Written by: Dennis Pethers – Viz-A-Viz
Romans 3 v 19-20
We know that the law’s commands are for those who have the law. This stops all
excuses and brings the whole world under God’s judgement, because no one can
be made right with God by following the law. The law only shows us our sin.
Notes
What is it that has the ability to turn us, gobby humans into mutes? There
are those times in life - whether through self-discovery, realisation of
truth, the viewing of something shocking or horrific, or the hearing of bad
news - that can produce no other response but that of no response, when there
are no excuses and our mouths are silenced.
Paul, when writing to the Romans - to both Jews and Gentiles (those who believed in God and those who didn’t) - speaks of the law, the Old Testament, the rules by which the Jews lived and the rules through which many felt justified and fit to enter heaven through their surrender to “good living”. Paul unashamedly shatters this illusion in these verses: “This stops all excuses”; “the whole world” will be held accountable.
The silence comes, not through feeling justified by obeying the law, but by allowing the rules to shape our lives, revealing where we meet the grade but where we, all too often, miss the mark. The World Cup winning, England rugby captain, Martin Johnson, speaks highly of rules, saying that without them you won’t achieve anything, and that if everyone in his team did as they pleased, they wouldn’t get anywhere.
We all need something that guides us. True, the process of realising our faults and limitations may be a painful experience, but the joy of conquering the sin we discover in our lives will far outweigh the silence of the process. Embrace the rules, realising that they’re not there to stop us having fun or to purposely make us feel bad about ourselves. Instead, they’re there to bring out the best in us and to bring us ever closer to God.
Prayer
I want to be the best I can be for You, God. Please help me to stop fighting
against the rules that I find difficult and allow them to shape my life today,
realising that You know best. Amen
Romans 3 v 21-26
But God has a way to make people right with him without the law, and he has
now shown us that way which the law and the prophets told us about. God makes
people right with himself through their faith in Jesus Christ. This is true
for all who believe in Christ, because all people are the same: all have
sinned and are not good enough for God’s glory, and all need to be made right
with God by his grace, which is a free gift. They need to be made free from
sin through Jesus Christ. God gave him as a way to forgive sin through faith
in the blood of Jesus’ death. This showed that God always does what is right
and fair, as in the past when he was patient and did not punish people for
their sins. And God gave Jesus to show today that he does what is right.
God did this so he could judge rightly and so he could make right any person
who has faith in Jesus.
Notes
The inescapable predicament that faced mankind, as described by Paul in all
of Romans up until this point, leaves the reader devoid of hope for we know
that it doesn’t matter who we are or what we’ve done, we’ve all “sinned and
are not good enough for God’s glory”. This depressing opening to a letter
changes at verse 21 where we find the turning point of the entire letter.
“But” Paul says, shining a ray of light into our dark world, offering us
hope and a way of escape from our shortfalls. We are pointed in the direction
of the escape route and salvation through Jesus.
I’m sure that many people reading this will have been to see Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ”. As I’m writing this, I have already seen it twice at the cinema. “Blood of Jesus’ death” sounds all very well and good in Paul’s first century letter, but words like this suddenly come alive when they are enacted before your eyes in graphic detail on a gigantic screen, with a sound system that makes you feel like you are actually there.
As the day starts, remember that Christ did not come so that you can have a cup of tea and a chat on a Sunday in a nice, warm, comfortable church with many other smiley people, all hiding the same problems that you and I seem to be able to disguise so well. Claim the chance to be right with God, for it has the power to change, enable and reform your life and the lives of the people around you. It’s a great gift; that’s why it cost so much!
Prayer
Thank you, God, for Your fantastic gift of Jesus. Please make a change in my
life today, make something new in me and give me a fresh understanding of
who You are. I want to be right with You, Lord. Amen
Romans 3 v 27-31
So do we have a reason to brag about ourselves? No! And why not? It is the
way of faith that stops all boasting, not the way of trying to obey the law.
A person is made right with God through faith, not through obeying the law.
Is God only the God of the Jews? Is he not also the God of those who are
not Jews? Of course he is, because there is only one God. He will make Jews
right with him by their faith, and he will also make those who are not Jews
right with him through their faith. So do we destroy the law by following
the way of faith? No! Faith causes us to be what the law truly wants.
Notes
Question: How do you know that you’re saved? Are you saved through your observance
of the law and by doing what your minister or vicar suggests you should do?
Or are you saved by grace? In this passage, Paul underlines that salvation
is for all people, not just the Jews, and therefore it is grace and our faith
in Christ that saves us, not righteous acts. This by no means makes it OK
to completely disregard the law, though, because “Faith causes us to be what
the law truly wants”.
This is such a refreshing thought, revealing God’s unchanging nature: He has always loved us and wants the best for us. True, we are made right with God through faith in Christ, but God sending Jesus to earth wasn’t a new plan. He didn’t shake His divine Etch-a-Sketch until there was nothing left and then start all over again. It was all part of the same plan, the same promise and the same passion.
As another week begins, don’t think that you are better than everyone else because you went to church. Replace that pride with privilege and let that guide your day. When we live, realising that we are all a part of the master plan and that God considers each of us special enough to be part of it, that puts life in perspective. So today, live life in the privilege.
Prayer
Thank You, Lord, for letting me be part of Your plan. Help me to realise that
I haven’t earned it, but that You have given this privilege to me. Thank
You for the gift of Jesus, and may that gift shape my words and actions today.
Amen
Romans 4 v 1-6
So what can we say that Abraham, the father of our people, learned about faith?
If Abraham was made right by the things he did, he had a reason to boast.
But this is not God’s view, because the Scripture says, “Abraham believed
God, and God accepted Abraham’s faith, and that faith made him right with
God.”
When people work, their pay is not given as a gift, but as something earned.
But people cannot do any work that will make them right with God. So they must
trust in him, who makes even evil people right in his sight. Then God accepts
their faith, and that makes them right with him. David said the same thing.
He said that people are truly blessed when God, without paying attention to
good deeds, makes people right with himself.
Notes
I sometimes do things in secret that my friends and family don’t know about
- sometimes good things; sometimes not so good things. I’ve helped mothers
down the stairs with their prams at train stations, I’ve donated money to
help children in the third world, and I’ve given my lunch to a homeless person
who I saw curled up in a doorway. There’s no one there to see me do these
things or to congratulate me on my saintly acts, but I do it anyway. Sometimes,
though, I look at things that I know I shouldn’t look at, I do things that
I know I shouldn’t do, and I think things that I know I shouldn’t think.
There’s no one there to witness these things, but I do them anyway.
Lots of us congratulate ourselves for helping the old lady down the stairs and we imagine God up in heaven smiling down at us. He’s never seemed so close. However, the same person who feels this proud warmth can also get depressed after looking lustfully at a magazine centrespread, or by being jealous of the possessions or talents of their friends. Then we might imagine God up in heaven scowling down at us in disappointment. This is when He’s never felt so far away. God doesn’t let us into heaven because of the good things we’ve done, neither does He exclude us from heaven because of the bad things we’ve done.
Let your day be refreshed in the knowledge that God isn’t the God who condemns us, but the God who delivers us, wanting to show us the right way. Let Him lead you down that path today.
Reflection
“So now, those who are in Christ Jesus are not judged guilty. Through Christ
Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made me free from the law that
brings sin and death” (Romans 8 v 1-2).
Romans 4 v 7-12
“Happy are they whose sins are forgiven, whose wrongs are pardoned.
Happy is the person whom the Lord does not consider guilty.”
Is this blessing only for those who are circumcised or also for those who are
not circumcised? We have already said that God accepted Abraham’s faith and
that faith made him right with God. So how did this happen? Did God accept
Abraham before or after he was circumcised? It was before his circumcision.
Abraham was circumcised to show that he was right with God through faith before
he was circumcised. So Abraham is the father of all those who believe but are
not circumcised; he is the father of all believers who are accepted as being
right with God. And Abraham is also the father of those who have been circumcised
and who live following the faith that our father Abraham had before he was
circumcised.
Notes
In the fourth century, Evagrius listed sadness as one of the eight chief sins.
Under pressure to use the “more complete” number seven, Pope Gregory the
Great later dropped sadness from the list of the seven deadly sins. Is happiness
really that important? Or more to the point, is happiness really achievable
in today’s society or is it just a “wonderland” ideal for fairy tales and
dreams? Paul certainly seemed to think that it’s achievable, and I would
tend to agree with him. True happiness is something that is in our hearts
and not changed by external things and events.
The Jews had a very external way of showing that they belonged to God’s people (circumcision) which represented a legal code that they adhered to. In today’s Bible verses, happiness is equated with knowing God. It’s got nothing to do with external circumcision, more an internal circumcision of faith. It’s something inside that needs to be cleansed.
Recently, I was speaking at a church and after the talk I invited people to come forward and hand things over to God – like emotions, hurts, bitternesses - that they’d been holding on to. Afterwards, I spoke to one man who’d done this. Through his tears and laughter, he explained that this was the first time in forty years that he’d done anything like this because he was a deacon of the church - but he was so glad that he had.
What things within you do you want to give to God today so that He can cleanse you, and so that you can know the happiness of experiencing Him.
Prayer
Today, Lord, I want to give You the things that I find difficult, the things
that I struggle with and the things that I’m ashamed of. With my entire life
in Your hands, please shape me and mould me, bringing about that inner joy
of knowing You in my life. Amen
Romans 4 v 13-17
Abraham and his descendants received the promise that they would get the whole
world. He did not receive that promise through the law, but through being
right with God by his faith. If people could receive what God promised by
following the law, then faith is worthless. And God’s promise to Abraham
is worthless, because the law can only bring God’s anger. But if there is
no law, there is nothing to disobey.
So people receive God’s promise by having faith. This happens so the promise
can be a free gift. Then all of Abraham’s children can have that promise. It
is not only for those who live under the law of Moses but for anyone who lives
with faith like that of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written
in the Scriptures: “I am making you a father of many nations.” This is true
before God, the God Abraham believed, the God who gives life to the dead and
who creates something out of nothing.
Notes
Do you believe that God proved, through creation, that He could make something
out of nothing? When it comes to your day-to-day life, do you still believe
that the same God can make something out of nothing in your life?
Abraham had to trust the creator God to make something out of nothing in his life, no matter how unlikely it seemed. In Genesis 17 v 4-5, God said to Abram: “I am making my agreement with you: I will make you the father of many nations. I am changing your name from Abram to Abraham because I am making you a father of many nations.” (Abram means “exalted father” and Abraham means “father of many”.)
When God told the old, childless Abraham that He’d do it, that He’d make him a father of many nations, Abraham must have been thinking that it was an impossible, crazy notion because that truly would be something out of nothing. It would be hard enough to make Abraham a father of one, let alone a father of many, “as many as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore” (Genesis 22 v 17)!
Abraham was used by God to fulfil the promise, not by obeying the law but by trusting God. He didn’t earn the promise; it was a gift. What “impossible” thing could God do through you today? Let God make something out of nothing in you and dare to believe that the creator God is capable of doing it, even in you.
Prayer
Dear Lord, please help me not to put You in a box today. I don’t want to put
restrictions on who You are or on what You can do. May I be surprised by
the fantastic things that You do. Let me let You, today. Amen
Romans 4 v 18-25
There was no hope that Abraham would have children. But Abraham believed God
and continued hoping, and so he became the father of many nations. As God
told him, “Your descendants also will be too many to count.” Abraham was
almost 100 years old, much past the age for having children, and Sarah could
not have children. Abraham thought about all this, but his faith in God did
not become weak. He never doubted that God would keep his promise, and he
never stopped believing. He grew stronger in his faith and gave praise to
God. Abraham felt sure that God was able to do what he had promised. So,
“God accepted Abraham’s faith, and that faith made him right with God.” Those
words (“God accepted Abraham’s faith”) were written not only for Abraham
but also for us. God will accept us also because we believe in the One who
raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. Jesus was given to die for our sins,
and he was raised from the dead to make us right with God.
Notes
This verse plainly underlines the crux of faith - we all believe in God to
do the massive thing, but what about the practical little thing that’s required
for the big thing to happen? Abraham was told he’d be the father of many
nations but at that moment he couldn’t even have one child.
What makes faith grow stronger? Is it God delivering everything on a plate for us and doing what we want Him to do in our time and on our terms? Or is it recognising that we can’t do it on our own and we have to trust in God to do it His way, in His time on His terms?
I know that in my life, the times that my faith has grown the most have been the times when I’ve found life tough, when I’ve been stretched and tested. People often ask God to “break and remake” them. That’s because when we are broken, when we totally release ourselves and trust in God to do it His way, it’s then that He becomes real. God is more real to me because I’ve experienced Him in the tough times.
Don’t lose vision or trust because of practical obstacles. See them as steps to a greater understanding of what God can do in you and through you.
Prayer
Lord, please help me to realise that you are always with me, even when life
is tough. Help me to turn to you, call You Daddy and trust You whilst being
held in Your arms of love - safe, secure and loved. Amen
word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes