So...Something about how we are serving from Sarah

Sometimes, serving is small stuff. Things like smiling at siblings. Scrubbing the sink or sorting the shoes. If these small services stopped, soon the big obvious things would come to a standstill as well. Though tomorrow we may have something stupendous to do for Christ, today we are just seeking to be steadfast in the small but significant services of life. 

Paul Gets Confusing

Actually, he was already confusing, but becomes even more so. Paul starts chapter three of Romans with a question (He is very fond of doing this.): What is the profit of circumcision? He’s just finished saying “if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.” 

So, if circumcision/Judaism can’t save you, what is it good for? Two things:

1. They had the word of God committed to them (3:2)
2. It shows God’s faithfulness (3:3-4)

Now Paul moves on to another question, in fact he asks the same question two different ways.

If the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?

This is what I mean by Paul getting confusing, because I don’t completely understand what he’s trying to say here. But as far as I can tell, his answer to his question is that we are all under sin. Explaining that answer would take much more than a single blog post, so I just give you his answer, backed up with the same passage of scripture Paul uses: Psalm 14:1-3.

Next, apparently thinking he has addressed any questions his audience might have (I would beg to differ from him on that point...), Paul reveals the true purpose of the law: 

That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 

 Thankfully, Paul also has good news.

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed...even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.

We are all “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood...to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

This is the part of Romans three that usually gets memorized. Much more fun than all the law doom-and-gloom stuff.

Once again, Paul fires off a bunch of rhetorical questions, in which we learn that:

• Boasting is excluded by the law of faith
• God is the God of the Gentiles as well as the Jews
• He is establishing the law, not making it void

And finally, Paul gives a very useful summary: (though it isn’t actually the last verse.)
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith, apart from the deeds of the law. 

In chapter four, Paul gives example “A” of this principle: Abraham.

2Cor. 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. 

Psalm 51

Psalm 51 is David's prayer to God after he has sinned with Bathsheba, caused the death of Uriah, and been rebuked by Nathan. Of course, what is always highlighted is his repentance and request for forgiveness. What doesn’t get emphasized nearly as often is that he also asks for two other things. He asks for renewal of joy:

Psalms 51:12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,

And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.

 This makes perfect sense once you think about it. What do we lose when we have offended God or even a fellow human? Joy. The EBC commentary explains joy in psalm 51:12 this way:

“The joy is more than an emotional expression; it is a contented resting in God. The security of having been reconciled with the Lord and of having peace with Him is of the greatest import. This joy is hence known as “the joy of your salvation””(EBC 5; ed. Frank E. Gaebelein and J. D. Douglas; Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991). 

What often pushes me to apologize to people I have hurt, even if I don’t care all that much about what they think, is that, when I am around them when our conflict remains unresolved, it drains my joy. Sometimes --even if I have acknowledged that I was wrong and asked for forgiveness-- relationships are still strained, and maintaining “contented resting in God” is uphill work. God, of course, is omnipresent, I care about what He thinks, not to mention the fact that He is the source of joy. Plenty of times when we are at odds with people we lose our joy; how much more when we are at odds with God!

The other request David makes is for wisdom (verse 6). There are many reasons we should ask for wisdom (which I won’t list here), but after you have done wrong the most obvious prayer for wisdom is that you won’t do it again. What is wisdom? The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10). If we feared God more wouldn’t we sin less? I don't know about you, but I would!

Christ has died for our sins so that we can be forgiven forever. Be joyful!

But also pray for wisdom. 

Romans 6:12 ¶ Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 

Romans 6:13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 

Romans 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.