A Life of Glory

  

August 13 2023

Romans 8:12-27

         One of the many attitudes that have changed since I was a kid, is the way we look at being in debt. I can still remember when MasterCard was a new idea and you had a little machine that you placed the card in and you ran it over carbon paper whenever you purchased something. Suddenly a person could rack up lots of debt for items that a person used to save money to purchase. Well, however you feel about the way debt is looked at today, the fact of the matter is that every single one of us is born in debt. The amount that we owe on this debt is so great that it is impossible for any of us to pay back what we owe. Have you ever thought about that? What I am speaking about is what Paul is addressing here in this middle section of the eighth chapter of Romans, that we all begin as debtors, people who owe God a life which brings him glory yet this is a life that we are simply unable to make happen because fear holds us captive so that all we can do is to sin against God. This is what Paul is reminding his readers when he reminds them that they are debtors, and it is not this body that we owe anything, no, it is God that we owe everything. If these members of the first Church of Rome believe that relying on the ways of the flesh is really worth one’s lifetime then those who believe so will in the end receive nothing but death. The one who ask God for the forgiveness of their debt and know that it is God who has erased this debt from his records, these are the ones who will receive life. So, knowing that it is the Spirit, that he is the one that we are indebted for our very lives, we are left wondering, just what kind of life has the Spirit given to us?

 The clue as to what defines this life of the Spirit is found where Paul writes that it is this living presence of the holy love of God, the Holy Spirit, he is the one who can put to death the deeds of the flesh.  When Paul says here that the Spirit puts to death the deeds of the body, the image this is to bring to mind is that of the sacrifices that the priests of the Temple would lay upon the altar to be consumed by fire. In the first verses of this eighth chapter, Paul teaches us that those whose mind is set on the Spirit are priests like those in the Temple, offering up the offering of their life, to be those who bring forth life and peace wherever they go. Well, here in our scripture for today, Paul is again using priestly language telling us that we are to offer up the works of our flesh like a sacrifice upon the altar. The Holy Spirit, the holy fire of heavenly love, consumes our hearts so that no longer is there any place in our hearts for fear, anxiety and worry. So this life that we have been given by the Spirit is one where the living presence of the holy love of God offers up the works of our flesh so that our lives will be ready to bring glory to God.

Paul goes on to say that those who are led by the Spirit, by this living presence of the love of God, these we are told are the sons of God. Now, it seems to be rather abrupt to go from offering up the works of the flesh to speak about us being the very sons of God but it is John, in his first letter, who helps us make sense of how these two seemingly different topics actually go very much together. In the fourth chapter, the seventh verse of John’s first letter, we read, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” So being born again is more than merely just saying a prayer. Being born again is for us to love with the same radical holy love which the Spirit has filled our hearts with, the holy love which casts out all of our fear. When the Holy Spirit comes like fire and consumes our fear,  the life the Spirit leaves us with is a life filled only with the living presence of the holy love of God.  This is why Paul tells us that when we allow the Spirit to lead us we are the very sons of God. Now, this use of the word, “son”, is used instead of the more common, “child”, because in Paul’s day a son was one who stood in line to receive the Father’s inheritance. So, for those who love with the holy love of God these are the ones God invites to share his life of holy love for all eternity. 

         So, as Paul continues, he teaches us that it is this living presence of the holy love of God, this is how one can know just who is a member of the family of God. Paul teaches us that it is through this living presence of God’s holy love which has taken hold of us, this is why 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”. Can you comprehend what the living presence of God’s holy love has accomplished? This love of the Spirit has taken two very different groups of people, those who are Jewish and those who are of the nations, and this love has broken down the hostilities that had been between them and he has brought them to kneel before God in prayer. So, even though the cultural markers still remained, nonetheless, there is now unity and peace. The prayer that is being prayed is 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, also known as the Lord’s Prayer begins with the petition, “Our Father, hallowed, or holy be your name”. Paul perhaps has this petition in mind because what is being asked for is that the name of our Heavenly Father be understood as being holy. What we know about the holiness of God, what sets him a part from the commonness of this world is his love, that God is the one who loves the just and the unjust, and it is God who loves the evil as well as the good. We as his sons, those who will receive an inheritance from our Heavenly Father, we are the ones who are to witness to the world that what sets our God apart from this world is his holy love.

          We who know that we are indebted to God for our very lives, we are the ones who must love with the holy love of God so that those in the world might know that there is a God in this world and he is a God who, in his holy love, treasures every life. This is why Paul makes perfectly clear that our eternity hinges on our willingness to suffer just as Christ suffered with us. You see, what Christ proved to us is that to love others with the holy love of God means that suffering should be expected. This holy love will not always be returned with love, sometimes all that can be expected is injustice and evil, yet nonetheless, the love of God must be shown to all people. Yet only by loving others with the holy love of God are we able to witness to the power and victory of this holy love over the power of death. Suffering is merely the powers of death that have their way in the lives of people. So when we bring the holy love of God to another life suffering at the hands of the power of death this is when we will have a front seat to watch as another life is transformed by the God who treasures them. This victory of God’s holy love over the powers of death is called glory. Those who enter into eternal glory are those who are forever certain of the victory of the holy love of God over the power of death. This is the very basis of our resurrection faith.

         As Paul ponders on the glory, this victory of God’s holy love over the powers of death, it is easy to see that just the thought of the coming glory overwhelms his thoughts. Paul ponders on the wonder of creation, how it waits, searching the horizon, longing to catch a glimpse of yet another soul who has experienced the victory of love over death. Creation knows that with every life transformed, it draws closer to being set free from its bondage to decay.  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 of Romans, 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 that 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 hearts, united with God and his creation, long for a life of holy love to come and swallow up death forever. One day we will 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. It is this grand vision of glory washing over all of creation like the waters of the sea, this is what prevents those who follow Jesus from getting distracted with all that may divide us. Instead, our hearts in concert with the very heart of God are to long for that glorious day to come, to ache with the sighs of a longing heart until at last all of creation will be permeated with the glory of God.

         You see, the reason that this church had troubles that Paul had to address 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 the 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 where they are at. 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 forty-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 it is 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 be people marked by the holy love of God. So, it is in our times of prayer, when we encounter the Spirit, this is when our faith in the victory of God’s love is restored. We rise from our prayer in the certainty of the power of a life filled to overflowing of the holy love of God. So, we must keep on praying, and we must continue to invite the Spirit to be with us, to fill us with his love. This is a life which remembers that we are debtors, those who were once people who had fallen short of the glory of God but now, through the Spirit, we are filled with the holy love of God. As we go out into the world, loving on the suffering of this world with the holy love of God we will witness the power of this love over death. In that moment let us shout, “Victory, praise be to God!”, for we have indeed, at last, become people of his glory! Amen!