Romans 15:14-22
“New Ground”
October 23, 2011 - Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

         My friend Jay got out his red pen. He teaches philosophy at Wheaton College. His son Adam also majored in philosophy and was now applying to grad school. Adam wrote what he thought was pretty good paper to send with his applications, but he asked his father to take a look at it. Jay wanted his son to do the best work he could, so he treated it like he would treat any other paper submitted to him by a student. The red ink flowed as he pointed out poor sentence structure, weak points in the argument, and possible counterexamples Adam had not considered.

         When Adam got the paper back and began to look through it, tears filled his eyes. The harsh critique Jay thought would be beneficial was not what Adam expected. It ultimately created a rift between father and son that would take some time to heal.

         As Paul began to finish off his letter to the Rome, he must have realized that some of the critique he made of the Roman church was pretty harsh, particularly in the last few chapters we’ve been reading together. So as he turned toward more personal matters, Paul wanted to soften what he said a little. He did not want his criticism and advice to create a rift between himself and his readers.

         Thus in verse 14 Paul wants to affirm the goodness and the knowledge of the Roman Christians, in spite of all the strong things he’s said to them about some aspects of their church life. Tradition has it that the apostle Peter himself founded the church in Rome, but whoever it was, Paul doesn’t want to come across as suggesting it was a poor foundation. Before he ever wrote them, the Roman church was “full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.”

         That’s why in verse 15 Paul says that though he may have written to them “boldly” on some points, like the matter of differences about what to eat or which days are holy, it was “by way of reminder.” He’s saying, “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.” He’s not trying to take control of the Roman church with authority and doctrine better than they’ve already received. He’s simply trying to help them be what they already know they should be in Christ.

         Paul’s tact and diplomacy here is a good lesson. It’s the sort of thing I am still trying to learn. Like my friend Jay, like Paul the scholarly rabbi, I have a natural bent and then the training to apply all my critical skills to the things I read and hear. What I need to keep learning from Paul and from the Lord is to temper that critique with love and respect for the people expressing and doing the things I might criticize. The good news of Jesus Christ is meant to bless and build up people, not tear them down.

         There is more than one reason Paul does not want to offend the Christians in Rome. As we will discuss next week, he was planning to visit there and wanted their help. He wanted the church in Rome to be a base camp for a missionary journey to Spain. He hoped the Roman church would support his mission to the western end of the world he knew.

         But the main reason for wanting to be on good terms with the folks in Rome is what Paul goes on to express in the rest of verse 15 and what follows. The center of who he is and what he does is Jesus Christ. In particular, Paul’s life is now centered around bringing that good news from God to Gentiles, to non-Jewish people.

         For Paul, preaching about Jesus Christ is “priestly service,” it says in verse 16. As he stands in the streets of cities spread around the Mediterranean world and tells people about Jesus, he sees himself like one of the Jewish priests standing in the temple offering sacrifices to God. Remember in Romans 12:1 he wrote, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God…” In Christ, our very lives become the proper and acceptable offering to the Lord, and as Paul won people to Jesus he was offering that living sacrifice.

         So everything Paul wrote to the Romans about their behavior and relationships with each other had the single aim of making that living offering to God everything that it should be. If new believers are a gift to God, then he wanted it to be the best possible gift.

         Yet Paul does not take credit for this offering. Just like the priest, just like anyone who gives to God, his gift did not originate with him, but with God. Everything we give is something that came from God to start with. Whether it’s Paul’s offering of converted Gentiles, or those Gentiles’ own offering of financial support for the church in Jerusalem, or our offerings of money and service, it all belongs to and comes from God in the beginning. As the old hymn says, “We give thee but thine own, whate’er the gift may be.”

         That’s why in verses 17 and 18, when Paul begins to boast a little, he makes it clear that he will not brag about what he has accomplished. “In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God.” Everything that he has done, he has done in and through Jesus, not by his own ability, but by the power of God. So he says, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles…”

         There’s actually a double negative in a literal translation of that last bit. Paul said, “I will not be bold to talk about what Christ has not accomplished through me.” That is, “If Jesus hasn’t done it, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s all His work, not mine.”

         The conversions that Paul has been winning from the Gentiles and offering to God like a priest are all the work of God, of Christ working in and through Paul. Yes, there are Paul’s “words and deeds” at the end of verse 18. But look at how verse 19 continues the thought, “by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God.” It wasn’t Paul’s great preaching or good works that gets the credit for those conversions, but the power of God in miracle and Spirit… and in the Spirit working through Paul.

         I’ve been reading the autobiography of Eugene Peterson. He talks about starting a church in his basement. They sat on metal folded chairs, surrounded by concrete walls. The younger members nicknamed it “Catacombs Presbyterian.” Peterson tells how he started in thinking that the business of pastoring a church was to figure out what they were to do. How do they get the word out? How do they organize themselves? How do they raise funds and build a building?

         Then Peterson says something came to him in reading the book of Acts, the record largely of Paul’s missionary work. Church is not about what we do. It’s about what God is doing in us. That’s what Paul is trying to say here about his own mission of planting churches. It’s not about what he did, but about what God did.

         If it’s good enough for Paul and Peterson, it’s good enough for me. Lots of our church business meeting time is spent figuring out what we’re going to do. How will we get teachers for Sunday School? How will we plan worship? How will we find the money to get the heating system fixed? Yet Paul says that at the heart of it all, that’s not really the heart of it all. Instead, let’s ask “What is God doing here in us, in you, in me, in him, in her?” That’s the question to spend some time on.

         It’s a harder question. I like getting things done. Sometimes I’m even kind of good at it, if it’s my kind of problem. Run a meeting. Write a sermon. Counsel a couple getting married. I can get it done. We can get it done. But just how the Holy Spirit is working in our lives to transform each one of us more and more into the image of Jesus Christ is something deeper and more mysterious. You or I can’t program it or arrange for it to happen. We need to step back and quietly listen and watch for how God is doing it, and then gently, humbly join in the process.

         Building our church together is not a set of problems to be fixed. It’s being and becoming a community of beloved persons made in the image of God with Jesus working in each one of us. It’s not about what we will do and it’s certainly not about what the pastor will do. It’s about God’s holy work of sanctifying us by the Holy Spirit as Paul says in verse 16. Like the proverbial silk purse out a sow’s ear, God is at work making saints out of us sinners. That’s why Paul doesn’t want to talk about anything that Jesus hasn’t done. Nothing else really matters as much.

         Our text won’t let us get this wrong, though. Focusing on what God is doing in the Church, in our church, does not mean doing nothing. We may need to step aside or back off for awhile to see what God is up to and remember that everything that is accomplished is His work. But once we see that, we realize that God is at work in and through us, that the good news of Jesus is expressed and made visible in and through our lives.

         That’s why Paul is so pleased to be able to say in verse 19 that he’s preached the Gospel “from Jerusalem as far around as Illyricum.” By the grace and power of God he’s taken the good news of Jesus in a great arc from east to west up and over the top of the Mediterranean world, traveling from Jerusalem in Palestine on into northern Greece. He’s “fully proclaimed the good news of Christ,” meaning he’s covered that particular portion of the world leaving a string of churches along the way, Derbe, Iconium, the second Antioch, Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea.

         Now it’s time, as he starts explaining in verse 20, to go on to new ground. Part of Paul’s rationale for all his travels is that he made it his “ambition to proclaim the good news not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation.”

         Paul’s ambition is not personal glory. Bringing the Gospel to where it hasn’t been heard before is to him the fulfillment of Scripture. Verse 21 is a quote from Isaiah 52:15, “Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.” Once again, that’s the theme of Romans. It was God’s plan all along to include those who weren’t at first included, to welcome those who were on the outside of God’s people, so that now Jews and Gentiles are brought together in Christ. Finding new ground on which to build churches was Paul’s participation in that plan.

         In verse 22 Paul explains this desire for new ground as the reason he hasn’t come to Rome before. He says he’s been hindered from getting there. That hindrance was divine. The Holy Spirit took him where people hadn’t yet heard the name of Jesus. There was already a church in Rome, so going there wasn’t so urgent, wasn’t part of the plan until now.

         It’s not as if there was no evangelism to do in Rome. N. T. Wright guesses that when Paul wrote this letter there might have been maybe a hundred Christians there in a city of over a million. Imagine if our church was the only one in Eugene and almost everyone else hadn’t ever heard of Jesus. That’s about how it was in Rome.

         It’s not like there was no fresh ground for the Gospel in the metropolis on the banks of the Tiber. But Paul felt a call from God, an urging from the Holy Spirit, to keep pushing the geographical boundaries of the kingdom, to keep bringing Christ to absolutely new territory. For a long time, the Spirit said “no” to a visit to Rome, and when He finally says “yes” to Rome it’s only as a stop on the way to Spain.

         That kind of Spirit-driven desire for fresh ground still drives Christian mission. A few weeks ago some of us had dinner with a new Covenant missionary. Julio Isaza and his wife Katy are headed for Colombia. That’s where Julio is from, so in many ways it’s old, familiar territory for him. But as Julio told his story and outlined his vision we saw that the Spirit was pushing him in new directions.

         Julio grew up the son of poor Colombian farmers whose land was stolen by warring rebel troops. Yet he met Jesus and received an education. He wants to go back and help educate poor Colombian pastors in the Scriptures and theology. But he also realized that the Church in Colombia needs resources. There is a lot of work among the poor, but not too many Colombian Christians who have means to support that work. So Julio and Katy want to go back and teach poor pastors, but they also want to evangelize middle class city-dwelling Colombians, start churches among people who will be able help people in need and change their country for the better. It’s strange territory for a man who grew up where he did in poor farm country. The Spirit is sending him to new ground.

         Where is the new ground for you and me? Where might the Spirit of Christ be pushing us out into places where the Gospel hasn’t been heard before? I think I can see the edge of some of that new territory as we sit together this morning. Our congregational complexion isn’t quite as white as it used to be. We’re a little more diverse, a little more like God wants His kingdom to be, a community of all different kinds of people.

         We can also see on Sunday morning that we’ve started having a children’s message once again. That may not seem like new ground, just the revival of something we used to do all the time. But our children’s ministry has a fresh edge to it. Beth tells me how some of the children coming to sing in our children’s choir haven’t ever heard the Christmas story before. It’s all fresh for them. The good news of Jesus Christ is really news to them.

         I’d say that over the last few years, our congregation has been pushed by the Spirit onto new ground. For those of you with a techie bent, we’ve been rebooted. It hasn’t been easy. Sometimes it felt like we just got booted. Paul felt like he had been hindered. But God was at work in him, at work in us. Let’s watch for what He’s doing.

         God has new ground for many of us here individually. If you think of it just in terms of what you’re trying to do, what you want to do, it may just feel like you’re being hindered. You didn’t get the job you wanted. Your health is giving you problems. Your family is in conflict. But if you stop and listen to God you may hear or feel the Spirit pushing you to new ground, making it possible for Christ to accomplish something in you that you never expected.

         Just remember you are not alone in that uncharted territory. Paul wrote to Rome so that he could head for his new ground with the support and love of new friends there in that city. We gather here in Valley Covenant Church so that we can find God’s new ground in our lives together. And like Paul we learn to talk to each other with gentleness and respect so that we can hear and see Christ at work among us, in us.

         May you and I let the Spirit of Jesus Christ lead us on to whatever new ground He has for us, until the day we set foot on the newest ground of all, His new creation of a new earth under a new heaven, in the kingdom of God.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2011 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj