Closing Romans
IT STARTS IN THE COURTROOM
Romans. Sixteen chapters.
Paul opens Romans with the worst news we can imagine. The whole world is broken. Religious people, pagan people, moral people, it makes no difference. Everyone is standing in the same courtroom hearing the same verdict: Guilty! For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. —Romans 3:23
And then, right when the gavel should fall, God does the most unexpected thing. The Judge gives His own Son, the Son takes the sentence in our place, and God declares the guilty right with Him. Not because we cleaned ourselves up. Because Jesus was faithful when we never were. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes. —Romans 1:16 We do not earn our way into that. We receive it with open hands.
But Paul does not stop at the verdict, and this is where most of us shrink the gospel down too small. Being made right with God is not the finish line of the Christian life. It is the trailhead.
Romans 6 says the old us is dead and we are breathing new air. Romans 8 takes us to the summit, and the view from up there will take our breath away. No condemnation. The Spirit of the living God moving inside ordinary people. Creation itself groans like a woman in labor, waiting for everything God has promised to be born. And a love that holds when everything else lets go. Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. —Romans 8:39
Then comes the stretch we would rather skip. Three chapters (9-11) wrestling with whether God keeps His word when people walk away from Him. And Paul's answer is bigger than the question. God has not given up. Not on Israel, not on the outsider, not on us. For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone. —Romans 11:32 His mercy is wider than our worst day.
So here is the entire book in one breath. God kept a promise He made before you were born. He began setting a broken world right through His Son, by grace, received by faith. He filled forgiven people with His own Spirit and pointed them toward a new creation that is already on the way. And He built one family out of people who previously struggled to be in the same room.
That is the theology. Now we are also sitting at the table.
FROM THE COURTROOM TO THE DINNER TABLE
Do not receive sixteen chapters of mercy and remain unchanged.
Since God has justified us by grace, then we can stop defending ourselves.
Since Christ has welcomed us, then we can welcome one another.
Since the Spirit lives in us, then we can walk in newness of life.
Since nothing can separate us from the love of God, then fear does not get the final word.
Since the Gospel is for the nations, then our church cannot become small, inward, and comfortable.
So let us not simply end a series in Romans. Let us enter more deeply into the life Romans describes.
Paul spends fifteen chapters on the most magnificent theology ever put on paper, and then he lands the whole thing on something almost embarrassingly ordinary. He does not end with a lecture. He ends with a household.
Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you, so that God will be given glory. —Romans 15:7
Church, that is the assignment. Not believing the right things and heading home. Becoming the kind of people who can actually sit at the same table.
Paul knew how hard that was, because the Roman church was a room full of people who could not agree.
Some ate the meat, some would not touch it.
Some guarded the holy days, some treated every day the same.
Real convictions. Strong feelings.
Paul never tries to make them think alike.
He just flatly refuses to let them look down on each other.
We know that church. We have been that church. We have watched believers who love the same Jesus split over a mask, a ballot, a worship style, a school decision, and treat the disagreement like it was a salvation issue. Paul says enough. Welcome the person you would never have picked. Christ already did exactly that for you.
Paul's word for worship is not a song you sing.
Give him your body, not just your beliefs. ...give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you... This is truly the way to worship him. —Romans 12:1
Your calendar.
Your bank account.
Your tired, ordinary, un-Instagrammable life laid on the altar.
That is worship, more than anything you will ever sing on a Sunday.
The world runs on performance and keeps a running tab.
We do not.
When somebody falls, lead with mercy, because mercy is the only reason a single one of us is standing here.
And widen the table.
Let’s make room for the one whose politics irritate us,
whose past embarrasses us,
whose questions unsettle us.
Let’s not allow our table to be too small.
Now, let’s go set the table.
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