Romans 15:14-21 “Fill Up on Confidence”

You may recall Soren Kirkegaard’s story about the duck church. In a little duck village it was Sunday and all the ducks got into their best duck clothes and they waddled off to their duck church. And at the duck church they sang their duck hymns and read from their duck Bibles and then the duck minister preached the duck gospel. She said, “Ducks, you have wings… you can fly! No more will you have to be fenced in or trapped by farmers. You can fly!” And the ducks all said, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” And then they all waddled home.

Yet, we were made to soar on eagle’s wings. This reference is in many places in the Bible, but my favorite is in Psalm 103:1-5, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits—who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.” I just like the idea of the strength of youth coming back, and then learning to fly! Just like being born again! Amen to that.

Do you know what I have learned since coming to Kauai? Kauai chickens can fly. If you run at them at top speed while flapping your own wings, they will take to flight. So, why do they prefer to waddle around on two spindly legs? I think it is a crisis of faith. I think those chickens have come to the point where they themselves do not believe they can fly—so they don’t. They could be up in the air soaring like eagles, but instead they survive literally on chicken scratch.

Sometimes we just need to hear from someone else when we have lost confidence in our own abilities. We need to hear another person tell us: “Yes, you can. Yes, you can.” I just want to assure the chickens of Kauai, “Yes, you can!” Furthermore, when on the highway I accidentally come close to running you over, chicken, it is to build up your confidence! I know you can fly even if you do not know it! Don’t be a chicken!

The apostle Paul is doing the same thing with the new church members in Rome. He is being that outside source of confidence that is needed so that the people of the church can soar to new heights. This is a great message. I get to share this message with you all today: “I have confidence in you!” To be sure, the modern way of expressing this is: “You are being empowered.”

The word that is used here in the Greek for Paul’s feeling toward the church in Rome is really great: πέπεισμαι . It sounds like he is really “Pepped up” about the church. He is being their “pep squad.” He is like a Pepsi bubbling over! His words are sugary sweet. Yah, he is really stoked.

GOODNESS: Paul’s faith in the people in Rome is that they all have goodness in them. How often we have to deal with those who come to us telling us that they feel as if we are worthless. “We have sinned so much that they do not believe that there is any good left in our lives.” How important it is for us as followers of Christ to remember and to remind through faith that God knows our heart and that there must be some goodness in them as they were created by a good God in an image of the divine.

If anyone ever comes to you with that complaint that they have no goodness in them, start pointing to various parts of their body and say to the effect, “That is a good ear. It has a nice lobe and can hear really well.” Then, continue on, “That is a good pinky finger. God made that finger didn’t He? It looks marvelous.” More likely than not they will begin to see themselves differently right away.

KNOWLEDGE: Paul also states that the church people are filled with knowledge. He has faith in them because they have knowledge. I always like to point out that Christianity is not for people who do not want to study and learn. My goodness, Jesus even called his closest followers “disciples,” which simply means “students.” Knowledge of God is what being a Christian is all about. I don’t think there is such a thing as a “know-nothing” Christian! Jesus himself said that we are to love God with “All our mind.”

I do not believe that this is about finding the “small print” that some in Rome were offering to the church. Rules and regulations are just not what is intended. Paul is not saying that the church in Rome is performing all the written sacred duties that can be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. I know this because there are two words for “knowledge” in the Greek. One word is used for knowing facts and figures. The other is for knowing with the heart and soul, as one might know another person or hopefully know God. Paul is saying that he believes that the people in the church in Rome have this second kind of knowledge. They are not just knowledgeable about the fine print of the new faith, not at all; they are rather able to know God and Jesus in a personal faith.

ENABLED: Just like Paul is trying to build confidence in the people in the church in Rome, he tells them that they are also enabled to build such confidence in others. Paul is trying to lead by example.

I think about our modern world and how we seem to be more set on the idea of enabling ourselves and disabling others. For some reason the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, came to mind. We all have heard about or even still remember the Tonya Harding & Nancy Kerrigan incident that took place. They were both figure skater’s from America going for the gold at the Olympics. It turned out that Tonya’s ex-husband hired a thug to take a police baton to cripple Nancy Kerrigan before her performance. He attacked her knee on her “landing leg.” When the truth of the attack came out, Tonya Harding was stripped of her skating titles. Nancy went on despite the injury to win silver. For those of us who lived through we were aghast because they were technically on the same team–Team USA.

We certainly love to disable rather than enable! I wonder if that is human nature? I think about now living in the computer age in the church. We always have to be so careful because there are folks out there who spend most of their lives writing malware and virus protocols to take down our computers. Why are there people out there, whom we do not know, that have made it their lives’ ambition to crash our compters? We have to live with constant software updates and pay for anti-virus software just to type a sermon and post it to the Web. Why are we always being disabled in this way?

I had this waking dream vision that I talk about in my message in the annual report of the church in which I saw a group of monkeys up on the church throwing wrenches into everything the church tried to do last year. I realize of course that they are not really monkeys but rather regular folk that seem to have it in their heads to disable the church. Why? What do they get out of it? Would they not have more fun playing on Christ’s team and getting that pep talk from Paul?

Each one of us can serve this function of enabling people to be holy again.

Paul affirms that all he ever does is a “boast” about God. He never does anything for his own vanity. All glory goes to God. His insistence seems to be in reaction to what others are thinking and saying about him. We have to imagine that word has come to Paul that folks are saying that he is too boastful. His reaction then is not to deny the accusation but to correct the perception by saying that he can only ever boast about God.

I can understand why people might say that Paul is being self-conceited or boastful even when his heart is in the right place. I remember hearing a sermon once that was given by another pastor that was indeed well thought out and well prepared. It was delivered with energy and spirit. I know that we are not supposed to grade sermons as such—although this is common in seminary. However, I would have given the sermon an A+. It had the truth of Christ in it. All that aside, when the pastor said his final “amen” he went off the chancel into a wing on the side where he must have thought that he was not visible to the rest of the church. I could see him. He was doing what looked very much like a football touchdown end-zone dance after his sermon. His hands were up in victory and then he shuffled his feet around in a little jig. Lastly, he made punching motions with his fists. He knew he had preached a good one.

My reaction then about the sermon was: “Good show. Well performed.” In seeing this pastor’s pride in his own ability, it took the heart right out of the message of Christ. The sincerity was blown out the church window. It was a good lesson to me on how I should preach. I pray that I will only ever boast in Christ. I pray that my pep is for the people I touch with Christ’s message.

That being said, please note that I do reserve the right to boast when I win at dominoes on Tuesday game nights here in the church. By the way, Lucia won last week and I was at the very bottom with the worst score of all. Soooo, I boast of Christ.

Paul did not just come up with this idea of only boasting in the Lord. We can read for instance from Jeremiah 9:23, “Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast, boast in this that they may understand and know me, that I am the Lord. . . .”

Paul reaffirms this by stating in verse 18 that he will only ever speak of what Christ has accomplished through him. What a glorious sentiment! We should all only ever speak of what the Lord is doing through us. Paul mentions the signs and wonders that have been accomplished through him.

If you have ever studied Paul’s life, you will recall that at least seven miracles are attributed to Paul in the Book of Acts (Acts 13:11, 14:10, 16:18, 19:11-12, 20:10-12, 28:5, & 28:8.) They include his own being healed from blindness, his handkerchief being able to touch others to heal them, his handling of poisonous snakes, and the like. That will be homework for those who are interested more in this. Every time that a miracle was performed, Paul rightly attributed it to the Jesus Christ and thanked God accordingly. This is his boast. He has seen the power of God working through him. Amen to that.

This should also be our boast as we take on the priesthood of all believers. We should in confidence lift up to others so that they may be received as an offering to God all the miracles that we have seen performed through our own faith in Jesus! This is how the gospel is made alive to others. Jesus is not just a figure in a storybook; Jesus is still working His miracles in the world today through us. In this way, when we share the Gospel, the Good News, we can share our own testimony—not boasting about ourselves, but about God.

Therefore, we must be confident. We must be “in the faith. “ God is working through us to save others, to miracles, to makes his love known to this world.

Amen.