Renovation of the Soul (Romans 1:16-32) Life-Message Notes
Mood:  not sure
Topic: MyWords::RE::God'sWords
MOTIF

> [Chris Louvier]

> That’s what Romans is about … Jews/Gentiles: “We don’t need people who aren’t like us”: Paul’s answer: You need a renovation of the soul. Here’s how God wants to renovate your souls—if your souls have truly been renovated you will love one another.

> You know that your soul needs renovation: People you can’t forgive, habits can’t kick, feelings that keep coming back … evidence of your need.

> Different sorts of renovation: (1) SURFACE RENOVATION: Paint, carpet. (2) TOTAL RENOVATION: Sometimes, something deeper … can’t simply be adapted … from perspective of present needs, it’s dead [that’s what problem was in Pre./Ch. Wing]. So, for the sake of new life, the old had to be destroyed.

> We’re like that: Not: layer paint, carpet—many have tried that already [stop behavior, church for few weeks, read book, complete class]: Not enough.

> Why? [Ep2.1] What we need isn’t one more program to add to our present existence; we need new life.

> Ro1.16-17: “Gospel … dynamis [life-giving power] … It’s through faith that the righteous live.”

DILEMMA

> PROBLEM: EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE LIFE, DEATH DOESN’T STAY DEAD: I’d like to think … have faith … suddenly, death to life … there’s a sense in which this is true … it’s as if some of that death remains in us … that’s why “live” … the process of moving from death to life is a process, painful and difficult … total renovation.

--> [Chaplain … finding out about what happens when someone’s heart stops … as followers of Jesus, this is what is happening in our lives … God is transforming—renovating—us from death to life … painful process, not easy. TOTAL RENOVATION]

> What it requires isn’t only some point in past when we recognize Jesus as Lord … day-by-day, drawing our life from God (Dt30.20).

> When we don’t … death creeps back in … it doesn’t stay dead. That’s what’s happening in Roman church.

> Romans 1-2: Here’s what the old—the dead—looks like! Stay away from it!

> Let’s look at Paul’s words, look for life.

TEXT

> Ro1:18-32

1.18: WRATH: Why does sin anger God? HOLY … also: He sees his plans/and what sin does. [two weeks ago, RickWh and I …]

1.19-20: TRUTH REVEALED IN THEM: Every human knows that there is a life greater than what they’re experiencing [sunset, stars, sea—Is6.3, “whole earth”] … refuse to see that this is the truth of God in every person. Jewish rabbis: Sheva mitzvoth b’nai Noach, there is Torah written on the soul of every human: (1) worship one true God, (2) do not murder, (3) do not steal, (4) sexual relationship belongs within marriage relationship, (5) speak respectfully about God, (6) do not consume blood, (7) do not lie.

--> Yet, even these, humanity ignores; therefore, “without excuse.”

1.21: Notice humanity’s first sin, first result of denying God: “They were not thankful.”

-->All humanity’s problems of sin and death begin with this one: Not thankful. [Eve and Adam … the trees God had given/Israelites … manna/In Promised Land … one God].

--> Every sin begins with a refusal to be thankful for what God’s given us/how God’s created us.

1.22-27: Paul describes homosexual practice—which, at its root, is a refusal to be thankful for the fact that God created us male and female. [This is a good gift, wonderful gift.] God intends for relationship of husband and wife to reflect his love for his people, the way that God loves us—in intimate closeness and communication, of two becoming one not merely at the level of bodies but of soul: “Let Us make humanity in our image, male and female.”

--> God chose his love for humanity to be reflected in male/female—this stands at the core of our being … which is precisely why the powers of death and darkness try to crowd out God’s glory in this part of people’s lives.

--> For God creating us male and female, we should be thankful, rejoice in this.

--> To choose anything else is to be unthankful.

1.24, 26: This angers God—God gives the worst punishment he can give: He lets people keep sinning … he lets them continue until all the pleasure is gone, nothing left but the pain. [CSL: God lets them live forever in “the horrible freedom that they have demanded.”]

1.28: By this point, Christians in Rome were feeling pretty good about themselves: “We must be living in God’s life! After all, Paul’s mentioned idol-worship and homosexuality”—the Jews in this congregation had never done these things; most Gentiles had, but they’d left them behind.

--> Then, Paul says: “Here’s the evidence of the worst sort of death, darkest results of unthankfulness—‘never should be done’” (1.28).

1.29-31: Gets quiet, because we see ourselves in these.

--> Unthankful for what we possess (“greed, envy”): Live in a world of greed. [Kid {screaming like a ____ … didn’t know sold souls to devil so young these days} messing with my spiritual life … “Why need?” “Because I don’t have it!”] Magazines show us perfect houses, and we become unthankful for the home we have. Billboards show perfect cars, and we become unthankful for the vehicles we have. An entire industry—credit cards—has capitalized on making us so unthankful that we will spend money we don't have on things we don't need to impress people we don't even like. (Average balance moved from $3,000 in 1990 to nearly $8,000 today, with 2005 being the first year in which Americans as a whole actually spent more than they earned.) I'm not saying it's wrong to use credit card or buy new car or look at larger house. I am saying that, much of the time, our motive isn't because we need this or that but because we are unthankful for what we possess.

--> Same commercials … unthankful for the people in our lives: TV producers parade perfect bodies across the screen, and we become unthankful for the spouse that God has given us—or, if unmarried, unthankful for the fact that God in his goodness has said, “Wait.”

-->--> Not only lust [greed] but also … ["murder, fighting, malice, gossip, backstabbing, deception, ... disobedient to parents"]: We may not murder someone in the body, but we are more than willing to do it with words. Again, it is a failure to be thankful. When someone talks down another church member, you are not thankful for that person. (You don't have to be thankful for what they do.) When your words tear down someone in your family—your spouse or children—you are not thankful for them. (There are put-downs and negative comments we'll make to family members that we wouldn't dream of speaking to someone else. When was the last time you told your spouse, children, parents ... "I am thankful"?)

--> Unthankful for God’s grace: “unforgiving” [How thankful you are for God’s grace is shown by how much grace you show to others]

RESOLUTION AND APPLICATION

> Renovation begins with three words: “THANK YOU, GOD.”

Thoughts that I thought while developing sore butt-muscles by riding a horse in the Rocky Mountains
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: MyWords::RE::RandomStuff

Oh, Lord,
I stare at the mountains that surround me
—distant summits streaked with snow—
and my soul quakes in awe.
In this moment, I am touched by a truth
that I have never known before—
or perhaps I have always known it
and I am only now still enough
to voice the truth that
my soul has always known.
The truth is simply this:
You look upon these mountains
all the time.
There has never been a moment
when their grandeur was hidden
from you.
Long before any human gaze meandered along their stony parapets,
these peaks swirled through your presence
like fish swimming through a sea of gold.
And not only these rocky cliffs but a million millions of others,
mountains buried in the hearts of oceans unexplored,
scattered on the surfaces of planets unknown,
bursting from the burning cores of galaxies unnamed.
And not only mountains but seas and sunsets and stars,
cosmic rainbows painted in colors unseen by human eyes,
formed of substances unfathomed by human minds.
And I wonder …
How do you bear the beauty that forever brushes
along the hem of your robes
without being reduced to tears?
How do you touch these thousand hills
without gasping in sheer wonder
at what you have made?
How do you feel the hummingbird flittering
across this, your footstool,
without bursting forth
in thundering peals of mirth?
And then it occurs to me …
What if the droplets of dew that dissipate so quickly
beneath the weight of my shoe
are tears of joy divine?
What if the bursts of breeze that ripple the leaves
in this grove of white-barked aspens
are the gasps of a God who still bears the heart of a child?
What if the thunder that peals
between these mountain peaks
is the laughter of God?
What if you are weeping and gasping and laughing
at this, your creation, all the time?
And I see that the real question is not,
“How can you bear the beauty that spins
amid your splendor?”
The real question is this:
“How do I bear the glory that swirls
around me in every moment,
while I stand here numb,
unaware that—as I skip across this,
your footstool—
infinite splendor is erupting
all around me
all the time.

Thoughts about Romans 1
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: MyWords::RE::God'sWords

I didn't post last week's message notes, so--if you weren't at church--you missed it when it comes to Romans 1:1-17. The following are my musings on Romans 1:16-32.

"Renovating your soul" will, I think, be the imagery that ties together the next three messages. Chris Louvier--one of our more colorful church members and a fellow believer whom I love deeply--gave me this idea when I was describing the renovations that are proceeding at church. "If only it were that easy to renovate this building," he said, patting his chest. Yes, if only my soul could be restored to its purpose in a series of sure-fire steps that can be sketched out in blue and white and accomplished in a specific number of weeks.

When renovating a building, sometimes it's possible to slap on some paint, fix a few doors, add some carpet, and go on. But, sometimes, the structure simply can't be adapted, and it must be demolished and rebuilt. There's a sense in which the old Preschool and Children's area was dead--dead to the very purpose for which it was built. So, for the sake of new life, it had to be destroyed.

Humanity is like that.

The difficulties in our souls run too deep to be solved by slapping on some paint--stopping one or two specific behaviors, going to church for a few weeks, reading a certain book, completing a certain class. We try this not only in spiritual lives but in the rest of our lives. Magazines tell us a certain number of steps we follow to solve our difficulties--but it doesn't work. You know this: You've tried to stop this or that habit or solve your life's problems in quick and easy steps--and you've ended up right back where you started.

Our souls are dead to God, dead to the purpose for which he created us (Ephesians 2:1-3). What we need is not simply a new layer of paint or carpet; what we need is life. The problem is, new life doesn't come easily. The process of moving from death to life is difficult.

Working as a hospital chaplain and witnessing chest compressions for the first time ... this movement from death to life is difficult, traumatic, even violent.

It's that way with your soul.

We'd like to believe that, somehow, the new life of God magically happens through a few easy steps--and that might be the case, if all that we needed was a layer of paint or some new carpet.  But our difficulties run deeper than that. By nature, though our bodies may be alive, we are dead to the things of God. 

We don't need one more program in our present lives--we need new life ... and not just in one moment when we trust in Jesus Christ. We need renewal of life every moment, to draw life from the Source of Life in every instant of every day (see Deuteronomy 30:19).

That's why Paul says, "It is the dynamis [life-giving power] of God. ... The righteous--people who are right with God--live by faith" (Romans 1:16-17). Faith is not something that happened in the past, when you first trusted in Jesus. If you are a believer, your faith is a process of drawing new life from God in every moment of every day, allowing him to tear down the old, dead stuff left over from your old self and restoring it with new life. If this doesn't happen, the old--the dead--creeps back in. That's what's happening in the Roman church: Gentiles and Jews aren't getting along, both of them are allowing the old, dead ways to slip in, and it's ripping them apart.

So, what Paul does in Romans 1-2 is to tell us, "Here's what your old, dead self looks like! This is the opposite of new life--the real life, life in God."

So, let's look at these words--and, in the process, look for God's life.

Romans 1:18-32

God is filled with wrath against the death that he sees in the human soul. Why? Because of his love. God sees how sin tears people apart in their relationships and in themselves; God also sees the life that he has planned for us, and it fills God with wrath.

Every human being knows instinctively that there is some life greater than what they're experiencing. That longing within us--the longing, the emptiness in us, when we look at a sunset, at the sea, at the stars--is evidence that there is someone greater than ourselves.

There is a problem, though (1:21): All the problems of sin and death begin with one simple wrong ... a failure to be thankful. This is where every sin begins. Eve and Adam were not thankful for what God had given; they wanted something more. The Israelites headed to the Promised Land weren't thankful for manna; they wanted something different, something more. Once they got into the Promised Land, they weren't thankful for the one God that they had; they wanted more gods. In every case, sin begins with a failure to be thankful. This is the evidence of the death within us--a failure to be thankful. We live in a world that constantly whispers to us, calling us to refuse to be thankful for what God has given to us.

Unthankfulness is the basis of sexual sin. Paul describes homosexual practice here in very explicit terms. Why does so much tie into our sexuality? Why is that such a big deal to God? When God created us, he created us "male and female, in his image." The beauty of that relationship between a husband and wife is supposed to reflect the faithful love that God has for humanity. When someone chooses a homosexual relationship, it begins with a failure to be thankful for the fact that God created us male and female. 

At this point, the readers were probably feeling pretty good about how they were doing in the life of faith. "We don't do this! No death in our lives."

But, then, Paul begins to describe the end result of death creeping into our lives, the result of unthankfulness.

"Greed and envy": TV producers parade perfect bodies across the screen, and we become unthankful for the spouse that God has given us. Magazines show us perfect houses, and we become unthankful for the home we have. Billboards show perfect cars, and we become unthankful for the vehicles we have. An entire industry--credit cards--has capitalized on making us sufficiently unthankful that we will spend money we don't have on things we don't need to impress people we don't even like. (Average balance moved from $3,000 in 1990 to nearly $8,000 today, with 2005 being the first year in which Americans as a whole actually spent more than they earned.) I'm not saying it's wrong to use a credit card or buy a new car or look at a larger house. I am saying that, much of the time, our motive isn't because we need this or that but because we are unthankful for what we have.

Child in store ... "Why do you need this?" ... "Because I don't have it." 

"Murder, fighting, malice, gossip, backstabbing, deception, ... disobedient to parents": We may not murder someone in the body, but we are more than willing to do it with words. Again, it is a failure to be thankful. When someone talks down another church member, you are not thankful for that person. (You don't have to be thankful for what they do.) When your words tear down someone in your family--your spouse or children--you are not thankful for them. (There are put-downs and negative comments we'll make to family members that we wouldn't dream of speaking to someone else. When was the last time you told your spouse or children or parents ... "I am thankful"?)

"They refuse to understand, break promises, heartless, unforgiving": What Paul places as the lowest, darkest point of unthankfulness is to be unforgiving. Why? If you are a believer--living in the life God, experiencing his forgiveness--your thankfulness for God's forgiveness is shown outwardly by how you forgive others.

By this point, those in Rome who thought they were pretty righteous, thankful, full of God's life ... well, what Paul wanted was for them to look within themselves and to see those dark places where death was still present. Paul wanted to challenge them to live in faith--this begins with thankfulness, the capacity to be thankful for Jesus Christ, thankful for the life he's given us, thankful for the people around us. The life of faith begins with, "Thank you." 

Romans 1:18-32
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: MyWords::RE::God'sWords

Karl Barth

Of course, Barth has an axe to grind here, what with the whole Natur und Gnade and Nein! controversy. For Barth, the sole revelation of God is Jesus Christ---there is none other. In this, I would partly agree with him. But I would also affirm that there are witnesses in Creation and in Torah that point to this revelation without they themselves being divine revelation per se. In other words, the kosmos does indeed testify to the one Word of God, but humanity refuses to recognize this testimony for what it is. So, the testimony is there, but it is not revelation because revelation, by definition, requires the possibility (though not the guarantee) that the message emanating from the testimony will be received in such a way that the recipient--the "reveal-ee"--recognizes the meaning that the sender--the revealer--intended. After an individual embraces God's grace (or, more precisely, after an individual is embraced by God's grace), the testimony of the created order becomes revelation, because he or she is now able to recognize it as a witness to the identity of God. Put another way, revelation is present in Creation but it is not general revelation. If you're interested in the rest of my thoughts on this subject, see my articles in Perspectives in Religious Studies and Midwestern Journal of Theology.

According to Barth, it is humanity's confidence in their own righteousness that is the actual object of God's wrath. Hmm ... I'll have to think about that one.

John R.W. Stott

Romans 1:17: "He who--through faith--is righteous, he is the one who shall live."

Nothing keeps humanity away from Christ more than their inability to admit their need. This is also true in addictions--in Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, "We admitted we were powerless."

[My own thought: The self-justifying behavior of people on talk shows is an example of humanity's depravity.]

Our creation as sexual beings was the crown of God's creation; it is not surprising then that, as humanity turns from creation as a witness to the true God, it is our sexuality that becomes most confused.

It is humanity's actions against which God is revealing his wrath--humanity's asebia and adikia.

Isaiah 6:3: "The whole earth is filled with his chabod."

God's wrath is revealed most clearly when he simply lets humanity go our own way.

C.K. Barrett

Nothing worthwhile in Barrett's exposition, at least from my perspective.

F.F. Bruce

The venerable Bruce notes C.S. Lewis' statement in The Problem of Pain that hell is God allowing humanity to "enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded."

"Error" is too weak for the noun in 1:27; it is a perversion, an idolatrous  twisting of divine truth.

Anders Nygren

Quoting Schlatter, Nygren says, "A religion that lives on lies, human bodies defiled, a society in which hatred and war find their home ... these are the revelations of God's wrath."

Martin Luther

"Notice the order of the stages of perdition: The first is ingratitude. Lucifer before the Fall was unthankful toward his Creator. It is the result of inner complacency--ignoring the giver, one accepts the gifts as if they were not given but owed. ... It is gratitude that maintains love for God and, in this way, keeps the heart directed toward God. Because it is thus illuminated, the heart worships the only true God."

Craig Keener

According to Jewish tradition, Noah received a sevenfold Torah for which all humanity, even Gentiles, is responsible. This Torah is known to all people.

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