The Victory of Holy Love

 June 18 2023

Romans 8:12-27

         Well, it doesn’t happen very often but, every once in a while, the Scripture that I am going to preach on actually connects in some way with the holiday celebrated on that day. As you also might have gathered, having worshiped with me the last five years, I work hard at keeping holiday celebrations to a minimum within our time of worship because, well, this is a time of worship and God just deserves our undivided attention. That being said, it sure seems like when you do have the words of Paul cry out, “Abba, Father,”, you just have to think that giving a shout out to Father’s Day seems rather appropriate.

         Well, not only does our scripture seem tailor made for Father’s Day, it also is a great section of the Bible that speaks to the last words that I have for you as your pastor. As I stated last week, I want all of us to stay close to Jesus. Let all of us understand that our church experiences come and go, but Jesus, the one we find where two or three are gathered, this Jesus is eternal. So, stay close to Jesus.

         This eternal relationship we have with Jesus is our connecting point with our scripture for today from the eighth chapter of Romans because here Paul writes of two very different futures that are ours depending on who we allow call the shots for our life. As you may recall from last week, the problem that had infected the social life of the Church of Rome is that there was a whole lot of judging going on. The Jewish brothers and sisters refused to eat meat because of the mere possibility that it may have been part of a sacrifice to idols. The Gentile believers thought such an idea was ridiculous because after all idols don’t even exist, so what’s the big deal? And so the Gentiles judged their Jewish brothers and sisters as being weaklings when it came to matters of faith. The Jewish brothers and sisters then proceeded to judge their Gentile brothers and sisters as obviously being lesser people because it was, after all, that God’s salvation came through the Jews. Do you begin to see how all of this judging and condemnation going on in this little house church in Rome was threatening to destroy any hopes of their being a people united in their love for Jesus?

         You see, while we tend to make light of judging others, doing it all the time without much thought about it, God, on the other hand, takes our judgment and condemnation of others quite seriously. In fact, it is this condemnation of others, this is the very reason as to why all that is found here in the book of Romans, how it is that through Jesus we are justified by faith, and now through Jesus we have salvation, all of what Jesus has done is really focused upon people judging and condemning one another. The problem with this pointing of fingers and our looking down our noses is that such attitudes come out of people whose minds are set on the flesh. To have our minds set on the flesh means that our minds are focused on the fear, the worry and the anxiety that arise out of our being faced with a certain death. So, to live by the fear, the anxiety and the worry, is to live a life where death is given the power to rule over our lives. And a sure sign that death rules in our lives is that we judge and condemn others, confirming that we are indeed not living by the Spirit. How very different was Jesus, who gave his life upon the cross condemning sin in the flesh, because he took upon himself the judgment and condemnation that we rightly deserved all so that beyond our judgment and condemnation we might have a life with him. His life is a life whose heart and mind are united with the Spirit for the Spirit longs to have a life with us forever.

         Paul, at the beginning of this eighth chapter of Romans, tells his listeners that there is now no condemnation for those who are united to Christ Jesus. And there rightly should be no judging and no condemnation for the Spirit has set us free from being people who allow sin and death to control them. Paul then goes on to point out how a life where the mind is set on the flesh is so very different then a life where the mind is set on the Spirit because he knows that this church at Rome wants badly to have it both ways. Paul, as much as points to them, and looks them in the eye and says, but, “You however are not controlled by the flesh but by the Spirit if indeed the Spirit lives among you.” This most assuredly had to have convicted those listening to Paul because they knew that they had not been living with one another in a way that witnessed to the Spirit of holiness. If the Spirit was working in them then there would have been life and peace, the blessed outcome of those who served one another as priests to God.

         Today, as we continue in this eighth chapter, Paul continues to come against these works of the flesh found in this church at Rome. Paul begins by asking just is it that we owe a debt to? Do we really owe anything to the fear, anxiety or worry that drive our lives? Obviously not! You see, if you live under the control of death then the outcome can be only death. Paul states that if you live according to the flesh your future, most certainly is death. Yet, all is not lost because Paul also holds out some hope because he also tells us that if by the Spirit you hand over to death the works of the body then you will live. Now, this is a rather odd saying, I mean just what is Paul referring to when he says to allow the Spirit to hand the works of our flesh over to death? Well, if you think about handing something over to death it isn’t a great leap to think about the sacrifices laid upon the altar for there was an animal, alive in his flesh, being handed over to death. So, I believe, here again, Paul is speaking to our lives in the Spirit in terms of being part of a priesthood, people whose work is the bringing forth of life and peace, as Paul alluded to earlier. The Spirit leads us to be his priesthood because through him we offer up the works of our flesh, those actions that arise out of our fear, anxiety and worry, as a sacrifice to God. This is to say to God that we are no longer going to allow our life to be ruled by the power of death. 

         If the Spirit then is moving in us to sacrifice all that we might do that arises out of our fear, anxiety or worry, then we must wonder just how the Spirit is going to do this work in us. We get a hint at this answer when Paul goes on to speak of those led by the Spirit of God. Here we pause to consider, just how does our God lead us? God’s leading is a tugging on us, much like Paul speaks of in the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians. There he states that it is the love of Christ which compels him. The word, “compel” here means that the love of God causes us to take a firm grasp of Christ. When we know that it is this love of God which causes us to take hold of Christ then it is not difficult to understand the Spirit’s leading happens through the love of God. In the first few verses of the fifth chapter of this letter to Romans, we learn that it is the Spirit who pours the love of God out upon our world. This strange love of God is called agape.This is a love which always seeks the best for others no matter what the cost. This is the love that we learn in the Old Testament is always known as being the faithful, steadfast love of God, the love that loves and never stops no matter what.This is the love that flows through the Spirit as he pours himself out upon the world. The Spirit then is the living presence of the holy love of God. Just as we say that this love compels us, takes hold of us, so too when Paul goes on to say that the Spirit helps us in our weakness, the help that is described there is that the Spirit is vigorously grabbing hold of us as we are desperately taking hold of the Spirit. Those who have been so taken hold of by the Spirit, by this living presence of the love of God, these we are told are the sons of God. This use of the word, “son”, is used as one who stands in line for the Father’s inheritance. When we know that our Father desires to share his future with us, why, as Paul asks us, would we want to go back and find ourselves under the spirit of slavery, being at the mercy of our fears, our anxieties and worry’s? No, we don’t want to go back to a life where death calls the shots because now we stand to receive a future with God. 

         So, as Paul continues, he teaches us that it is this living presence of the holy love of God, this Holy Spirit is the very Spirit which marks us out as being a member of the family God. Through this living presence of God’s holy love which has taken hold of us, we cry out Abba, Father. Now, what is interesting is that here Paul uses two different words for the word, “Father”. The first is “Abba”, the Jewish word for Father, and the second which is in the original Greek, “Pater”. Here I believe that Paul is speaking of a different place where the Jewish and Gentile believers gathered. Instead of the table where they ate together, he now writes of being around the Lord’s Table, gathered in worship, saying together the prayer of Jesus, the “Our Father”, or as the Jewish believers would say, “Our Abba”, and the Greek speaking believers would say, “Our Pater”. This prayer centers around the command that the Father’s will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. We know God as our Father when we know him as the one whose will we surrender ourselves to doing. And the Spirit leads us to do the will of our Father because his holy love, his faithful, steadfast love which compelled Jesus to offer up his life for us, this same love causes us to offer up ourselves in service to our Heavenly Father. His love causes us to entrust our lives wholly over to his care having the peace that extends beyond our death because we know that there is an inheritance waiting for us.

         Now, this good news, that we have an eternal inheritance, a hope for us beyond the grave, is tempered by Paul who says, that yes, we do have this hope that we will share in a future with Christ, yet this is only ours if we are willing to suffer with him. Only as we are willing to join him in his sufferings now, will we  be glorified with him in eternity. We have to wonder why it is that we must suffer, why is it that when we are led by the Spirit we will be those who inevitably experience suffering? The answer to this is that the holy love of God, this faithful, steadfast love, this is a love that in every moment, can do nothing but love, loving on those who will return such love with love yet it is also a love which offers love when it is met with contempt and opposition. The holy love of God then can not help but be a suffering love as it is the very love witnessed upon the cross. Yet if such a love can be given and offered even to the end of life, then this is the victory of love over death, for if even in suffering a life does not let go of love, the power of death can be said to be truly defeated. This victory of God’s holy love over the power of death is what is known as glory. If we follow in the way of our Father, the way of suffering love, then, yes, we can know ourselves as being the very children of God. As Paul points out, if we live and love as children who mimic our Heavenly Father, then we absolutely will be his heirs as well.

         As Paul ponders on the glory that is to come, it is easy to see that just the thought of the coming glory overwhelms his thoughts. Paul thinks of how creation waits, searching the horizon, longing to catch a glimpse of those who have won the victory of love over death. To understand what Paul is getting at here we must first realize that as we are told in the twenty-fifth verse of the third chapter, that because of the righteousness of God, he has passed over the former sins until the coming of Jesus. This meant that because sin was rampant over all of creation, the very purpose for creation was put on hold. This is what Paul meant when he says that creation was “subject to futility”. Now, that the children of God are being born, at last creation can once again fulfill its purpose, as we hear of it in the second chapter of the prophet Habakkuk, “for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” This worldwide presence of glory happens as the children of God  take into their hands God’s creation and offer this creation back to God as actions of holy love which are victorious over the powers of death. This glorious hope God is bringing about is why we are told that creation is groaning and suffering because it longs to be fully set free from the power of death, this bondage to decay. Not only is creation groaning, but the Spirit is groaning and those who are led by the Spirit, they too, we are told, join in this hearts cry for life to come forth out of death . Paul, at the beginning of the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians, helps us understand what this groaning is when he writes, that he groans because he yearns for all that is subject to death to be at last swallowed up by life. This groaning then is a hearts cry for life’s victory over death. Much like Jesus groaned when he called Lazarus out of the tomb, so too we groan, our heart, united with God and his creation, longing for a life of holy love to come and swallow up death forever. We long to at last have physical bodies whose very breath and life is the Holy Spirit, his love effortlessly moving us in ways that bring honor and glory to God with no thoughts whatsoever about fear, anxiety or worry. This is what we are to desire, to long for, to thirst and hunger for this righteousness to come here on earth just as it is in heaven. This longing, this groaning that rises as a sigh from our hearts, this is what is to focus our minds upon the ways of the Spirit. Without this grand vision of glory washing over all of creation like the waters of the sea, those who follow Jesus will become obsessed with all that may divide us instead of longing for the glory that we cry out to God to bring forth at last.

         You see, the reason that this church had focused their minds on doing the works of the flesh, judging and condemning others is that they no longer had a heart which longed to be swallowed up in life, the life of the living presence of the holy love of God, the very life lived in the Spirit of God. This being swallowed up in life, this is our hope, this is what we are waiting eagerly to experience, at least we should be, for this is our salvation. Yes, we cannot see such a world right now, but this is exactly why it is our hope, something beyond our sight which must be known by faith. This faith that we have, that one day the knowledge of glory of God will cover all of God’s creation like the waters cover the sea, this can only be ours through prayer. Paul, at last, comes back to that time of prayer that he hinted at earlier, where he spoke of this church saying, “Abba, Pater”. As Paul knows of the people of this church at Rome, they come to this time of prayer as weak people, people for whom this victorious life of holy love seems so impossible. But as they pray, they find that the Holy Spirit finds them right where they are at, and he reaches into their life from beyond them. In that moment, the holy love of God pours out from heaven into their hearts as the heart of God cries out, with a longing that words simply cannot express. There in that moment, this is when we encounter the God who searches hearts. It seems that here Paul is quoting from the fourth-fourth Psalm, where in the twentieth verse, the writer of the Psalm asks, “If we have forgotten the name of our God or if we have spread out our hands to a strange god; shall not God search these things out? For he knows the secrets of our heart.” God searches our hearts to see if we remember his name, his unchanging character, that he is a God of faithful, steadfast love. In our weakness, we do forget, we forget this holy love of God which should be guiding our thoughts and actions. But praise be to the Spirit, the living presence of the holy love of God, who reaches in to our lives and there, in the Spirit, our hearts are filled with holy love, and we are transformed into saints, holy people, because of God’s holy love. Through the Spirit we become people who are no longer weak, but fully able to do the will of the Father that we cry out to. So, when these people of Rome came away from this time of prayer, at last their hearts cry was to see, by faith, the victory of the holy love which now lived within them. So, it is in our times of prayer, this is when we encounter the Spirit, and our faith in the victory of God’s love is restored. We rise from our prayer ready to live out this victory, to cry out that here there truly will be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So, we must keep on praying, and we must invite the Spirit to be with us, to fill us with his love. This is the way we can stay close to Jesus, today and everyday! Amen!