Romans 3: 9 - 20

9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. ¹⁰ As it is written:

‘There is no one righteous, not even one;
¹¹     there is no one who understands;
    there is no one who seeks God.
¹² All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.’
¹³ ‘Their throats are open graves;
    their tongues practise deceit.’
‘The poison of vipers is on their lips.’
¹⁴     ‘Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.’
¹⁵ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood;
¹⁶     ruin and misery mark their ways,
¹⁷ and the way of peace they do not know.’
¹⁸     ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. ²⁰ Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

There is No-one Righteous, not Even One.

These early chapters of Romans read like a legal argument being made by a barrister. Paul is building up his case and heading towards a conclusion. In chapter 2 he was talking about the fact that having all the outward appearance of being a good Jew is not enough – it is what goes on inside the heart that counts. Indeed, a Gentile who truly obeys the law of Moses is in a better position than a Jew who doesn’t. Then in the first half of Romans 3, Pauls addressed some ‘counter-arguments’ – a bit like responding to questions and comments by someone in the crowd heckling.

And now, in verse 9, Paul reaches the point where he says that as far as sin goes, it doesn’t actually matter whether a person is a Jew or a Gentile – because we are all sinners. Verses 10 to 18 read like a quote from the Jewish Scriptures (what we know as the Old Testament), but actually it is not a single quote, but a whole string of separate quotations. Paul is using several verses, mainly from the Psalms, but also from Ecclesiastes and Isaiah, to put together a proof of the point he has made.

The first three verses of the quotes (v. 10 to 12) come from Psalms 14 and 53 (two very similar Psalms). Both of those Psalms begin with the sentence, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” Paul takes that idea from the Psalms and expands it, using as many verses as he can find that talk about how human beings, in their natural state, turn their backs on God and on his laws. It makes difficult reading, and it sounds a very harsh description of people who go their own way instead of going God’s way.

In this country there was a time when preachers focused a lot on the evils of sin, and would speak hard, condemning words to their congregations. Nowadays that kind of preaching is rare, but we might ask whether we have gone too far away from it. Paul has no problems with listing here how bad sin is, and how far we (all people) have gone away from God, as sinners. How often do we pause and really consider how powerful sin is? Have we become complacent about it?

Jesus came as the perfect man, to carry the weight of all our sin on his body. He carried it to the cross – and he carried it throughout his earthly life. And when it came to his trial before Pilate, he stood in silence, not saying a word. How will we stand before the Lord on the day of judgement?

As we have read these opening chapters of Romans, we have found Paul stating the case that we are sinners, and how bad sin is. It is painful reading. But tomorrow’s reading begins with two wonderful, uplifting words: “But now….” So hold on, and keep faith!

 

Prayer

Lord, I come to you as a sinner. I come as a forgiven sinner in Christ, but also asking for forgiveness for my tendency to be complacent about sin and not recognise the seriousness of it. There is only one way out of the results of my sin – and I rejoice in Jesus who has paid the price! Amen.

Romans 3: 1 - 8

1 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? ² Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.

³ What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? ⁴ Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written:

‘So that you may be proved right when you speak
    and prevail when you judge.’

⁵ But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) ⁶ Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? ⁷ Someone might argue, ‘If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?’ ⁸ Why not say – as some slanderously claim that we say – ‘Let us do evil that good may result’? Their condemnation is just!

Grace: Undeserved Kindness

Paul was an experienced preacher in public meetings – indoors and in the open air. He had stood in the market place, or the temple courts, or in a synagogue and talked to crowds of Jews about how Jesus is the fulfilment of God’s covenant with his people, and their salvation comes through the grace of God, rather than because they are circumcised Jews who have the law of Moses. In preaching like that, he may well have faced hecklers – people shouting out comments and questions from the crowd. And some of those questions might be quite reasonable, and worth addressing.

In this passage, it is as if Paul is responding to the questions of hecklers in the crowd. Whether these are questions people have actually raised when Paul has preached, or whether, perhaps, they are in fact issues that Paul himself has wrestled with, we don’t know. It is quite possible and likely that they are both!

In chapter 2, which we looked at on Friday, Paul said that being a Jew ‘outwardly’ is not enough – it is about what goes on in your heart that counts. So the first ‘heckler’ question today is in verse 1 – what value is there in being a Jew? And he answers – ‘Plenty!’ the Jews have been entrusted with God’s word in the ancient scriptures.

The second ‘heckle’ in verse 3 is what happens when a person is unfaithful to God – will God then be unfaithful to them? Not at all, answers Paul. No matter how much human beings might lie, God is always true. He never lets us go or lets us down. If I don’t believe in God, he will still believe in me!

Thirdly, in verse 5, the imagined heckler is boldly suggesting that sinful behaviour is excusable because it allows God to demonstrate his love. The more sin, the greater the good news! ‘So God is unjust to judge people.’ Paul doesn’t even allow this argument that God is unjust – nothing could be further from the truth. And finally, in verses 7 and 8, the imagined heckler takes it to the final extreme, saying we might as well just do evil, so that good may result. And Paul won’t even answer that. In fact he comes back to the same question later in this letter, in chapter 6, verse 1.

Once again, some of this might seem a bit cerebral for us, or lacking in immediate relevance, especially the questions about Jewishness. However, the key element for us today is that God loves us, and he puts that love into action in ‘grace’ – the attribute of God by which he gives us good things simply because it is his nature. And when we receive that grace, love, kindness and forgiveness, how could we possibly repay him by choosing a path of sin? It would be illogical! So the arbitrary argument that grace increases as sin increases is not even worthy of consideration!

 

Prayer

Lord I thank you for your love and grace – unmerited kindness. May I always seek to love you and to live for you, never even considering an ‘excuse’ to choose sin. Amen.

Romans 2: 17 - 29

17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; ¹⁸ if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; ¹⁹ if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, ²⁰ an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth – ²¹ you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? ²² You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who boast in the law, do you dishonour God by breaking the law? ²⁴ As it is written: ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’

²⁵ Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. ²⁶ So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? ²⁷ The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a law-breaker.

²⁸ A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. ²⁹ No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.

How is Your Heart?

As we noted a few days ago, Paul addresses both Jews and Gentiles in this letter to the Romans, and sometimes he uses an argument that compares the two. In this chapter he addresses the Jews and talks about the ‘outward’ signs of being a Jew, compared to the ‘inner attitude of the heart.’

When Jesus had conversations with the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, he frequently pointed out their hypocrisy – they looked good on the outside, following Jewish traditions and the Law of Moses, but inside they lacked true faith in God and they cared nothing for other people. On one occasion, Jesus compared them to ‘whitewashed tombs’ (Matt. 23: 27) – they ‘look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.’ That was quite a stinging attack!

In his own way, Paul is saying a similar thing here. He is suggesting that some wear the title ‘Jew’ as a badge of honour, almost. They have the outward sign (circumcision in men) and they have the law of Moses which they are proud of, but when it comes to it, they willing break the law of Moses. It is hypocrisy again that Paul is speaking of: ‘You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?’ (v. 21 and 22).

Meanwhile, there are Gentiles, who do not have the outward signs of being a Jew, nor the written law, who yet obey the law! This whole section is giving an illustration of the teaching Paul is leading to – namely that what goes on in the heart is far more important than our words, actions, religious observance, and so on. Again, Paul is largely re-stating a teaching we are familiar with in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus spoke in Matthew 5 about two of the sins from the Ten Commandments – murder and adultery. (We might call these two the ‘big sins’, although, as we know, no sin is ‘bigger’ than any other). And Jesus astonished his hearers by saying that just thinking about sin or adultery are as bad as actually committing them! Hatred takes place in the heart, and is as bad as murder. Lust takes place in the heart and is as bad as adultery.

How is your Christian faith? Are you a good Christian on the outside, looking the part, going to church (in a building or on Zoom) and saying all the right things? What is the state of your heart? Is there true obedience to God, love for your fellow people – or is their hatred, gossip, slander and so on in your inner attitude to other people? You and I need to take care and examine ourselves, and check that we are not hypocrites, or ‘whitewashed tombs’.

 

Prayer

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Amen. (Psalm 139: 23 - 24)

Romans 2: 1 - 16

1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

² Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. ³ So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? ⁴ Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realising that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

⁵ But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done.’ ⁷ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, he will give eternal life. ⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favouritism.

¹² All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. ¹³ For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. ¹⁴ (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵ They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) ¹⁶ This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

All Have Sinned.

In yesterday’s reading, I did not specifically mention the reference to homosexuality in Romans 1: 26 - 27, writing instead about the general wickedness, sin and rebellion that is in that passage. Often, when reading Romans 1, it is verses 26 and 27 that people emphasise, as if those verses talk about the most important sin. They point the finger and ignore the rest of the chapter. However, you only have to move on to verse 1 of chapter 2 (as we have today) to read, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” In our natural state, humankind chooses sin and rebellion rather than obedience to God. That is what we find in both yesterday’s reading and today’s. And as soon as people start pointing the finger at those who are guilty of one sin or another, they are falling into the hole that is in verse 1 of chapter 2 – they are condemning themselves. A popular internet quote is ‘Don’t judge me because I sin differently from you.’ In the next chapter of this same letter, Paul writes, ‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Rom. 3: 23). It is not for us, as sinners, to point the finger at other sinners.

If you were to take verses 6 to 11 of today’s reading out of context (and completely ignore the rest of Romans), you could think that we earn the gift of eternal life by doing good. Certainly verses 7 and 8 seem to compare and contrast the results of doing good with the results of doing evil. But there is no suggestion that we are justified by our works. It is clear throughout Romans that we are justified by faith alone – we are saved by the grace of God, and do not earn our salvation. But we need to note from these verses that we will be judged on our deeds. We receive our salvation as a free gift from God, through Christ, but what we do with that salvation counts. Are we, as Christians, living a life of obedience as we follow Jesus, ‘persisting in doing good’? Or are we storing up works of stubbornness and disobedience? Verse 8 in particular refers to those who chose to reject God and his teaching: ‘But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.’ Rejecting the truth and following evil is a description of those who turn away from Christ and the cross and the message of the Gospel, choosing to be ‘self-seeking’. For them there is only wrath and anger. This is why we have an important duty as Christians to introduce people to Jesus and his love, sharing the Gospel message in words and actions.

 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we find these opening chapters of Romans quite tough, in the way they remind us of the sin of mankind and the wrath of God that follows. We thank you that this is only part of the story, and rejoice in your love, grace and forgiveness to all who will come to Jesus. Amen.

Romans 1: 18 - 32

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is for ever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practise them.

Sin and Rebellion (and Grace).

Humankind is in a bad way! When you read this passage you can come to no other conclusion. This is a damning list of rebellion to God, cruelty, perversion and all kinds of sin. People have, through their own choice, gone away from God and from the right way to live. We are created in the image of God, and part of the evidence of his image in us is an understanding of right and wrong. However, people try to silence their consciences, and they try to ignore the voice inside that points to morality and right choices. And, if they want to, they can easily succeed in silencing their consciences and stifling the inherent recognition of right and wrong. This is what Paul is talking about in this passage – by turning their backs on God, they choose the path of rebellion and sin: which leads to problems of its own. And when people live like that, they can expect to face the consequences of those choices. This is what is meant where Paul says that God ‘gave them over’ to sinful life (verses 24, 26 and 28). God allowed them to make a choice to go their own way, and thereby reap the negative consequences of their choice. That is the situation that mankind is in – and without God, that is the position we would all be in.

Some might say that people have an excuse if they have never heard about God. If a person has never heard that there is a God who created them and created the world, and who loves them, then how can they know the right way to live? But Paul counters that argument here in verses 19 and 20. God has revealed his existence, his eternal power and divine nature to humanity through creation. Ecclesiastes 3: 11 is another verse that people quote to make the same point: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart.”

If we took this passage entirely on its own, it would be a miserable thing to read. It would tell us that mankind has chosen wickedness rather than the way of God, and therefore the wrath of God is revealed against us. If that was the end of the story, it would be a terrible story. However, it is not the end, and most of the rest of the book of Romans tells us that! The solution to the problem outlined in this passage is grace! It is the grace of God, by which we are saved, through faith, and that is the theme of Romans. The Gospel message is a story of love – the fact that God still loves us enough to send us his Son to save us, even though we have chosen the path of wickedness as described here. Thanks be to God!

 

Prayer

Lord, I am aware of my own sin, as well as being a part of the sinful human race. I praise you for Jesus who came to rescue me from sin and death through his life, death and resurrection. I thank you for your grace, your love in action, by which I am given good things that I neither earn nor deserve! Amen.

Romans 1: 1 - 17

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God – ² the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures ³ regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, ⁴ and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. ⁵ Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. ⁶ And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

⁷ To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁸ First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. ⁹ God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you ¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong – ¹² that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. ¹³ I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

¹⁴ I am a debtor both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. ¹⁵ That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. ¹⁷ For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’

Righteousness by Faith.

When Paul wrote this letter he had not been to Rome. He did not plant the church, but he hoped very much to visit them some time. In verse 13 he refers to his readers as Gentiles, but as the letter progresses we see many arguments for the Gospel from a Jewish perspective, referring to Abraham and Moses. Most of the churches that Paul planted, visited and wrote to had both Jews and Gentiles in them, and clearly that would be the case in Rome, the capital of the Empire.

Chapters 1 to 3 of Romans are about the need for the good news of the Gospel. Chapters 4 to 8 expand on that, and discuss the working out of the Gospel in a person’s life. Chapters 9 to 11 form an interlude in which Paul pauses to talk about the Jews and their response to the Gospel. Then chapters 12 to 16 are about the practical working out of the Gospel in daily life. Between now and Advent we will go through chapters 1 to 8.

The last two verses of today’s reading shows how important the Gospel message is to Paul: ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’’

This is definitely setting the scene for some of the wonderful, amazing teaching that will follow as we continue to read through Romans. ‘The Gospel is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.’ You and I heard the Gospel message for the first time, some time ago. Maybe you first heard it and responded to it as a child, and you can’t really remember not having heard the Gospel. Or perhaps you didn’t come across it until later in adult life. Whenever it was, you believed, and as a result of that, God brings salvation. Salvation means we are saved from sin, saved from death, saved from addictions and the pain that comes from living a selfish life. And Paul gives a clue to some of his arguments to come, when he also says that the message came first the to Jew, then to the Gentile.

In the Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. God is perfect and right, and we see that made clear to us through the Gospel message. And when we have faith in God, we become righteous – not a righteousness of our own through being particularly good, but we gain the righteousness of God. We take on his pure, perfect, ‘rightness’ through trusting in him and being filled with the Holy Spirit. And to ‘prove’ it, Paul quotes from Habakkuk 2: 4 – “The righteous will live by faith.”

 

Prayer

Lord Jesus, I thank you for coming to live for me, to die for me and for rising again. I praise you for the salvation that I have in you because of your death. I thank you for the gift of faith, and I pray for more faith! Thank you for the righteousness that you give me through that faith. Amen.

Revelation 3: 14 - 22

14 ‘To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. ¹⁵ I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷ You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. ¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so that you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so that you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so that you can see.

¹⁹ Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. ²⁰ Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

²¹ To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. ²² Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Healing, Refreshment and Strength.

This is the last of the seven letters to churches in Revelation 2 and 3. It is written to the church at Laodicea – a prosperous city renowned for banking, making fine clothes and carpets and for medicines. It was six miles from Hierapolis where there were hot springs. The hot water from those springs flowed to Laodicea, and by the time it reached the city it had become lukewarm – not refreshing, and not pleasant to drink.

The hot springs at Hierapolis had healing properties. Meanwhile the very cold springs east of Colossae produced refreshing ice-cold water that renewed strength. The lukewarm water at Laodicea brought neither healing, refreshment nor strength. If you drank it you might well spit it out. This is a picture of what the church at Laodicea was like – bringing no healing, no refreshing nor renewed strength (v. 16).

Last week we looked at Philadelphia – a church that knew it had ‘little strength’, but remained faithful anyway. Today Laodicea is the opposite – they think they have plenty of strength and don’t realise that they do not. They say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But they do not realise that they are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked (v. 17). This is the risk for any Christian or church who seems to be strong and rich in the eyes of the world, but lacks the strength that comes from the presence and infilling of the Holy Spirit. We too easily fool ourselves that everything is OK, when it isn’t! That was certainly the case for the church at Laodicea. But it wasn’t all over for the church – in verse 18 Jesus counsels them to come back to him, and in verse 19 he says, ‘Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.’

There are times when God might rebuke and discipline a church or an individual Christian – and if it happens it is because he loves us. We need to be earnest about our desire to go his way and follow him, and to repent when we do the opposite.

Verse 20 is a well-loved verse that people often use in an evangelistic way to individuals: ‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.’ And whilst it is true that Jesus knocks on the door of our heart, the context here is that he knocks on the door of the church, and longs to be invited in. May we always open the door to Jesus in our lives and in our church, and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit.

 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for all we have learned from these seven letters. May we apply the teaching to our lives and our church. Please help us, during covid-19 to be a church that brings healing, refreshment and renewal of strength. Amen.