“…Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations,…” Romans 1:4b-5 (emphasis added)
Grace is the unmerited favor of God. There is nothing that you or I did to earn or deserve the love or favor of God. Yet there it is. Love, forgiveness and favor. Why? That doesn’t make sense. What it is represents the overwhelming love of God. A God that can look beyond your mess and see who you were created to be. But I go back to…why? Why does God bother to love me at all, have grace for me at all?
The reason is because without it there is no way to be reconciled with him. God desperately wants to be reconciled with you. God hates sin and he hates what sin has done to his creation and so through Jesus he has made a way for us to be made right with him. So, he gives us grace so that WE may be reconciled with HIM. He then implores us through our relationship with Jesus to then bring the obedience of faith to the nations.
That phrase “obedience of faith” is interesting to me. It seems to encompass the debate over works or faith to show our love for God. Some through their doctrine seem to believe that you must do good works in order to attain a level of godliness. Others lean towards the idea that it is through faith alone that you attain justification with God. I believe that this phrase points out that it is our faith that leads to obedience. Faith and obedience are intertwined like a rope.
Obedience to do what? Well, according to Romans 1…it is obedience for the sake of his name among all the nations. We must be obedient to live for his name, share his name, represent his name for all the nations. That begins in our homes. That then spreads to our workplaces and places of leisure and then when the obedience requires…to the nation and then the rest of the earth.
What do we do with Grace….obey.
Sean Rheaume 