Romans: Rooted in Jesus, Paradigm of Grace

A politician must run to get elected. Elections cost money, lots of money. The politician solicits donations from donors. Large donors give for a benefit to their enterprise if the politician is elected. Once elected the politician must act for the benefit of their donors or lose future donations and future elections. It’s a simple pay-to-play scheme. It’s performance for benefit. But do we take that model into our relationship with God? Can we manipulate and control God? Is God beholden to us? Does the gospel address this?

The Apostle Paul describes the great sin of humanity in Romans chapter one saying, “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Romans 1:25). This pattern goes all the way back to the garden of Eden and continues today. We know this, but maybe we haven’t considered that Christians can continue this pattern, bringing a paradigm of self-worship into their faith. We believe that we are serving God, but in fact we’re worshipping ourselves in a twisted pay-to-play scheme. We believe that if we obey God, He will praise and bless us. Instead of living in the received righteousness of grace, we seek to establish our own righteousness. This is functional paganism and high-handed idolatry. The paradigm of the created order which the gospel restores is the creation subject to and in service of the Creator, who alone is worthy.  Join us Sunday as we consider the paradigm of grace!