our invincible champion. Only our God has the power to redeem us from sin, and to bring creation to completion. Our God is at work accomplishing his purpose for creation and for his people at every moment of history, in every corner of the world... like the pulse of your blood pumping, he is at work by his power, relentlessly, certainly. II. The gospel is the power of God to claim and capture our lives. We live in a world of amazing opportunity, freedom, options. I know that there are those who face great oppression in Ithaca, in America, in the West. Yet, when I’m in Wegmans in line behind someone paying with food stamps, I pray that my neighbor’s situation in life will improve... and at the same time I give thanks for the abundance of options even for someone dependent on food stamps. But whether you are dependent on food stamps or trying hard to make your budget work, don’t you feel this yearning to be free from restraint from limitations that sometimes feel like they are squeezing the life out of you. If you’re a teenage, you’ve probably given thought to what life would be like without the restraint of your parents. Independence. We all struggle with the myth of greener grass – over there, in that other situation, that other relationship, that other job... surely I would find the freedom that I desire. But the power of the gospel brings us freedom not by unleashing us into a life of unfettered independence. No, the power of the gospel, as is so typlical of the way God

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does things in the kingdom of God... the power of the gospel enslaves us to make us free. God captures us so that as we sing, “Thy bonds are freedom.” Notice the very first words Paul pens in his magnum opus about the gospel. Paul, a slave... Paul a servant. My life is about doing someone else’s will, and in doing so, I find the greatest freedom possible. Paul continues so that we don’t miss the point: I’ve been called, summoned, commissioned to a task... God has set me apart... he has set me on a path, a course, a direction that is about his power tracing the arc, the trajectory of our lives. Redemption, the gospel, realigns us with creation. But... lest we mistake God’s power to claim us as mere idle manipulation... God’s turning things upside down just to see what will happen... No, God’s call upon us, God’s claim upon us as his people, is the claim he makes upon his Son, Jesus who steps into the world as one of us. Jesus is the declaration of God, the promise of God, the work of God, the power of God at work... and we are simply following in the footsteps of our Lord – God the Father has sent him, has called him... and so he calls us to be like Jesus... called to serve... called to call others to this same slavery, this same bond, that is in reality true freedom. God claims us and captures us, so that our life is now the obedience of faith. Paul opens and closes this letter with this phrase – the obedience of faith. Is this mere duty? Has God claimed us, and captured us, to enslave us to a life of rules and regulations, of obligation, of burdened responsibility? That’s certainly not the way Paul invites us to think about this way of life to which God has called us. I think this idea, the obedience of faith, will become more clear as we press on. But make no mistake, the good news of the gospel is about the power of God to claim us, to possess us, and to set our feet in to a path that is the very path that Jesus has walked before us. So, when God claims us by his power, it is to become present in our lives... it is to place us in his presence. He has come to be with us, and he will never leave us or forsake us – this is a power beyond anything we know. It is the power of the gospel to capture our hearts, and to transform us from the inside out, the power to gather us into his presence and re-order our hearts and lives so that we may delight in and be complete in the glory of the new heavens and earth, all to the praise of his glorious grace. III. The gospel is the power of God to heal our shame. The gospel is the power of God alone The gospel is the power of God to claim and capture our lives. The gospel is the power of God to heal our shame. There are 2 arms with which God embraces us... just as Jesus’ parable the Father running to meet his foolish, and filthy son coming over the hill, coming home.... the Father running shamelessly, abandoning all dignity... he embraces his son. No halfhearted, embarrassed embrace... but arms wrapped tightly around his dear son, the New Life Presbyterian Church © 2016  Ithaca, NY

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embrace which says, you are mine, you are home, you are safe, you are loved. The tears of the father, leaving the stains of the dirt on his cheeks and clothes. So, too, the gospel embraces us with both arms of the Father, and we must believe in the power of each. The gospel is the power of God to heal our shame, and this is the 1st of the 2 arms of God’s gospel embrace In the parable of the lost son, the Father has every reason to be ashamed of his son, a son who had abused the Father’s love and generosity, who had muddied the family’s good name and the Father’s reputation. But the Father gladly bears the shame for the love of his son. The son comes to his senses in the mud and filth of the pigstye. But just as he is cacked with the filth of the pigs, he is muddied with shame. He knows how he has humiliatied his father. He knows how he has scorned his father to live his own life. He knows how his brother has always done the right thing, the model son... So, there’s no reason to think that he will not spend the rest of his days, no longer a son but as a common laborer, an outcast, one who has given up his place in the family... his days will be spent with the haunting humiliation of what might have been What is shame? Shame is rooted in deep disappointment, an unmet expectation that cuts so deeply it divides a relationship. Shame can be the action imposed on someone else – the act of disgracing or humiliating someone else as a declaration of unworthiness or disappointment. It is indeed a powerful action – parents shame their children often to control them, spouses shame one another, it happens on every playground in every schoolyard every day: you’re ugly, you’re stupid, you’re so gay. Shame is also the response, the experience of unworthiness and disappointment, sometimes as the very understandable reaction to being shamed, but sometimes as the consequence of our own unmet expectations – we have such high hopes for a situation or relationship, and when it does not work out as we anticipated, a kind of shame may be mingled with our disappointment in ourselves. Shame can be the product of a wounded pride. Allendar - “Shame is a flight from intimacy. It is one of our deepest fears: We will be isolated and mocked forever. It is a taste of hell--the experience of being caught without defense or cover and condemned to unrelenting humiliation. There are many reasons we might feel shame. We may feel the hot blush of shame when we face Pragmatism: Where is the promise of his coming? What difference does Xnity make Suffering: The cross – the cost of following Christ Hypocrisy: the failure of Christians – our sin, hypocrisy Unbelief: the foolishness of the gospel Rejection, disapproval, scorn, mockery... or perhaps worse, polite toleration New Life Presbyterian Church © 2016  Ithaca, NY

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Allendar – Shame is feeling exposed as ugly beyond words. Nothing else cuts to the core so personally as shame does. Philosopher Jean Paul Sartre referred to it as a ‘hemorrhage of the soul.’ Shame drains us of energy and withers our desire to exist.” Here is the great irony – the Gospel, if not clearly understood can be the biggest source of shame imaginable. Nothing strips us bare and leaves us vulnerable and naked, exposed and desperately unprotected than the Gospel… or at least an incomplete Gospel When we confess our sins and stand honestly before the Lord, we say I have sinned We say, I am unworthy But the powerful voice of the gospel responds, But you are not worthless A thing is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. What has God paid to claim you? He’s given his son, his only son, his dearly beloved son... and the Son has given himself freely... the son has laid down his life because he loves you more than life itself. We may feel shame from parents, from friends, from teachers, from employers, from spouses and those we love. But the power of the gospel is greater than all of those... and don’t minimize the power that the influence of parents... the shaming disappointment of parents, the shaming expectation of parents, and friends, and teachers... Shame cripples and defeats us But the power of the gospel lifts our head. The Lord of heaven and earth, God Almight, Christ our friend and brother, says, I’m not shamed of you. You belong to me. We are family forever. And the Father puts the ring on our finger, the robe on our shoulder, he celebrates extravagently, and he seats us at the place of honor forever. He claims us as his own and Jesus will never be ashamed to be known as our brother. This is the power of the gospel, the strong embrace of the gospel. In Christ... when we entrust our lives to Christ, we are home. We belong, never to be cast out or put down. The Lord God says, You are mine. You are my beloved. I love you. What will keep us from sacrificing our dignity to find acceptance, from being a slave to people demands and expectations that we some how might win their approval... Some thing infinintly greater holds us and sustains – God accepts us for Jesus sake... for Christ’s sake alone, you are loved and given honor by the God of glory. IV. The gospel is the power of God to make us righteous Here is the 2nd arm of the gospel by which we know God’s powerful embrace. First, he heals our shame, he heals our estrangement and alienation by accepting us as his beloved for Jesus’ sake and giving us glory. Second, he forgives us of all of our sins. All of them. The metaphors God gives us to help us grasp the reality of his mercy are extravagant. As far as the east is from the New Life Presbyterian Church © 2016  Ithaca, NY

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west, so far have I hurled your sin so that I remember it no more. God declares that we are forgiven for the sake of Jesus our substitute. God deals with our guilt – as the psalmist writes, “Oh Lord, if you should mark our sins, who could stand? No one. But... here is the gospel in the OT, Ps 130... but with you there is forgiveness. All our sins are washed away. Not one remains unforgiven, uncovered by Christ’s atoning grace. But there’s more. The good news of the gospel is not only that God forgive us... but it’s also that he makes us righteous Look again at our text. The power of the gospel comes to change how we live We live with the constraint of love for all people who have yet to hear and believe. We live as servants of God Faith produces obedience. But the closing line that Paul lifts from Habakkuk – again, the gospel in the OT The righteous live by fiath It means: Those whom God has made righteous live by faith. There are people in this life, in this room, right now... you know some of them who live by faith. Who are those people? They are the righteous. Not the people who try hard to do good – not people who are righteous because of their faith Of course, people who live by faith in the gospel live unselfishly, and with an obligaton of love for others But we must keep the sequence straight if we are to know the power of the gospel if it is to be the grace of God. God for Christ’s sake has made us righteous. He’s made us holy. He calls us saints, holy ones when we repent and trust in the righteousness of Christ. The righteous are NOT those who have fulfilled the law of God and whose lives of acceptable goodness have satisfied the holiness of God. No. The righteous are those who are robed with an alien righteousness, Luther says, a righteousness that is not of our making. It is the righteousness of Christ conferred upon us so that God treats us like Christ – holy, righteous... so that as forgiven people, as people who live under the gracious satisfaction of Christ, we may live... we may give our lives away. If we know that our relationship to God is based on the eternal life of the truly righteous one, then our obedience flows from hearts and minds made new, our trust and confidence that the gospel is true... and real... and is good news beyond our wildest dreams. Our life of faith is always learning to live FROM all that Christ has accomplished – TOWARD all that he is completing. There is nothing of faith or grace or hope if we insist in on living to satisfy God. Here’s the bad news... you and I can never make God happy – only Christ can do that. That is truly the good news of a powerful gospel

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V. The gospel is the power of God to reconcile enemies The gospel is God’s power alone, not ours The gospel is the power of God to claim and capture us The gospel is the power of God to heal our shame The gospel is the power of God to make us righteous Finaly, the gospel is the power of God to reconcile enemies – Jews, Greeks, barbarians, wise, foolish, rich, poor, noble, common, male female. When we were alienated from God, we had our backs turned to him. We rejected him as king. And in making ourselves sovereign, we made ourselves his rivals, his mortal enemies. Babel blows to bits the unity of the human race, but in the Cross time works backward. Jesus undoes the tower of Babel as God recreates one family out of every tribe, tongue, and nation. But the power of the gospel changing our hearts, capturing our wills, changes us from enemies to lovers. We are God’s beleved. God is reconciled,because Christ has become our peace – he has made peace between God and all who put their trust in him. But if we are reconciled to God, so we are bound to be reconciled to one another. It is an utter contradiction of the gospel for us as Christians to claim to be at peace with God, but not be at peace with one another. God, in reconciling us to himself, has crossed a distance greater than any racial, social, or ethnic divide. He has come to establish peace with his people, that we might be a community that leads the way in practicing peace. Yesterday, NYS Presby adopted a resolution repenting of our corporate complicity in acts of racism. Furthermore, we pledged to work out in our congregations and communities a reconcilation that embodies and anticipates the gathering of the nations. It’s the promise God made to Abraham – in you all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Here again, the gospel in the OT. The good news has never been a private message just for a few people living on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. The angels announced the birth of Jesus, the Incarnation with the message Joy to the world. So, Paul echoes that large vision of the gospel by saying he’s bound to serve and brng the gospel to Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish – in otherwords, the whole breadth of human society – everyone And if we have been made righteous, we will love with the love of God... Paul’s burden is one of love for those who have yet to hear. We as the church are to hold ourselves to the highest of standards on this regard – as we come to the Table discerning the Body, we are to ask ourselves... am I at odds with anyone, Do I treat anyone with pride or consdesention... Do I treat people with partiality. To be eager to reconcile with one another means that we don’t live in relationships because we have something to prove (often, I need to prove that I”m better than you). But Jesus has humbled himself – he laid aside his glory, and submitted himself to humailiation and death. We are left no room to live any differently than Jesus... so that in dying to self we might honor others and lift them up... to point them to Christ, and New Life Presbyterian Church © 2016  Ithaca, NY

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devote ourselves to their flourishing, to their being complete in Christ. This we do in every area of life, in all our work, and in our lives together as a church family. This is the power of the Gospel

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