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December 9, 2001
2nd Sunday of Advent
Romans 15:4-13
Pastor Joel Zank

MAY THE GOD OF HOPE UNITE US!

(Romans 15:4-13) For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written: "Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to your name." Again, it says, "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people." And again, "Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and sing praises to him, all you peoples." And again, Isaiah says, "The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him." May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Christ Jesus, our only hope for salvation, dear fellow redeemed,

You've seen the signs all over town, in newspapers and on television. They read, "United We Stand!" I don't know about you, but I never get tired of seeing that phrase. It sends a tingle of patriotism up and down my spine to think that I stand shoulder to shoulder with two hundred eighty-five million Americans-all of us united in a common cause.

And yet life has taught me that although unity is a powerful force, it is at the same time one of the most fragile things on earth. Look at our leaders in congress. Two months ago they stood united on so many issues. Now talk of tax cuts and trade deals have once again divided them down party lines. Or what about the marital union of husband and wife? Day after day sin and divorce bring a premature ending to so many pledges of life-long unity.

It's hard to stand united, even as Christians. Even in the church unity is such a fragile thing. But Christian unity is part and parcel of Christianity. Which explains why we find the Apostle Paul taking time to talk and pray about our unity as Christians. As we consider the Scripture God inspired him to write, we too will want to talk and pray about our unity. So I offer this prayer as our theme today: May the God of Hope Unite Us! May he unite us in our confession of Christ's Word and in our expression of Christ's love.

The Apostle prays to God for unity in the church for only God can truly unite sinful human beings. That's because by nature we sinners have a completely solitary existence. By nature we live apart from God. Recalling this about our natural condition Paul says in Ephesians 2:12: "...remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, ...without hope and without God in the world." Now, granted that sounds like a frightening existence, but not necessarily a solitary one. Since we were all in the same boat, weren't we sinners united by our sin? Never! Sin never unites people. Sin not only separates us from God, it separates us from our fellow sinners because sin makes everyone selfish. In chapter 1 of his letter to the Romans, Paul says that sinners are by nature: "...full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters...they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless" (Romans 1:29-31). Sin doesn't unite. Sin is the great divider for time and for eternity. There's an old saying, "Misery loves company." But that's not true. At least it won't be true in hell. The misery our sin has earned for us is an eternity of solitude in a prison where everyone is alone in his or her anguish, hating everyone else forever.

There is no unity in sin or its punishment. Unity is found only in the hope of salvation from sin and its punishment; and the hope of salvation comes only from God through his Holy Word. In fact the Scriptures exist for the sole purpose of giving us hope and uniting us in it. Paul says: "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (v. 4).

Paul here is speaking primarily of the Old Testament Scriptures, using them to show that it was always God's plan to save sinners; and not just the sinners of Israel, but of all the nations. Think of God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 26:4 "...through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed." Paul points to God's fulfillment of this promise when he says in verses 8-9 of our text: "For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy." God kept all his promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by sending Jesus, the Son of God to become their offspring whose perfect life on earth provides holiness for every sinner and whose God-forsaken death on the cross serves as payment in full for the sins of all people. This saving truth of the Scriptures brought salvation to Israel and Israel in turn shared its good news with the Gentiles so that they too could put their hope in Christ.

In verses 10-11 of our text Paul shows how the gospel unites Jews and non-Jews, making them all one in Christ-a truth Paul clearly expresses in Galatians 3:28 where he writes, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." And again Paul says in Ephesians 4:4-5, "There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called - one Lord, one faith, one baptism;" By God's grace the gospel of Jesus Christ, coming to you and me in Word and sacrament, has worked in all of us the sure and certain hope that Jesus our Savior has earned us God's forgiveness for our every sin. We believe that Jesus has conquered death for us by his resurrection from the dead and that he will one day soon take us all to live with him in heaven. God's grace has united us by and in this hope that is founded on the Word of Jesus Christ. It is God's gracious will for us that we remain united by continuing to hold to his truth.

This is why we want to pray: May the God of hope unite us in our confession of Christ's Word. Paul prays this same thing for us when he says in verse 5-6 of our text, "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." In the Greek language the phrase translated here as "spirit of unity" literally means, "to think the same thing among one another." The unity you and I enjoy as members of this congregation and the Wisconsin Synod is built on the things we believe and say about Jesus and his teachings. We are united because we have the same beliefs, because you and I say the same things about Jesus and his Scriptures. There is no other basis for Christian unity. There are some Christians who think that they are united because they agree to disagree about the Bible's teachings-any or all of them. But the Scripture before us today says their wrong. This does not necessarily mean that they do not have faith in Christ. God will be the judge of that. But they are not of one heart and mouth. They are deceiving themselves and dishonoring God by pretending to have unity where none exists. This is why we desire to worship and commune only with those who believe and confess what we believe and confess-not because we think we're the only Christians on earth, but so that with one heart and one mouth, as Paul says here, we may glorify our God, praising him for the unity he's given us in Christ.

But is such unity really possible? Absolutely! It's a blessing of God worked by his Holy Spirit when we study his Word together. Does this mean that all of us will always arrive at the same understanding of Scripture's teaching at the same moment in time? Probably not. But it does mean that all of us will constantly be praying for and striving to have the same understanding. This is why we will want to be in worship and Bible class together as often as possible. Only when we're in the Word together can we be asking each other questions, drawing on each other's God-given insight and knowledge so that we can learn Christ's truth from each other and by God's Spirit be united in what we believe and say about Christ and every teaching of his Word. God's richest blessings will be ours when we study Scripture together. He will unite us in our confession of Christ's Word. But this won't be the only blessing we seek from him. We will also pray: May the God of hope unite us in our expression of Christ's love. This part of our prayer is based on Paul's words in verse 7 where he says to us, "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."

Paul had good reason for urging such mutual acceptance. From Romans 14 we learn that Satan had been at work in the Roman congregation, trying to do what he could to destroy Christian unity. His ploy was not to use error or false teaching to divide the Christians, but instead to use a spirit of intolerance and prejudice to cause division. It seems that the Christians in Rome began to argue among themselves about whether it was more God-pleasing to be a vegetarian or a meat-eater; and about whether it was better to worship on Saturday or Sunday. We might wonder how such trivial matters could possibly be a threat to Christian unity until we realize how often Satan succeeds in dividing us in the very same way. The use of one Bible translation over another, the choice of a particular hymnal, the decision to build an addition, the desire to start a new mission, the spending of congregational funds, these and so many other things can cause disagreement among us. And that's alright. We don't have to agree on all these sorts of things, but we dare not let our disagreements cause us to think less of each other and so ruin our unity. That would be foolish and sinful.

How can we keep this from happening? By recognizing our sins in this regard, taking them to Christ in repentance and having the free forgiveness he won for us on the cross. His forgiveness is ours, for as Paul says, Christ has accepted us, all of us as his dear brothers and sisters. This truth will lead us to praise God by accepting each other in the same way. After all, who am I to think less of you for any reason when my dear Savior regards you so highly? Any dearly loved brother or sister of his, is a dearly loved brother or sister of mine. And when I forget this, when my sin threatens our unity, I will need to go back to Christ with my sin and have his forgiveness and love once again. And because he is so gracious I will receive it and so will you. This is the hope that unites us, the hope of forgiveness and the life with God it brings us. As God fills us with this hope through his Word, he fills us with Christ's love and the ability to express that love to each other in so many ways, not least of which is accepting each other for who and what we are in Christ. The hope we share in Christ is the key to this acceptance and to our unity. For this reason we will always want to pray as Paul does in our closing verse: May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in him, so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.