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August 7, 2005
Pentecost 12
Romans 9:1-5
Pastor Joel Zank

Learn a Lesson in Love!

(Romans 9:1-5) I speak the truth in Christ--I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-- 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

In Christ Jesus, who loved us when we were unlovable, dear fellow redeemed,

Let's pretend for a moment that I just stepped onto this world. I'm from that new planet they just discovered - the one they haven't named yet, and I need your help to understand something. Can you tell me what love is? Can you describe it for me or maybe tell me what it's supposed to feel like? Not so easy is it - which is rather strange given the fact that you all love and are loved. But not to worry because today all of us have an opportunity to Learn a Lesson in Love 1)from Paul and 2) from Paul's people.

The Apostle Paul was a Jew by birth, a "Hebrew of Hebrews" as he describes himself in Philippians 3. And yet the Lord Jesus had appointed this Jewish man to be his ambassador to the Gentiles, to all the non-Jews of the world. As you might imagine, that didn't sit too well with many of Paul's countrymen. To make matters worse, the gospel Paul was preaching seemed to contradict much of what the Jews held dear both as to their culture and their religion. In their eyes Paul was a traitor who must have despised his Hebrew roots and hated his fellow Jews.

But those people had it all wrong. Paul didn't hate them; he loved them as he tells them and us in the opening verses of our text: "I speak the truth in Christ--I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-- 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart" (Romans 9:1-2).

A moment ago I asked you what love is supposed to feel like. I would guess that many of us would think of love in terms of joy and happiness - a warm fuzzy feeling. But in Paul's case love brought him sorrow and anguish. Why? Because the people he loved had rejected Christ, which meant that they were the living damned, people who were headed for hell.

How do we know that Paul loved such people? Listen to what he's willing to do for them: "For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel" (Romans 9:3-4a). When Paul says, "for the sake of" he means, "in the place of." Can you fathom such love? Perhaps to a degree. How many of us haven't watched a loved one suffering from some illness and wished that we could take his or her place. Of course in our case it's a loved one. In Paul's case it was people who hated him and at times tried to murder him. Yet Paul loved his people so that he was willing to trade places with them. He would willingly be cut off from Christ and spend eternity with Satan if it meant that his fellow Jews could be with Jesus forever. Paul didn't hate the Jews. He would have suffered a fate worse than death for them.

How could that be? Where did such love come from? I can tell you this, Paul wasn't born with it, at least not the first time around. We weren't either. By nature we are selfish creatures who can think only of ourselves. By nature we are not willing or able to even lift a finger to dry another's tears, let alone suffer hell for him or her. The same was once true of Paul. There was a time in his life when he was of a mind to persecute and execute anyone who spoke the name of Jesus. But all that changed when Jesus himself entered Paul's heart. In an instant Jesus brought Paul to see the lifetime of sin and its guilt that hung around Paul's neck like an anchor, sin that Paul could never get rid of, not by his own doing, sin that would finally drag Paul into misery without end in hell. But that's not how Jesus left things with Paul. Jesus came to Paul's heart to take away the burden and curse of Paul's sin with the simple promise, "I am your Savior from sin." That's all it took, for by the power of that promise Paul was reborn in faith. His natural selfishness was replaced by a selfless love for others, love that was formed and fueled by Christ's love for Paul.

By God's grace, that same thing has happened to you and me. When we weren't looking for it, when we didn't even want it, in fact when we despised it most, Christ's love sought and found us. And when it did, love came to us with the most amazing news, the news that someone actually did take our place under sin's curse. It wasn't the Apostle Paul; his death in hell could only have provided payment for his own sin, not yours or mine. No, this someone had to be unique. He had to be human so that he could die, yet a human without sin so that his death would not be spent canceling his own debt before God. But even a sinless human couldn't offer his perfect life in trade for all sinful mankind. No, for one death to accomplish so much, the sacrifice had to be nothing less than divine. In other words, the one taking our place had to be God as well as man. There is only one person who fits this description. The one Paul praises in verse 5 of our text, the human descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who is at the same time God over all - Jesus the Christ. He is the God-man who went to hell for you, suffered your curse, canceled your sin-debt and now lives again to cover you with his holiness.

This same Jesus has brought us into his family, more than that, this Jesus lives in us, transforming us day by day so that we actually think and love like him. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:16 "We have the mind of Christ." That explains it doesn't it! That's why Paul could love as he did, why he could wish himself cursed in the place of others. That was nothing more and nothing less than the love of Christ filling Paul up to the point that he couldn't keep it inside of him any longer. So that love came spilling out, causing him to sound and act just like Jesus.

The Savior's love will have the same influence on our words and actions. God's Spirit has brought us to faith in Jesus. We have the mind of Christ inside of us. That means that, like Jesus, we have a love for the lost in this world, both Jews and Gentiles, a love that would do anything to bring them to Christ. Are we letting that love have its way with us? Is it taking control of our prayer-life, prompting us to spend time pleading with God to use us to reach out to the lost? Is Christ's love in us giving us the courage we need to say the hard things that our unchurched family and friends need to hear about their sin and their need for a Savior? Does Christ's love compel us to give generous offerings that allow others to use the gospel in our stead to strengthen believers and make new disciples? If we can always answer yes to all these questions, that's great! But I'm guessing that few if any of us can truthfully say such a thing. More likely we must all confess that our sinful nature too often gets the upper hand, choking off the impulses of Christ's love within us before that love can bear any fruit and accomplish any good.

To our great shame we seem so little like Christ. What can we do about that? First, we want to recognize our sin for what it is, a damning thing that threatens our relationship with God. We want to take our sin to Jesus in repentance. Friends, he forgives us even for our lack of love. He doesn't hold our selfishness against us. Do see what that means? In spite of the many sinful things we said and did again this past week, we still live at peace with our God through Christ. We want to remain in this peace, which leads us to the second thing we can do: We can learn a lesson in love from Paul's people.

In the closing verses of our text, Paul recounts the blessings that God's grace showered upon the Jews. Paul says: "Theirs is the adoption as sons;" What grace indeed! Of all the nations on earth God chose the nation of Israel to be a son to him, a special people, in position to inherit all the joys of heaven. "...theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises." As he did with no other people on earth, God made his presence known among the Israelites. As they journeyed from Egypt to the Promised Land, God's glory led the way in that pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. At the same time, God made one covenant after another with this people, promising to be the God who would save them from every enemy- physical and spiritual. God gave these people his law so that they might know his will and avoid offending him. He gave them the Temple and taught them how to worship there so that through all their sacrifices and ceremonies they could learn of the promised Lamb of God who would take away their sins and the sins of the world. And still there were more blessings! Paul says, "Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ..." The lives of men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David were living proof that God is a God of his Word. His powerful promises can be counted on to change lives and make history, as evidenced by the promise God kept in Bethlehem when he caused the world's Savior to be born to a young Jewish girl, a descendant of David, named Mary. Talk about spiritual advantages - can you imagine having the Savior grow up as one of your people?

But sadly enough, so many of Paul's people misread and misused all these blessings, all these advantages. Oh, they liked the fact that God had chosen to bless them, but they decided that his most important blessings had to do with earthly success and security. So they went through the motions of worship, hoping that it would be enough to pacify God and keep the river of his goodness flowing. These are the people who wanted to make Jesus their bread king after he fed the five thousand. They wanted him to battle Rome, conquer Caesar and restore to Israel the glory it had when David and Solomon were their kings. It's no wonder they rejected Jesus. They had no time for his talk of repentance, no interest in his promised forgiveness. They wanted a powerful king, not a pitiful Savior.

Friend, what do you want? There's a lesson in love to be learned in all this. Jesus summed it up well when he said, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). Too many of Paul's people loved life in this world more than their soul's salvation. I often fear that the same may be true of us. Look at the tremendous advantages God has given you and me. Ours is the adoption as sons - God has brought us into his family. Ours is the gospel in Word and Sacraments; ours is the communion of Saints, the wonderful fellowship God has worked among us, that we might constantly comfort and encourage one another. Are we making the most of these advantages? Or does our love of earthly life get in our way? The answer lies in what we do with our time and how we spend our energy. Is our devotion to the Word or to the world? If it's to the world, it means that we've taken our eyes off of Jesus. When that happens we begin to sink, just like Peter did in our gospel reading. Fear and worry overtake us. Real happiness and success allude us. We drowned in our troubles. If that's the way you're feeling, it's time to put your eyes back on Jesus. It's time to cry, "Lord, save me!" For he does, you know. He reaches out to you today in love that never tires or quits. With his free forgiveness, he opens once again all the doors of blessing that your sins have slammed shut. And as he renews his promises to you, he is able to work in you a new devotion to his gospel and a new appreciation of his grace.

So again I ask you, what is love? And you tell me, love is not a what, love is a who. Love is Jesus for us and in us through the power of his gospel. And what does love feel like? If feels like peace, peace that transcends all understanding and that keeps our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, who is God over all; forever praised. Amen.