WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:01.400 Be seated. 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:09.200 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:14.100 There's a little German saying kein blatt für die mund. 4 00:00:14.100 --> 00:00:18.600 No, nothing in front of the mouth which means to say to say something 5 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:23.500 bold and directly that is precisely what the Apostle does in our text 6 00:00:23.500 --> 00:00:23.800 for today. 7 00:00:25.300 --> 00:00:31.200 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifest. 8 00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:38.000 The Apostle announces a decisive now the moment of revelation of God 9 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:43.800 saving righteousness. The resurrection of the crucified Christ God's 10 00:00:43.800 --> 00:00:49.200 Mercy Seat the moment of the fulfillment of God's Word of Promise. 11 00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:52.300 500 years ago 12 00:00:53.500 --> 00:00:57.000 precisely in this month in 1520 13 00:00:57.800 --> 00:01:02.300 one of Luther's writings on this theme came into print. 14 00:01:02.300 --> 00:01:07.600 It was the Babylonian captivity of the church on the Sacrament of the 15 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:09.500 Altar in which we are about to share. 16 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:11.900 These areLuther's words: 17 00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:18.700 God does not deal nor has he ever dealt with a human being in any 18 00:01:18.700 --> 00:01:21.600 other way than through a Word of Promise. 19 00:01:22.700 --> 00:01:29.100 And we in turn cannot deal with God in any other way than through 20 00:01:29.100 --> 00:01:32.400 faith in the word of God's promise. 21 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:35.700 Promise alone. 22 00:01:37.100 --> 00:01:38.600 Faith alone. 23 00:01:39.800 --> 00:01:41.900 That is the message of the apostle. 24 00:01:41.900 --> 00:01:44.500 That is the core of the Reformation. 25 00:01:46.200 --> 00:01:47.900 It's a message that's familiar to us. 26 00:01:47.900 --> 00:01:49.000 We've heard it. 27 00:01:50.100 --> 00:01:50.900 We know it. 28 00:01:52.300 --> 00:01:53.200 And yet 29 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:55.300 we must confess 30 00:01:55.300 --> 00:01:59.800 it's often remains a stranger to our hearts. 31 00:02:00.800 --> 00:02:02.600 We must hear it again 32 00:02:03.900 --> 00:02:06.200 and again and again. 33 00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:14.600 So we might not only know it but believe it and receive it ever afresh. 34 00:02:15.800 --> 00:02:22.000 This applies to us today as we remember, observe, Reformation day. 35 00:02:23.700 --> 00:02:27.100 Strange to say we can borrow a word from Goethe here. 36 00:02:28.200 --> 00:02:33.100 What you have inherited from your father's acquire for yourself so 37 00:02:33.100 --> 00:02:34.100 that you may possess it. 38 00:02:36.200 --> 00:02:40.600 We can't live from the faith of our fathers and our mothers. We're 39 00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:41.500 called here 40 00:02:41.500 --> 00:02:48.100 and now in our time just as once they were called to the obedience of 41 00:02:48.100 --> 00:02:48.700 faith. 42 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:51.400 A little personal note here. 43 00:02:52.700 --> 00:03:00.000 This is where would have been the hundredth and birthday of my father. 44 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:01.100 Arthur 45 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:04.400 Martin Seyfried. 46 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:07.000 I can't live by his faith. 47 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.900 I'm called to the obedience of faith as well. 48 00:03:09.900 --> 00:03:12.000 That was also true for the Christians in Rome. 49 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:16.400 Paul had a message for them the message that we've heard in our text. 50 00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:18.400 It was a message that was familiar. 51 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:23.200 They were Christians and yet it was very strange to their ears. 52 00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:25.600 And what was his message? 53 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:28.000 In a nutshell it's this. 54 00:03:29.600 --> 00:03:31.100 Gentile lives matter. 55 00:03:32.100 --> 00:03:36.200 Faith in Jesus Christ, faith in the promise of God fulfilled in him 56 00:03:36.200 --> 00:03:38.900 means that Gentile lives matter. 57 00:03:39.800 --> 00:03:45.700 There's no distinction all have sinned all lack God's glory and all 58 00:03:45.700 --> 00:03:52.700 are justified by his grace no matter what their land or race, Gentile 59 00:03:52.700 --> 00:03:53.300 lives matter 60 00:03:55.700 --> 00:04:00.600 There's a story behind the text just as a story behind every text. The 61 00:04:00.600 --> 00:04:04.700 Gospel had come to Rome long before this letter and long before Paul 62 00:04:04.700 --> 00:04:05.700 ever arrived there. 63 00:04:05.700 --> 00:04:09.400 It came to Rome through Jewish believers when one way or another made 64 00:04:09.400 --> 00:04:11.400 their way from Judea to Rome. 65 00:04:12.300 --> 00:04:16.100 We know some of their names from the list of greetings that we read in 66 00:04:16.100 --> 00:04:16.899 Romans 16. 67 00:04:18.200 --> 00:04:20.100 They were the founding members of the Church. 68 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:25.900 They were the ones who had influence in the circle of house churches 69 00:04:25.900 --> 00:04:32.300 that existed in Rome or at least they once had influence in the house 70 00:04:32.300 --> 00:04:35.000 churches in Rome. Over the years 71 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:39.500 the church has changed the emperor Claudius had expelled all Jews from 72 00:04:39.500 --> 00:04:45.400 Rome including Jewish Christians. And when they returned everything 73 00:04:45.400 --> 00:04:50.800 was different in Rome as in Antioch earlier, someone began speaking 74 00:04:50.800 --> 00:04:52.300 the Gospel to Gentiles. 75 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:54.700 And they believed. 76 00:04:55.800 --> 00:04:56.700 A lot of them. 77 00:04:58.200 --> 00:05:01.800 And when these Jewish Christians came back home 78 00:05:02.700 --> 00:05:04.200 the neighborhood had changed. 79 00:05:06.200 --> 00:05:10.100 Lots of Gentiles they have become the majority in the church. 80 00:05:11.400 --> 00:05:13.000 Changing demographics 81 00:05:14.400 --> 00:05:15.500 changed Church. 82 00:05:17.500 --> 00:05:21.200 And there were problems that came along with this change problems that 83 00:05:21.200 --> 00:05:23.300 are not too far from some of our problems. 84 00:05:24.600 --> 00:05:26.100 Old church and young Church. 85 00:05:27.700 --> 00:05:30.000 Traditional church missional church. 86 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:32.600 In some house churches 87 00:05:34.300 --> 00:05:38.100 Paul Gerhardt hymns every Sunday, probably where you would have found 88 00:05:38.100 --> 00:05:38.300 me. 89 00:05:39.400 --> 00:05:42.500 In some house house churches bongos. 90 00:05:43.500 --> 00:05:48.300 Jews and Gentiles one side bound to Jewish traditions and insistent on 91 00:05:48.300 --> 00:05:52.800 them the other side free from Jewish traditions and resistant to them. 92 00:05:54.100 --> 00:05:55.700 And Paul is speaking to this issue. 93 00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:02.000 In our reading for today, he's speaking to the traditional group the 94 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:06.200 older Jewish members those were bound to their traditions and he 95 00:06:06.200 --> 00:06:08.400 places himself right alongside them. 96 00:06:08.400 --> 00:06:12.300 We've heard it in the text. Where then is are boasting as Jews? 97 00:06:12.300 --> 00:06:16.500 It's excluded by what kind of law. A law of works? 98 00:06:16.500 --> 00:06:22.600 No, but by a law of faith this higher law that transcends the law of 99 00:06:22.600 --> 00:06:24.900 Moses in which the law of Moses is fulfilled. 100 00:06:26.900 --> 00:06:31.700 Well, then these members of the church are little bit upset at this and 101 00:06:31.700 --> 00:06:32.500 they ask Paul. 102 00:06:32.500 --> 00:06:33.900 What is this 103 00:06:33.900 --> 00:06:34.900 law of Faith? 104 00:06:34.900 --> 00:06:36.600 What does this mean? 105 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:38.700 How does it fit into the tradition? 106 00:06:40.300 --> 00:06:42.200 And Paul gives a simple answer. 107 00:06:43.900 --> 00:06:48.200 Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai. 108 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:50.500 He spoke their language. 109 00:06:51.500 --> 00:06:55.800 Hear o Israel the Lord Our God the Lord is one. 110 00:06:57.100 --> 00:06:59.000 That's the confession that they knew. 111 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:07.000 If God is one says Paul and we Jews know that he is one. 112 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:14.500 He will justify Jew and Gentile in only one way by faith alone. 113 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:21.500 That is what it means to confess that the Lord the God of Israel is 114 00:07:21.500 --> 00:07:21.900 one. 115 00:07:21.900 --> 00:07:26.300 He has manifest his saving righteousness for all people. 116 00:07:27.700 --> 00:07:33.000 For all races in Jesus Christ, there is no distinction. 117 00:07:36.200 --> 00:07:40.300 Paul was calling these Jewish-Christians in Rome back to their own 118 00:07:40.300 --> 00:07:40.800 confession. 119 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:43.500 The confession of the Lord as the one true God. 120 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:47.100 The confession remains the same. 121 00:07:49.200 --> 00:07:55.000 But those who hear the Word of Promise fulfilled in Jesus are changed. 122 00:07:56.200 --> 00:07:57.200 They're made new. 123 00:07:58.200 --> 00:08:02.100 Paul was calling the Roman Christians to the obedience of faith. 124 00:08:03.900 --> 00:08:08.400 Now this obedience of faith meant that these Jewish Christians in 125 00:08:08.400 --> 00:08:08.600 Rome. 126 00:08:08.600 --> 00:08:14.200 We're going to have to embrace their Gentile brothers and sisters and 127 00:08:14.200 --> 00:08:15.900 Gentile syndrome 128 00:08:15.900 --> 00:08:18.900 we're going to have to embrace their Jewish brothers and sisters. 129 00:08:18.900 --> 00:08:23.100 They were going to have to welcome one another into their differing 130 00:08:23.100 --> 00:08:23.900 house churches. 131 00:08:23.900 --> 00:08:28.400 They were going to welcome one another into their homes into their 132 00:08:28.400 --> 00:08:30.500 hearts into their lives. 133 00:08:32.700 --> 00:08:34.700 That's Paul's vision for the church. 134 00:08:36.100 --> 00:08:37.600 It's a Reformational vision. 135 00:08:39.100 --> 00:08:40.500 Jews were to remain Jews, 136 00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:41.799 no question about that. 137 00:08:41.799 --> 00:08:44.100 They could even keep their traditions. 138 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.500 Gentiles however would remain Gentiles. 139 00:08:49.400 --> 00:08:52.400 But Jews and Gentiles in Rome were to be Christians. 140 00:08:53.500 --> 00:08:58.000 They were to meet one another in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ 141 00:08:58.000 --> 00:08:59.700 and in faith. 142 00:09:00.900 --> 00:09:01.600 They were together 143 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:07.300 Paul says, with one heart and one mouth to glorify the God and Father 144 00:09:07.300 --> 00:09:08.500 of our Lord Jesus Christ. 145 00:09:10.200 --> 00:09:12.400 They were to sing the same song. 146 00:09:14.700 --> 00:09:17.100 And that song went something like this. 147 00:09:18.800 --> 00:09:24.200 Lord by the brightness of your light in Holy Faith your church unite 148 00:09:24.200 --> 00:09:29.000 from every race and every tongue this to your praise. 149 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:34.300 Oh Lord Our God the song by alleluia alleluia. 150 00:09:36.800 --> 00:09:39.200 And Jews and Gentiles in Rome. 151 00:09:40.100 --> 00:09:45.600 Where to come together to the Lord's table as diverse as they were 152 00:09:46.500 --> 00:09:49.600 to share in Christ's body and blood, 153 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:54.900 and the Lord calls us to the same this very day. 154 00:09:56.500 --> 00:09:58.500 Because there is one bread 155 00:09:59.400 --> 00:10:05.200 we who are many and beyond our boundaries, beyond these walls and very 156 00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:07.400 diverse are one body. 157 00:10:08.800 --> 00:10:11.000 We all share in the one bread. 158 00:10:12.700 --> 00:10:14.400 In Jesus name. Amen.