Romans [Season 2]- Nathan King- Romans 15vv7-21: Serving Others With Our Gifts

Intern Nathan King shares thoughts on how the welcome of Christ invites the whole person to be received and given in community.

Transcript

Introduction and Scripture Reading

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello, is this thing on? Can we hear me? Yeah, okay, hi everyone. My name is Nathan Nathan King. I am one of the interns here at Ekklesia this summer. I am a student over at Princeton Seminary and I am super excited to talk with you guys a little bit. I'm super excited to talk with you guys a little bit. So, before we get into it, if you have a Bible or open up your app or read up on the screen, we're going to be continuing our series in Romans with Romans 15, verses 7 through 21. And I will be reading from the NRSV updated edition Super cool, but feel free to read whatever version.

Nathan's Story: Football Failure to Music

Speaker 1 0:51

Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God, for I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God, in order that he might confirm the promises given to the ancestors and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it's written, therefore, I will confess you among the Gentiles and sing praises to your name. And again he says rejoice, o Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples praise him. And again Isaiah says the root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles, and him the Gentiles shall hope. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. Nevertheless, on some points I've written to you rather boldly, by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ to the Gentiles, in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit In Christ Jesus, then I have reason to boast of my work for God, for I will not be so bold as to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit, so that, from Jerusalem and as far as Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the gospel not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else's foundation, but as it my ambition to proclaim the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else's foundation, but as it's written those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand. It's the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please bow your heads with me in prayer. Lord, thank you so much for today and for letting us gather here to talk about you and to be in community with one another and to love one another. God, please bless the words that are going to come out of my mouth, and please bless this time that we have together. Lord, we love you so much and we thank you for this time. Your name, amen. Now, if you don't know me, hi again. I'm Nathan. You've probably seen me around.

Speaker 1 3:32

I've been playing the drums in the worship team here. I sometimes will play guitar, but most of the time I'm back behind the kit, and I've been playing the drums for a while now For about 12-ish years, and so I started when I was about 12. Yeah, I think that's right. Before I started playing drums, though, I had a really big dream of playing football, and so whenever I got to middle school, I decided that I wanted to join the football team because it was the cool thing to do and I needed something to fit in because I was a new kid.

Speaker 1 4:14

But it didn't take long to figure out that I was terrible. I was so bad at football, like so bad. I was so bad at football, like so bad. I remember getting knocked on my butt just like flying five feet away. I didn't want to hit anybody, I didn't want to go out and run. It was awful. I can't stress it enough, I mean, I'll paint you a picture. There are four quarters in the regular game. I didn't play during any of those. There was, though, a special fifth quarter that those of us who were so bad got to play in at the end of the game, and even then and even then I played maybe three times the whole season. No, don't, don't awe at me. No, no, I didn't want to go in. I was like on the line. I would like stand behind people so I wouldn't be called on to go in. It was awful. I hated it, but at the same time, at the same time I was also in concert band, so I just started playing percussion in the concert band.

Speaker 1 5:27

I loved playing the drums. I loved playing the marimba, the crash cymbals just making a lot of noise. I loved it. It was just healing for me and slowly, over time, I realized that I was feeling freer. I was feeling more accepted and like I was in my own skin while I was playing music and I realized that this was where my gifts seemed to make more sense in my life. And I've been able to use this gift in a few ways and I've been able to play drums for church for a long time.

Created as Unique, Beloved Individuals

Speaker 1 6:07

But along with that, when I worked in youth ministry, for an example, there was a kid in the youth ministry from a family and he didn't run really with the popular kids, he didn't go to the same school as a lot of the kids in the youth group and he didn't really have a lot of friends and so he would just kind of be by himself. But I learned that he was in the marching band and so there was one day I went up to him and I talked with him and we just started chatting it up about all the fun marching band things like band camp and the 100 degree, 10 hour, 10-hour days outside. It was awful and we connected instantly about it and over time, his demeanor started to loosen a little bit and he became more comfortable with coming to me and honestly reaching out to other people for support or just encouragement or just to be friends with. And I was only really able to do this because I was gifted with a love for music and I was gifted with a love for playing instruments and all that. Now, why do I say that? So, to be frank, I believe this is what Paul is talking about, and one of the things Paul is talking about in Romans 15. I don't think he's talking about middle school football, but I do think or band for that matter. But I do think that there's something to be said about paying attention to our gifts as a doorway for Christ's love to reach others. Now, from this passage, I have two points I'd like to focus on today, the first of which being that we have all been created by God as unique and beloved individuals. I'll say that again we have been created by God as unique and beloved individuals, amen.

Speaker 1 8:14

Now Paul, following a long treatise on the importance of unity within the family of believers, in chapter 14, he shifts his focus towards action. He begins in verse 7, saying he illustrates how Christ has modeled the same, that through his servanthood, that through Christ serving others, he welcomed all Jews and Gentiles into the loving embrace of God's mercy. And intrinsic to this statement welcome each other, as Christ has welcomed you is the acknowledgement that who God had created them to be was welcomed by Christ. Paul urges the Christians in Rome to, despite issues of dietary restrictions or cleanliness versus uncleanliness that we see in chapter 14, he urges them to bring one another into the fold of God's love because, ultimately, the differences that they thought divided them were welcomed by Christ. And I believe the same can be said about us Our personalities, our experiences, our pasts, our futures, our sins, our good works, our deepest longings, our strange passions, everything, literally everything. Everything that makes you you has already been welcomed by Christ. Everything that makes you you has already been welcomed by Christ. Everything that makes you you has already been welcomed by Christ, and it will continue to be so. Christ will continue to welcome you.

Speaker 1 10:11

It is imperative, therefore, that we see each other not by the small things that might divide us, but as fully beloved and already welcomed individuals, unified under Christ. If we can begin to look at ourselves and others, not through the lens of what our 21st century American culture would tell us about each other, but rather by the vantage point of our belovedness in Christ, we might be able to recognize that these differences are actually gifts to the kingdom of God. These elements, these places, these experiences, these attributes that are a part of our lives, that are a part of our lives, they're gifts from God. They're a completely unique expression of God's love. These are our personalities, our experiences, our sins, our futures, our longings, everything. And if we're to take inventory of these parts of our lives, we can begin to bring our full selves to the service of loving others with a greater authenticity. It's here that those we bring the love of Christ to may also understand that there is a place for them in the family of faith, that we have been welcomed with all of our idiosyncrasies, our failures, our gifts, and they will be too, and I want to be careful here to not make light of the really bad stuff. I don't want to make light of abuse or of pain or trauma and write those off as though God just caused those to happen, just to use them. I don't believe that's the case, but I do want to say that God sees you and God loves you and even with all of that, you're welcomed by God and you are so incredibly loved by God and you are so incredibly loved by God. Now, the second point I want to emphasize is that, whether or not we're aware of it, god is using our unique gifts to draw others into Christ's love.

God Using Our Gifts for Others

Speaker 1 12:37

Paul had been declaring a message of invitation and of acceptance for those outside the family of God, and he desires his audience in Rome to have the exact same care. Essentially, he wants to broaden the scope of those reached by the gospel and he explains in verse 20 that it's quote his ambition to proclaim the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, so that he doesn't build on somebody else's foundation, not where Christ has already been named, so that he doesn't build on somebody else's foundation. And I find it interesting that Paul has these ambitions, because it's important to remember that Paul was Jewish. He outlines his credentials actually in Philippians 3. He says if anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, that is his being Jewish. I have more Circumcised on the eighth day a member of the people of Israel, a tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews and, as to the law, a Pharisee as to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness, under the law, blameless. Yet he's still commissioned by Christ himself to a life of ministry to a primarily non-Jewish population.

Speaker 1 13:41

Is it not strange that Christ desired to use someone so gifted in the traditions, in the history and in the laws of Judaism to present the gospel to the Gentiles? Perhaps Christ wanted to use Paul and his gifts to present a story, the entire story of redemption that began with the Israelites, that began with Paul's ancestry and his heritage and now continues to include the rest of the world Further. I find it deeply fascinating that God desired to use Paul's background of not just being a Jew, but being a Jew from Tarsus, which, at that time Tarsus, was the capital of the Roman province of Cilicia. This means that Paul would have been incredibly familiar with Roman culture and thus he would have been further equipped to minister to Gentiles. So it seems as though God, in order to use Paul for these greater purposes, used what was familiar to him and, through Paul's yieldedness to the movement of the Holy Spirit, these gifts were used in unique ways that would not have been available without Paul's humility and openness toward God. And openness toward God. Another example of gifts being used for God's greater purposes.

Speaker 1 15:04

We need not look further than the Gentiles themselves. The Gentiles, as they became included in the calling and in the responsibility of their Jewish neighbors, were purposed for something greater simply by the gift of their Jewish neighbors, were purposed for something greater simply by the gift of their presence. If we look a little bit further down this passage we didn't get to this verse today but if we look at verse 31, paul asks the Christians in Rome to be praying for him, to be praying for his journey to Jerusalem, and that quote his ministry, or in some ancient authorities, it says his bringing of a gift is acceptable to those in Jerusalem. I find it interesting that in his commentary on Romans, paul Actimire explains the following. On Romans, paul Actimeyer explains the following the offering this is the offering that Paul is bringing to Jerusalem of the Gentiles to the church in Jerusalem, is the gift the Gentiles are giving to the Jews right. The gift is therefore a gesture of unity and equality. Accepting the gift is therefore tacit admission by the Jewish Christians that Jews and Gentiles now stand on equal footing with respect to each other. So it's important to recognize that because Gentiles were welcomed into the body of Christ. Their gift, even if it was simply their presence, served a greater purpose for the livelihood of the church.

Living in Community with Purpose

Speaker 1 16:41

In the previous chapters, and as well as in the beginning of chapter 15, paul has emphasized the importance of unity, and I believe that both examples of Paul's background and that of the Gentiles can show us why unity is so crucial. Why is that? Our family of faith is supposed to be a reflection of God's creation itself full of beautiful and diverse gifts that draw others to Christ's love and grace. So how do we do this Like, in a few minutes, when I stop talking, you guys will go and how do we do this? How do we draw others to Christ's love? Just because of who we are and because of what we've been through, because of our backgrounds, because of our gifts?

Speaker 1 17:44

Well, I believe that it begins with a recognition that God has created us to be in community with one another, with all of our differences. When you were created I'm talking to each and every one of you when you were all created, god thought that you were a good idea, and God thought that you were a good idea to be in community with one another right now, thought that you were a good idea to be in community with one another right now, and God knows the experiences that you've had and God knows the places you will end up. And there is such beauty and promise to that. Because we're in community with one another, we can hold each other up, we can lift each other's burdens. There is so much beauty and promise, too, in knowing that the Holy Spirit will work with our gifts.

Speaker 1 18:54

The Holy Spirit will work with our gifts to draw others to Christ, and I believe that that was the case with my friend in the youth group that I didn't do anything. Right, I got interested in music. I didn't even want to be in music. Right, I wanted to play football, but God used that right. The Holy Spirit used that and brought us together so that my friend in the youth group could know God's love. Right, those are our gifts, those are the things that we need to pay attention to.

Speaker 1 19:37

I also believe that God placed us where we are with intention.

Speaker 1 19:43

If we can be open to how God might be using us and all of our gifts in our communities, and if we can bring our full selves to the service of Christ, we position ourselves outwardly towards others, just as Christ did when, through his ministry and all the way to the cross, he served others and he gave his life as a gift for everyone.

Closing Prayer and Reflection

Speaker 1 20:13

Recognizing and fully leaning into our gifts, into the wonderful belovedness that God has made us to be, we can more authentically and empathetically love and serve those whom God has placed in front of us, and because of Christ's death and resurrection, and because of Christ's death and resurrection, we are free to bring others into the family of faith that we ourselves have been welcomed into.

Speaker 1 20:41

I'm going to invite the worship team back up, and why don't we have a little time of prayer as they're coming up? Bow your heads with me, lord, thank you again for today and thank you for for giving us the recognition that we are loved by you, that there is nothing we can do and that there is nothing about us that you will turn away, that you have welcomed us in all of our mess. But with that, god, you call us. You call us to serve others, to use our gifts, to use our experiences to draw others into this love, to welcome others into the family that you've welcomed us in, god. We thank you and we pray that as we go into the week, as we go into our jobs, into our schools, into our communities, that you remind us that we are all one under God. We are all made one under Christ and through Christ's sacrifice we can all be a family of faith together and we can treat each other as such. Lord, we love you and we thank you, amen.