This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
–Jeremiah 22.3 (NIV)
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
–Romans 8.12-17 (NIV)
Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
–John 6.47-51 (NIV)
As we have seen before, the Christian faith is not an exercise in self-help or self-reliance. Scripture is quite clear about the mess we call the human condition. We are too profoundly broken to fix ourselves so that a real relationship with God is possible. We need radical help if we ever hope to overcome that within us that keeps us hostile toward and separate from God. The good news is that we do have the needed radical help. It comes from the very Spirit of God living in us as Paul tells us in today’s passage.
Ever since the Fall, humans have been confronted with a choice. We can choose to be reconciled to God as evidenced by our willingness to obey his life-giving commands and have life, or we can choose to remain alienated toward God and choose death. Whatever we choose, we do so freely and without coercion because God created us to be free moral agents and love never imposes itself on the beloved.
In today’s passage, we see Paul joining his voice with the rest of Scripture in urging us to choose life. The beauty of God’s grace is that when we choose life, God through his Spirit living in us helps us put our money where our mouth is. The Spirit helps us get rid of all that is within us that keeps us in exile from God. In fact, without the Spirit’s help, we have no hope at all of ever becoming fully the humans that God created us and wants us to be. What a remarkable gift!
It is even more remarkable when we consider what Paul has already written in his letter about God’s love and grace poured out on us. Paul has reminded us of the mind-blowing love of God, of what God has already done for us in and through the cross of Christ (see Romans 5.6-11). God has entered our history and acted decisively on our behalf so that the intractable problem of human sin and God’s justice and love could be resolved. The restoration of our relationship with God is only possible because of what God has done for us. It is God’s gift offered to us freely. Our job is to respond to God’s offer.
In today’s passage, Paul reminds us of what else God does for us to help restore our relationship with him. God gives his very Spirit to those who accept his gracious invitation to be healed and restored in Christ. In effect, we become God’s adopted children. The Greek word for adoption that Paul uses, huiothesia, is a technical legal term which signified that the person adopted would have every right of inheritance that natural born children had. The implication is clear. Those who are in Christ (i.e., who have faith in Christ) will share in everything he has inherited, i.e. the New Creation. Contrary to the popular misapplication of the term, “children of God,” by which it is meant that all humans are children of God, as Paul and other NT writers make clear, only those who have God’s Spirit living in them through faith are God’s children. In other words, only those who are in Christ can be counted as God’s children with full rights of inheritance. It is a sobering notion that should invoke our fervent prayers for those who do not know Jesus but also one that gives us the basis for real hope in our struggles.
For you see, when we have God’s Spirit (i.e., the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Christ–the NT uses these terms interchangeably) in us, we are set free from our self-centeredness and given power to love and serve God in the same manner that Jesus did when he walked on this earth. Paul uses the term slavery in different ways, depending on the point he was trying to make. In Romans 6, for example, he tells us that we are slaves to righteousness (and therefore to Jesus) because we have said no to sin, a good thing. In the passage above, Paul tacitly acknowledges the perniciousness of slavery by telling us that the Spirit frees us from the fear that almost always accompanies human slavery. We are free from our fear of death. We are free to love and serve the Lord because of what he has done for us and because we are enabled to do so by his very Spirit living in us.
And what will our love and service look like? Whatever our individual calls look like, it will be costly and we will suffer because of it. Last week we looked at some specific ways in which Christians suffer for the name and you can refer to that post for the details if you’d like. Suffice it to say here that following the way of Jesus, following the way of the Cross is costly. It is costly to risk forgiveness and to seek reconciliation. It is costly to embody Jesus to help others bear their burdens. It is costly to look out for the weakest and most helpless in our society. It is costly to seek the welfare of others over our own needs. It is costly not to hate. It is costly to confront injustice where we see it and act within our abilities to do something about it, not violently or out of anger, but for the sake of the Name. Yet suffer we must if we want to be God’s children. Suffer we must because our Lord did likewise and commands us to deny ourselves, take up our cross each day, and follow him. That is costly. It costs us our self-centeredness.
Our suffering for Jesus’ name and sake is proof positive that we have a lively and saving faith in him, and that we have his very Spirit in us to help us bear our suffering.
But we are not called to do this on our own. Just as God called his people Israel collectively to be agents of his healing and redemptive power, so God calls us collectively to be his Messiah’s people, the Church. The Christian faith was never intended to be lived alone or in isolation. Doing so makes us vulnerable to be picked off one by one by Satan so that we cannot be Kingdom workers and bear Jesus’ presence for others. Neither can we confront the powers and principalities on our own as effectively as we can together. But the Church is not called to confront the powers and principalities on its own strength nor by using exclusively the political tools of the world. Rather, it is called to confront evil in precisely the same way our Lord confronted it in his life and death. Only then can we be true to our calling to be Jesus the Messiah’s followers.
And of course, it all starts with the true season of Lent in our heart, whether or not that season actually coincides with the Church calendar. God’s Spirit will not reside in a proud and haughty heart. If we are to open our very being to Jesus’ healing and transformative Presence, humility and contriteness are essential prerequisites.
Following our Lord is never easy because we are not naturally inclined to do so. We would much rather follow ourselves or gods of our own making rather than the one true and living God. But we have help with the battle. We are not alone. We have each other and more importantly we have the very Power and Presence of the Spirit living in us to enable us to be faithful Kingdom workers, pleasing in God’s sight.
Will we get it right all the time? Hardly. In fact, there will be times when it seems that we rarely get it right. But take heart and hope. When we have the Spirit in us we have the assurance, his assurance, that we are his children. The children may sometimes fight amongst themselves and are sometimes obstinate and rebellious toward their parents, but they remain children. Likewise, so do we in our relationship with our heavenly Father. Otherwise, how could we possibly call him Abba (papa or daddy)?? Do you realize what an massive privilege we have been given to call the God of this vast universe, “papa”? It quite simply boggles the mind! Despite our flaws and failures, when we love the Lord and have his Spirit in us, we will keep trying to show our love and devotion to him, just as we would toward our natural parents. And we have the assurance that we remain his children, not because of our faithfulness but because of the faithfulness of Jesus, and that is a powerful antidote to despair and hopelessness.
Suffering for the Name is inevitable. But the meaning, purpose, and joy that being his Kingdom worker brings is also inevitable. And as Paul reminds us today, we have an even brighter future in the New Creation awaiting us. What are you waiting for? Give your very self to the crucified God who loves you and gave his very life for and Spirit to you so that you can be his.