Paul is in prison for insisting that multiculturalism is essential and core to the gospel. He begins by retelling the story of the gospel now that the mystery of the Gentile believers has been made plain. In contrast to an individual plan of salvation, God is playing a much bigger game that leaves us asking: what has been the driving force of our ekklesia, our church?

“Unless we are willing to die… To ideas, to rules that are no longer useful, to ideologies, nothing new… No new life, new fruit, is possible. I want to challenge us as a community to die together and with Christ, be raised as kingdom bringers to everyone we encounter through bringing love. I ask again, what have we done with our freedom?”

Paul, in the introduction to Galatians really firmly presses against a competing gospel that was showing up in the earliest church - that being that the offer of belonging to God's chosen people had any other qualifications than the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul calls these early churches to a unity that he saw as an already present reality in the kingdom of God.

When we come to one another with our OWN weakness fully in front of us, it doesn’t stop us from saying what we need to say, but it helps us to do it in a way that has a better chance of being received. And maybe more importantly, helps US to receive from others what WE need to receive.

We honor Jesus and fulfill our responsibility as His Ambassadors by prioritizing and living out His message of reconciliation (bring others back to God through Jesus)

Paul is alerting the Corinthians to Satan’s divide-and-conquer strategy and urges them to resist with the truth that they are inescapably one body with many parts.  Because we are made in the image of a triune God and can do nothing other than bear his image of oneness, we exist in loving equal relationship with one another.  This is not something we attain, but a oneness based in the Holy Spirit.  Our standard of wellbeing in the body of Christ is the whole body well-being, not just any one part.

E-Course mentioned in the message: https://www.resmaa.com/courses

Jesus, He IS GOOD!  His outrageous love attracted people!  His wild holiness called to the people…it still calls. His love accepted,  never condemned.  We focus on sin-morality, Jesus on grace-love.  He chose always and foremost, relationships over rules and regulations. He disturbed the status quo, railed against injustice, hung out with highly questionable types…and began a revolution of love and unity.

Paul in his letter to the Romans guides the thought of the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians to understand how important it is for the mission of God that the church excel in unity and love in their rapidly changing, and tense world.

Paul clearly defines the gospel in Romans 1-8. Just because we may “think we know” the gospel, doesn’t mean we don’t need to hear it again.  Not only so, but we need the gospel today, right now.  It is the pattern by which we grow: Hear from God when we’re out of alignment, what the Bible calls sin; Trust that Christ is enough and that He has made you right with God again and again; and Trust that He continues to set us free and that the internal conversations about you not being enough and not measuring up are simply not true.

The Christian faith often has us feeling ‘stuck’ in in-between and uncertain places. We don’t run from it to create our own certainty, but instead place our hope and trust in the person of Christ.