Tag Archives: Romans 3

Who am I fooling?!

Leave a reply

I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me: let us exalt his name together.

(Ps 34.1-3)

Jesus told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ’Oh God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, crooks, adulterers, or heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’

Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’” Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”

(Lk 18.9-14, the Message)

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift…. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.

(Rom 3.22,23,24&27)

Everything that we have – right living and right thinking, a clean slate and a fresh start – comes from God by way of Jesus Christ, that’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”

(1 Cor 1.31, the Message)

Truly, God’s word penetrates deeply and illumines the realities of our private thoughts, cherished pet sins, and ungodly desires. We can be putting on a great act for those around us, but God is never fooled by that, and some of Jesus’ strongest words of condemnation were for the hypocrites, whose religiosity masked hearts of stone, adamantly resistant to his message of the kingdom of God.

I was brought up short recently during preparation for our study in Romans, by that simple assertion that boasting – in race, in covenant promises, in possession of the Law – all so dear to the Jewish people – is totally excluded by the reality of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. I am not a Jew, but a Christian, who has known so many blessings and privileges through her life, protected from so many of life’s trials. On one level, I know that I have nothing to boast about – as a sinner I am utterly dependent on grace.. but I know my heart and my fears and insecurities, and I know the conversations that happen in my head. I know that inner voice of self-congratulation and the subtle judging of other people which goes on, it sounds very like the pharisee in Jesus’ story.

Am I the only person who goes into a social gathering protecting herself from hurt and rejection by an inner assertion of her own moral worth and innate value? How easy it is to make assumptions about those around us, and silently, with quiet inner relief, to add up the sums and decide we’re ok, because of something, anything in others that doesn’t quite meet our approval – morals, habits, characteristics. How deadly is this temptation to continually compare myself against others in a critical way, looking for things that will enable me to feel a bit better about myself! Human pride is so devious, continually changing ground and colour, hiding in plain sight because we simply don’t recognise its latest disguise! It is my pride which drives me down this horrible, mean path of inner judgement and self-elevation; it is pride which wants to think well of myself and which writhes under the weight of gospel truth – that truth which demonstrates that I have simply no reason whatsoever to be pleased with who I am… who I am apart from Christ that is!

I want to learn to live differently, now that I have been shown this fact about myself and see it for what it is – sin. I want to be changed by the inner working of Jesus’ Spirit, to abhor such behaviour, and instead to embrace his love for my fellow sinners. And I think one of the most powerful means to changing is to embrace the things I can boast about more effectively! I can and must exalt my Saviour, praising the love with which He loved and loves us, praising his saving power and complete work on our behalf; praising his perfections which are ours by faith in him. He is altogether worthy of praise and adoration, and absolutely worth boasting about! Not in some possessive way, but in the best kind of boasting – we have this gift, this good news which is for everyone who will believe, and so we shout about it in order to invite those who do not yet know him to come and find out.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for your mercy in showing me the truth about the way pride still pollutes my behaviour and my thinking.

Thank you for the forgiveness which Jesus has won for this sin, and for the power of your Spirit within to transform and purify me, so that I become victorious over it.

Go on driving out false human pride, out of every place that it hides, and fill me instead with that humble thankfulness which sees my need, and then rejoices in my Saviour’s complete provision. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Let every head bow…

1 Reply

The Lord is a God who avenges. O God who avenges, shine forth…How long, Lord, will the wicked, how long will the wicked be jubilant? They pour out arrogant words; all the evildoers are full of boasting. They crush your people, Lord; they oppress your inheritance. They slay the widow and the foreigner; they murder the fatherless. They say, ‘The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob takes no notice.’ Take notice, you senseless ones among the people; you fools, when will you become wise? Does he who fashioned the ear not hear; Does he who formed the eye not see? Does he who disciplines nations not punish? Does he who teaches mankind lack knowledge? The Lord knows all human plans; he knows that they are futile.

(Ps 94.2,3, 8-11)

There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God all have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’….there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.., And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

(Rom 3.11&12, 22-24)

 

Then I saw a ‘new heaven and a new earth’, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’

(Rev 21.1-4)

All over the western world, at the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, people will gather to remember…to remember what? Facts from history books about a conflict which is now virtually beyond living memory? Snatches of poetry, prose and music which conjure up something of the horror of that particular war? Or perhaps more recent struggles – The second World war, the Suez crisis, the Spanish civil war,the Falklands war, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war, the struggles in Northern Ireland, campaigns in Afghanistan; or perhaps those many eruptions of violence in the name of nationhood and justice which have blighted our planet beyond the immediate involvement of our nation but with equally devastating consequences – campaigns in Central and Latin America; violence and bloodshed after the partition of India and Pakistan, civil wars and decade long unrest and destruction all over the African continent; or the current agonies unfolding in Yemen, dragging on in Syria, in South Sudan, in the Congo, Chad and Nigeria…

Humanity has an appalling prediliction for taking up arms in order to settle accounts; and there is no nation which can claim to have always been on the side of justice, nor to have avoided unnecessary bloodshed and harm. Humanity is equally complicit, equally guilty of inhumanity to others. Down the years, people have claimed to have God on their side, to be fighting for truth, justice, freedom..but even if some of this might have been true, in reality, when humanity starts fighting, dreadful things are done, and as the bible puts it, all creation groans in anguish until it is to be delivered from the burden of sinfulness which it bears.

For me, Remembrance Sunday is a time to confess before God that we have all truly fallen short of his perfection; a time to stand and grieve at the price which humanity has paid and is paying for this sinfulness; and a time to worship and adore the God who has freely provided forgiveness, redemption, and the promise of eternal peace to all who will accept it.

Let us remember and weep, repenting of our own sinfulness which is part of the world’s plague, and praying urgently for the return of our Lord to wind up the sorry narrative of history, and usher in the glorious new beginnings which Revelation speaks of. Let us remember the sacrifice of Christ, for all who will accept him, and weep in joyful thankfulness that such mercy should be shown to us. Let us remember the promise, that one day, redeemed humanity will be citizens of one city, whose gates will never be shut, and into which the glory and honour of the nations will be brought – all that is good and true and beautiful in God’s people from across the globe. And with that vision, that hope, and that assurance, let us go from remembering to living; living with purpose; that purpose to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ with all who will receive it that they might share in the future which is without war, without grief, without death…