Brown's Daily Word 6-2-11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day. He blessed us with a beautiful Wednesday evening gathering for fellowship and study. We celebrated a birthday blessing with little boy Malcolm, who turned 1 year yesterday. It was a special treat for all of us.
The letter of Romans is a very powerful portion of the Word of the Lord. This letter changed the lives and the ministries of men like Martin Luther and John Wesley. Romans 1:7, "To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness, how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong -- that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.
Paul wrote this letter to a group of Christians in the city of Rome. Rome was the capital city of the Roman Empire, the home of Caesar. Since everyone in Rome worshipped Caesar as Lord and Savior, the Christian message that Jesus was Lord and Savior was not all that welcomed. Christians were constantly in conflict with Roman society because of their beliefs. To Roman citizens, the highest allegiance was to the emperor and to the government, but for Christians their allegiance was to Christ and his Kingdom. Christians were in foreign territory in Rome because they were citizens of another kingdom.
In A.D. 64 the Roman Emperor Nero hated the Christians in Rome so much that he authorized that they be hunted down, tortured and killed. Tacitus, a historian, wrote what happened to the Christians in Rome: "Their death was made a matter of sport; they were covered in wild beast’s skins and torn to pieces by dogs; or were fastened to crosses and set on fire in order to serve as torches by night… Nero had offered his gardens for the spectacle and gave an exhibition in his circus, mingling with the crowd in the guise of a charioteer or mounted on his chariot." (Annals 15.44)
This was the culture of Rome, the ungodly in which these Christians found themselves, a culture that was highly antagonistic to the gospel. It is peculiar here in Romans 1:7 that when Paul called Jesus Lord, he used the same Greek word used by the Romans to call Caesar Lord. (kyrios). This was a coded message Paul was sending to the Christians in Rome, and in so doing, undermining Caesar’s authority! This gospel message was dangerous stuff and many of the Christians Paul was writing to in this book probably ended up in Nero’s circus, martyred because they believed Jesus was kyrios and that Nero was not!
The gospel of King Jesus continues to be a radical, revolutionary, message that often flies in the face of the establishment. About 200,000 Christians a year around the world are killed because they live out the gospel. These Christians in Rome were hard core revolutionaries. Right under the emperor’s nose they declared that Caesar was not god. Instead, they declared with boldness that Yeshua, a Jewish carpenter from Nazareth, was God. They also claimed no allegiance to the Roman Empire. Their allegiance was to the kingdom of God. This Jesus stuff is radical. Early Christians in Rome knew that they had to get real or get out.
In 1934, a group of Christians in Germany spoke out against the rise of what was called "German Christianity," inspired by Nazism. Hitler was anxious to enlist the aid of the churches, appealing to certain churchmen, patriotic Germans, who were bishops, elders, and pastors in churches, to work with him to better the lot of the German people. What emerged was the concept that it was the duty of the church to advance a political ideology. Much of the German church embraced this so-called "Nazi Christianity."
There was a group of Christians, however, that did not.
A group of Confessing Christians in 1934 got together and wrote what is known now as the Barmen Declaration, which said that the church and the gospel serves no one or nothing, that Christ is Lord over everything and the church must never allow itself to be enlisted in the service of any ideology, any government no matter how good it may seem. Most of the Christians who signed the Barmen Declaration were killed for their bold faith in defense of the Gospel. Promoting the Gospel is a dangerous business.
Soren Kierkegaard wrote, "When one preaches the gospel and when he is done someone shouts, ’Away with that man, he does not deserve to live,’ know that this is the gospel of the New Testament. Capital punishment is the penalty for preaching Christianity as it truly is."
Yet, in the face of all this pressure by the Roman government, Paul told the Roman Christians, “your faith is being reported all over the world.” Romans 1:14,
"I am obligated both to Greek and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith'."
Paul revealed that Greeks and non-Greeks, Jews and Gentiles are all called to be a part of this revolution. The Roman world divided people into two groups, Greeks and non-Greeks. The Jews divided people into two groups, Jews and Gentiles. Paul , on the other hand, insisted that this gospel is for all people. There are no worldly divisions anymore. There is no Jew, Gentile, male or female, slave nor free we are all one in Christ Jesus. This new kingdom is not like the other kingdoms of the world. It does not oppress and marginalize people, but welcomes all. That is bold, fresh, and revolutionary! The gospel is for everyone!
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/2r2y3v5LxSI
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Avenue
Endicott
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott

Saturday, May 28, 2011

6 PM Dinner (at First UMC Endicott)

6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Dave Berry and the team.
Speaker: Rev. Terry Steenberg