“Spiritual Growth, Part 14” by Romans “Spiritual Growth, Part 14” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy21vd6jSps
We are continuing with our Series, “Spiritual Growth;” this is the 14th Installment. Picking up where we left off last week, we are still on the subject of forgiveness being a vital component of Spiritual Growth, consider Luke 6:37: “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”
The Life Application Bible says: "A forgiving spirit demonstrates that a person has received God’s forgiveness. Jesus uses the picture of measuring grain in a basket to ensure the full amount. If we are critical rather than compassionate, we will also receive criticism. If we treat others generously, graciously, and compassionately, however, these qualities will come back to us in full measure. We are to love others, not judge them."
Matthew Henry adds to this: “All these sayings of Christ we had before in Matthew; some of them in ch. 7, others in other places. They were sayings that Christ often used; they needed only to be mentioned, it was easy to apply them. Grotius thinks that we need not be critical here in seeking for the coherence: they are golden sentences, like Solomon's proverbs or parables. Let us observe here,
I. We ought to be very candid in our censures of others, because we need grains of allowance ourselves: “Therefore judge not others, because then you yourselves shall not be judged; therefore condemn not others, because then you yourselves shall not be condemned, Luke 6:37.
Exercise towards others that charity which thinks no evil, which bears all things, believes and hopes all things; and then others will exercise that charity towards you. God will not judge and condemn you, men will not.” They that are merciful to other people's names shall find others merciful to theirs.
II. If we are of a giving and a forgiving spirit, we shall ourselves reap the benefit of it: Forgive and you shall be forgiven. If we forgive the injuries done to us by others, others will forgive our inadvertencies. If we forgive others' trespasses against us, God will forgive our trespasses against him.”
Allow me at this time to recommend a slow, careful, and prayerful study of Romans 14. Read and meditate on each verse. There are Christians, our brothers and sisters in Christ, who do not look like us, who do not talk like us, who do not dress like us, and who do not worship God exactly the way we do, or even translate, understand or apply His Word exactly as we do.
Romans 14 was written for those of us who have caved in to the inclination to resist, and to judge and reject these people. These inclinations have been the divide-and-conquer wedges that have, from the first days of the Church, and throughout the centuries, that have separated believers whose worship God accepts, from believers whose worship God accepts.
There have been all manner of atrocities and wars waged based on those differences in worship. The founding of America was spearheaded because Christians were being persecuted and repressed and imprisoned, not by idol worshipers or pagans, but by fellow-Christians who judged and rejected their brothers and sisters in Christ who embraced non-essential understandings, and practiced variant worship styles that did not conform to the ones that had received an official seal of approval that also had to be believed and practiced.
The fact that we have chosen and continue to so routinely choose separation from and condemnation of fellow believers causes the world to look at Christianity and say, "Whatever that is, I don't want any of it!" Yet, we wallow in it. We regard it as, not only an acceptable status quo, we have embraced it as a necessary status quo. And that is not what the Word of God would have us do.
Paul not only penned Romans 14 to have us accept non-essential variations, but in every epistle in which he identified and condemned sinful and apostate departures from the Truth, he addressed his readers as brethren. Read 1 Corinthians and Galatians and see that what I am saying is true. These are two of Paul's most intense epistles of correction, yet he uses the word "brethren" 28 times in 1 Corinthians' 16 chapters,, and 11 times in Galatians' 6 chapters.
Did Paul even remotely hint as not regarding them as members of the Body of Christ, even in their wanton departures from godly behavior and essential sound doctrine? No. But we have no problem at all at looking at the existence of hundreds of fractured denominations, and calling that status quo acceptable, many of these dividing over issues that have not been forgiven.
Many of these denominations, with memberships numbering in to multiple millions, see themselves as "the only true" Church on earth, to the destruction of every one else who dares to worship God according to their own level of spiritual and intellectual maturity, cultural background, and conscience.
I am not saying that they are not fellow-believers, but they are the antithesis of Spiritual Growth, and growing in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, having allowed themselves to be misled by false teachers.
Romans 14 appeals to us to accept that brother and sister who is not on the same page, or in the same paragraph with us, because God has accepted them. Jesus said in John 13:34-35: "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
The Life Application Bible says: "To love others was not a new commandment (see Leviticus 19:18), but to love others as much as Christ loved others was revolutionary. Now we are to love others based on Jesus’ sacrificial love for us. Such love will not only bring unbelievers to Christ; it will also keep believers strong and united in a world hostile to God. Jesus was a living example of God’s love, as we are to be living examples of Jesus’ love. Love is more than simply warm feelings; it is an attitude that reveals itself in action. How can we love others as Jesus loves us?
By helping when it’s not convenient, by giving when it hurts, by devoting energy to others’ welfare rather than our own, by absorbing hurts from others without complaining or fighting back. This kind of loving is hard to do. That is why people notice when you do it and know you are empowered by a supernatural source."
That empowering Supernatural Force enables us to forgive, because we have been forgiven. We read in Ephesians 4:32: “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”
And that empowering Supernatural Force enables us to forgive so that we will continue to be forgiven by our Heavenly Father.
In Matthew 6, we read what is called either The Lord's Prayer (because Jesus spoke it) or The Disciples' Prayer because it was given to us. In verse 11 Jesus says, "Give us this day our daily bread." Then in verse 12 He says, "... and forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us."
If we have to be fed and nourished on a daily basis, and we do...and if we have to ask forgiveness on a daily basis, and we do... then we also are called upon to forgive on a daily basis. In Matthew 6, verse 11 asks for daily bread. Verse 12 is a secondary daily appeal. It says, " and forgive us as we forgive."
But we should also not casually read over the fact that, after the prayer is complete, Jesus repeats and re-emphasizes in verse 14, "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins."
If you find this idea that I am presenting to be terrifying, you should! It is terrifying! But I have only presented it; I am not the one who proposed it. These are Jesus' clear and unambiguous teachings on the subject of forgiveness. You will find no loop holes or escape clauses in Scripture to absolve you of God's basing His forgiving you on your forgiving others
The Life Application Bible says, :"Jesus gives a startling warning about forgiveness: If we refuse to forgive others, God will also refuse to forgive us. Why? Because when we don’t forgive others, we are denying our common ground as sinners in need of God’s forgiveness.
God’s forgiveness of sin is not the direct result of our forgiving others, but it is based on our realizing what forgiveness means (see Ephesians 4:32). It is easy to ask God for forgiveness but difficult to grant it to others. Whenever we ask God to forgive us for sin, we should ask, Have I forgiven the people who have wronged me?"
Forgiveness of any and all wrongs against us are possible through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When we yield to His Guidance and Leading, we can accomplish what is humanly impossible. Let's move on to another facet of Spiritual growth: Grace: What is Grace? How would you define it?
I once heard it described like this: When there is a transgression, or a law is broken:
Punishment is when we get what we deserve...
Mercy is when we don't get what we deserve...
But Grace is when we get what we don't deserve.
We read in Psalms 84:11 “For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
Matthew Henry says of this: “See, (1.) What God is, and will be, to his people: The Lord God is a sun and shield. We are here in darkness, but, if God be our God, he will be to us a sun, to enlighten and enliven us, to guide and direct us. We are here in danger, but he will be to us a shield to secure us from the fiery darts that fly thickly about us. With his favour he will compass us as with a shield.
Let us therefore always walk in the light of the Lord, and never throw ourselves out of his protection, and we shall find him a sun to supply us with all good and a shield to shelter us from all evil. (2.) What he does, and will, bestow upon them: The Lord will give grace and glory.
Grace signifies both the good-will of God towards us and the good work of God in us; glory signifies both the honour which he now puts upon us, in giving us the adoption of sons, and that which he has prepared for us in the inheritance of sons. God will give them grace in this world as a preparation for glory, and glory in the other world as the perfection of grace; both are God's gift, his free gift.
And as, on the one hand, wherever God gives grace he will give glory (for grace is glory begun, and is an earnest of it), so, on the other hand, he will give glory hereafter to none to whom he does not give grace now, or who receive his grace in vain. And if God will give grace and glory, which are the two great things that concur to make us happy in both worlds, we may be sure that no good thing will be withheld from those that walk uprightly.
It is the character of all good people that they walk uprightly, that they worship God in spirit and in truth, and have their conversation in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity; and such may be sure that God will withhold no good thing from them, that is requisite to their comfortable passage through this world. Make sure grace and glory, and other things shall be added.
This is a comprehensive promise, and is such an assurance of the present comfort of the saints that, whatever they desire, and think they need, they may be sure that either Infinite Wisdom sees it is not good for them or Infinite Goodness will give it to them in due time. Let it be our care to walk uprightly, and then let us trust God to give us every thing that is good for us.”
Where Grace is concerned, we also read, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Alexander MacLaren says of this, “ALL GRACE ABOUNDING: “In addition to all his other qualities the Apostle was an extremely good man of business; and he had a field for the exercise of that quality in the collection for the poor saints of Judea, which takes up so much of this letter, and occupied for so long a period so much of his thoughts and efforts.
It was for the sake of showing by actual demonstration that would ‘touch the hearts’ of the Jewish brethren, the absolute unity of the two halves of the Church, the Gentile and the Jewish, that the Apostle took so much trouble in this matter. The words which I have read for my text come in the midst of a very earnest appeal to the Corinthian Christians for their pecuniary help.
He is dwelling upon the same thought which is expressed in the well-known words: ‘What I gave I kept; what I kept I lost.’ But whilst the words of my text primarily applied to money matters, you see that they are studiously general, universal. The Apostle, after his fashion, is lifting up a little ‘secular’ affair into a high spiritual region; and he lays down in my text a broad general law, which goes to the very depths of the Christian life.
Now, notice, we have here in three clauses three stages which we may venture to distinguish as the fountain, the basin, the stream. ‘God is able to make all grace abound toward you’;—there is the fountain. ‘That ye always, having all-sufficiency in all things’;—there is the basin that receives the gush from the fountain. ‘May abound in every good work’;—there is the steam that comes from the basin. The fountain pours into the basin, that the flow from the basin may feed the stream.
Now this thought of Paul’s goes to the heart of things. So let us look at it. I. The Fountain. The Christian life in all its aspects and experiences is an outflow from the ‘the Fountain of Life,’ the giving God. Observe how emphatically the Apostle, in the context, accumulates words that express universality: ‘*all* grace . . . *all*-sufficiency for *all* things . . . *every* good work.’
But even these expressions do not satisfy Paul, and he has to repeat the word ‘abound,’ in order to give some faint idea of his conception of the full tide which gushes from the fountain. It is ‘all grace,’ and it is abounding grace. Now what does he mean by ‘grace’? That word is a kind of shorthand for the whole sum of the unmerited blessings which come to men through Jesus Christ.
Primarily, it describes what we, for want of a better expression, have to call a ‘disposition’ in the divine nature; and it means, then, if so looked at, the unconditioned, undeserved, spontaneous, eternal, stooping, pardoning love of God. That is grace, in the primary New Testament use of the phrase. But there are no idle ‘dispositions’ in God.
They are always energising, and so the word glides from meaning the disposition, to meaning the manifestation and activities of it, and the ‘grace’ of our Lord is that love in exercise. And then, since the divine energies are never fruitless, the word passes over, further, to mean all the blessed and beautiful things in a soul which are the consequences of the Promethean truth of God’s loving hand, the outcome in life of the inward bestowment which has its cause, its sole cause, in God’s ceaseless, unexhausted love, unmerited and free.
That, very superficially and inadequately set forth, is at least a glimpse into the fulness and greatness of meaning that lies in that profound New Testament word, ‘grace.’ But the Apostle here puts emphasis on the variety of forms which the one divine gift assumes.
It is ‘*all* grace’ which God is able to make abound toward you. So then, you see this one transcendent gift from the divine heart, when it comes into our human experience, is like a meteor when it passes into the atmosphere of earth, and catches fire and blazes, showering out a multitude of radiant points of light. The grace is many-sided—many-sided to us, but one in its source and in its character.
For at bottom, that which God in His grace gives to us as His grace is what? Himself; or if you like to put it in another form, which comes to the same thing—new life through Jesus Christ. That is the encyclopædiacal gift, which contains within itself all grace.
And just as the physical life in each of us, one in all its manifestations, produces many results, and shines in the eye, and blushes in the cheek, and gives strength to the arm, and flexibility and deftness to the fingers and swiftness to the foot: so also is that one grace which, being manifold in its manifestations, is one in its essence. There are many graces, there is one Grace.
But this grace is not only many-sided, but abounding. It is not congruous with God’s wealth, nor with His love, that He should give scantily, or, as it were, should open but a finger of the hand that is full of His gifts, and let out a little at a time. There are no sluices on that great stream so as to regulate its flow, and to give sometimes a painful trickle and sometimes a full gush, but this fountain is always pouring itself out, and it ‘abounds.’
But then we are pulled up short by another word in this first clause: ‘God is *able* to make.’ Paul does not say, ‘God will make.’ He puts the whole weight of responsibility for that ability becoming operative upon us. There are conditions; and although we may have access to that full fountain, it will not pour on us ‘all grace’ and ‘abundant grace,’ unless we observe these, and so turn God’s ability to give into actual giving.
And how do we do that? By desire, by expectance, by petition, by faithful stewardship. If we have these things, if we have tutored ourselves, and experience has helped in the tuition, to make large our expectancy, God will smile down upon us and ‘do exceeding abundantly above all’ that we ‘think’ as well as above all that we ‘ask.’
Brethren, if our supplies are scant, when the full fountain is gushing at our sides, we are ‘not straitened in God, we are straitened in ourselves.’ Christian possibilities are Christian obligations, and what we might have and do not have, is our condemnation.
I turn, in the next place, to what I have, perhaps too fancifully, called II. The Basin. ‘God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, having always all-sufficiency in all things, may,’ . . . etc. The result of all this many-sided and exuberant outpouring of grace from the fountain is that the basin may be full. Considering the infinite source and the small receptacle, we might have expected something more than ‘sufficiency’ to have resulted.
Divine grace is sufficient. Is it not more than sufficient? Yes, no doubt. But what Paul wishes us to feel is this—to put it into very plain English—that the good gifts of the divine grace will always be proportioned to our work, and to our sufferings too. We shall feel that we have enough, if we are as we ought to be. Sufficiency is more than a man gets anywhere else.
‘Enough is as good as a feast.’ And if we have strength, which we may have, to do the day’s tasks, and strength to carry the day’s crosses, and strength to accept the day’s sorrows, and strength to master the day’s temptations, that is as much as we need wish to have, even out of the fulness of God. And we shall get it, dear brethren, if we will only fulfil the conditions. If we exercise expectance, and desire and petition and faithful stewardship, we shall get what we need.
‘Thy shoes shall be iron and brass,’ if the road is a steep and rocky one that would wear out leather. ‘As thy days so shall thy strength be.’ God does not hurl His soldiers in a blundering attack on some impregnable mountain, where they are slain in heaps at the base; but when He lays a commandment on my shoulders, He infuses strength into me, and according to the good homely old saying that has brought comfort to many a sad and weighted heart, makes the back to bear the burden.
The heavy task or the crushing sorrow is often the key that opens the door of God’s treasure-house. You have had very little experience either of life or of Christian life, if you have not learnt by this time that the harder your work, and the darker your sorrows, the mightier have been God’s supports, and the more starry the lights that have shone upon your path. ‘That ye, always having all-sufficiency in all things.’
One more word: this sufficiency *should be* more uniform, *is* uniform in the divine intention, and in so far as the flow of the fountain is concerned. Always having had I may be sure that I always shall have. Of course I know that, in so far as our physical nature conditions our spiritual experience, there will be ups and downs, moments of emancipation and moments of slavery.
There will be times when the flower opens, and times when it shuts itself up. But I am sure that the great mass of Christian people might have a far more level temperature in their Christian experience than they have; that we could, if we would, have far more experimental knowledge of this ‘always’ of my text. God means that the basin should be always full right up to the top of the marble edge, and that the more is drawn off from it, the more should flow into it.
But it is very often like the reservoirs in the hills for some great city in a drought, where great stretches of the bottom are exposed, and again, when the drought breaks, are full to the top of the retaining wall. That should not be. Our Christian life should run on the high levels. Why does it not? Possibilities are duties.
And now, lastly, we have here what, adhering to my metaphor, I call III. The stream. ‘That ye, always having all-sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.’ That is what God gives us His grace for; and that is a very important consideration.
The end of God’s dealings with us, poor, weak, sinful creatures, is character and conduct. Of course you can state the end in a great many other ways; but there have been terrible evils arising from the way in which Evangelical preachers have too often talked, as if the end of God’s dealings with us was the vague thing which they call ‘salvation,’ and by which many of their hearers take them to mean neither more nor less than dodging Hell.
But the New Testament, with all its mysticism, even when it soars highest, and speaks most about the perfection of humanity, and the end of God’s dealings being that we may be ‘filled with the fulness of God,’ never loses its wholesome, sane hold of the common moralities of daily life, and proclaims that we receive all, in order that we may be able to ‘maintain good works for necessary uses.’
And if we lay that to heart, and remember that a correct creed, and a living faith, and precious, select, inward emotions and experiences are all intended to evolve into lives, filled and radiant with common moralities and ‘good works’—not meaning thereby the things which go by that name in popular phraseology, but ‘whatsoever things are lovely . . . and of good report’—then we shall understand a little better what we are here for and what Jesus Christ died for, and what His Spirit is given and lives in us for.
So ‘good works’ is the end, in one very important aspect, of all that avalanche of grace which has been from eternity rushing down upon us from the heights of God. There is one more thing to note, and that is that, in our character and conduct, we should copy the ‘giving grace.’ Look how eloquently and significantly, in the first and last clauses of my text, the same words recur. ‘God is able to make *all* grace abound, that ye may *abound* in *all* good work.’
Do we use the grace that God has given us? If we do not, the remainder of that great word which I have just quoted will be fulfilled in you. God forbid that any of us should receive the grace of God in vain, and therefore come under the stern and inevitable sentence, ‘From him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath!’”
Copy God in the many-sidedness and in the copiousness of the good that flows out from your life and conduct, because of your possession of that divine grace. And remember, ‘to him that hath shall be given.’ We pray for more grace; we need to pray for that, no doubt.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, "Spiritual Growth, Part 14."
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on April 26th, 2023.
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