“I want you to know, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented) in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” Romans 1:13-15
A point that comes up in Christian life, as well as in opposition to it for that matter, is when God “doesn’t answer our prayer.” This is is the wrong way of looking at it. He did actually answer it.
He said, “No.”
You see, the problem is in our reluctance to admit a critical reality, which is, simply put, that God is not only good, but the standard and source of all good. We aren’t. The very thing that causes us anguish in life, the frustrations and pains alike, is sin. And the heart of sin is demanding that we get our own way regardless of what God commands. We’re convinced, in sin, that our problems are, as Al Mohler wonderfully put it once, “out there” rather than “in here” (in our sinful hearts).
The very thing that causes so much consternation among the faithful is the insistence that we’re good judges of reality. We clearly are not, however. It is God who judges. Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? Or who has given Him a gift that he (the man) needs to be repaid? Ah, the immense and comprehensive folly of God’s creatures presuming to know enough about reality to judge the Lord! It’s for this reason that God asked Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge (Job 38:2)?” And again He asks, “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it (Job 40:2).”
It’s for this reason that pride is one’s greatest impediment to holiness. Now, in this world we have a tendency to think of pride as conceit. We see a showboater or an arrogant person, one who’s “stuck up” and think of pride. In this way, we exempt ourselves and the devil smiles. If we hold the door for someone, if we say thank you and please, let people go in front of us in line sometimes…yes, these are polite things, but they are manners, not Christian humility. In fact, we often do such things and think, “see how nice I am?”
Ah, the trap of pride!
Thinking this way leads us to an erroneous view of God’s word and ourselves. We may be of low circumstances and yet be the most prideful of all! How do we know? Here’s the test: can you say what Paul just said in our verse today? A few things to note.
First, he mentions that many times he has planned to go personally to Rome. These plans, for reasons he doesn’t bother to mention because they’re irrelevant to him, have been prevented. Isn’t that fascinating? When our plans are delayed or thwarted we often obsess about the particular mechanisms that blocked them. Paul does no such thing. He doesn’t whine.
Second, his goal is that he may “bear some fruit among you” in his labors. He has peace in his heart because he is acting in accord with his vocational calling (obedience to God) and his love of the saints. This is peace, brothers and sisters! We seek it through our circumstances rather than in our fidelity to God and this is the root cause of all our fretfulness. Paul stays focused on his mission in life (vocation) as well as his station. So much depression comes to us because we obsess about ourselves rather than upon what we can do for others with the gifts we’ve been given to His glory! In His name, for His glory, there’s no such thing as an insignificant gift or service. We must never forget that.
This brings us to the third point. He says that he’s under obligation both to the Jews and Greeks. Another way of reading this is to understand that he’s saying that he has a duty related to the debt he has to pay in the Lord. Get that? Paul sees himself, and so should we, as debtors to Jesus Christ who saved us! You are not your own! Whether you live or whether you die, you are the Lord’s and this is the glorious truth about your life. This debt Paul seeks to pay is to preach to the Romans and teach them the infinite beauty of the gospel of Christ. His life’s focus isn’t on his creaturely comforts and/or circumstances but upon his vocation in Jesus Christ.
We note also that Paul is under a debt to Greeks and barbarians. This language is strange to us. It doesn’t sound nice but remember that using manners as a measure of one’s ethics is a specious bit of business. What Paul means is, in the standard of his day, the so-called cultured and uncultured. To say Greeks was to say the sophisticated of the time. Paul could have simply thought, as he surely did before his conversion on Damascus Road, that all of life was Jew and non-Jew. But here he mentions the sophisticated and the lower class. The gospel goes to all and is for all. God shows no partiality (and it’s a sin for us…James 2:1-13). In other words, don’t let the world’s thinking infect your mind and divide people by artificial standards. God cals all sinners to repentance, so we’re either in Christ or in sin (Adam). These are the only two “races” that count.
Finally, Paul’s self-identification as a debtor to Christ is the perfect act of humility and antidote to human pride. Think of how bold Paul was to preach the gospel in that terrible time of danger. He would later get to Rome and be executed there, by the way! You see, he was fearless of men and circumstances precisely because he was humble before God. This is the great truth of life. If we won’t aren’t firm in faith we won’t stand firm at all (Isaiah 7:9).
So, yes, sometimes God will tell us no and it is, in fact, a wonderful thing. Whatever He does will, in the end, be good. In our miscalculated view of life, because of sinful pride, we’ve already messed things up. Should we now carry that pride into our prayers and treat the Almighty as our cosmic bellhop? Heaven forbid it! No, instead we humbly seek His will. We bow down before the holy and inerrant Scriptures and there, on our knees before Him who is Lord of all, we are more than conquerors because it is faith in Christ that conquers this world (1 John 5:4). In our prayers we should present our petitions, yes, but we go before the throne “boldly” in knowledge of the glories of Christ, not ourselves. If our prayers are always lacking in adoration of Him but full of requests, how dry is our soul! The path to peace and joy is to adore Him who saved us and to seek His will in our lives and the lives of others.
Adore Him. Pray for this life-changing ability. Pray with the Psalmist, “One thing I have asked of the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple (Psalm 27:4).” Pray for His will to be done as Jesus did in the garden. Report for duty. Don’t tell Him what to do. Instead, seek His will as ultimate as you pour out your heart and petitions to Him. Do this and your life will change in beauty, power and truth. It will. It will. Because He is God and He loves you.
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