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Part 19 of 20
Romans 8: The Shimmer of the Gospel
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Welcome to Easter at Northview Church. We're honored you've chosen to spend your Easter weekend with us. Whether you're a regular or visiting for the first time, we're glad you're here. Northview is one church meeting across multiple locations, and we want to celebrate all of our campuses joining us this weekend.
For those new to our church, know that we're not a perfect community, but we do want to be a better church. We're not for everybody, but we are for somebody, and we pray that somebody is you. We're fully confident that if you get to know the people around you, you'll be impressed by this wonderful family.
At the start of 2025, we began a study on the book of Romans. This letter was written by the Apostle Paul to a local church living under Roman Imperial dominion—right on the doorstep of Nero's empire. Paul writes a letter so anchored in the gospel and so confident in who his King is that he addresses the fallacies and brokenness of Nero's power with the power of the gospel.
The book of Romans is significant in Christian tradition. Many refer to it as the Christian's constitution—if you want to know what Christians believe and what the gospel truly is, there's no clearer, more powerful definition than Romans. It's the most concise, power-packed explanation of the faith.
I find that many people are coming to faith and turning away from Christ, rejecting Christianity, not realizing that what they're objecting to isn't even what God had in mind with the gospel. They're walking away from a caricature, not from true Christianity.
The Bible has remarkable literary brilliance. If you change the metaphor, you change the imagination—it changes how you think. The Bible is often described as a double-edged sword, sharp and accurate. But my two favorite metaphors are these:
The Bible is the Father's portrait of the Son, painted by the Spirit. Every word written is inspired by God, pointing to Jesus, exalting the holy Trinity.
The Bible is a wedding ring, and the book of Romans is the diamond. And if Romans is the diamond, then chapter 8 is its shimmer—the sparkle of the gospel, the overwhelming, rattling effect that God's love has on your life.
This Easter Sunday, as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ in Romans chapter 8, I want to apply the shimmer of the gospel to a particular conversation. Someone sent me a video—a person scoffing at Christianity and the church's involvement in cultural issues. The sentiment of that video was: "I don't care what the Bible says. I don't believe in Christianity, and you don't get to dictate how I live based on your religion."
Have you ever found that familiar tension? You're trying to live a godly life, moving from a spiritual moment to a moment of tension—from worshiping God to being confronted with a scoff toward your faith. If no one's scoffing at your faith, you're living in isolation, not accomplishing the mission of the gospel in the world.
I don't know who this woman is or what her full story is. Chances are she's experienced something negative with a Christian. Perhaps if we knew more of her story, we'd have empathy and grace for her. But let's look at the sentiment: "I don't like how the church is treating culture."
As a pastor, I can say in part: I agree with her. I also don't like how the church is treating the church. The embarrassing reality is that the local church is filled with imperfect people. Where there are people, there will always be problems. Where there is a human in the pulpit, you should hold everything I say loosely, testing it as a responsible thinker.
Sometimes we get it wrong. Some Christians give a poor representation of Christ, and I'm sorry if you've been on the receiving end of a bad experience. But that does not represent the vast majority of believers or the reality of life as a believer.
If you're contemplating placing your faith in Christ, you should approach faith like you approach driving. Every day, accidents happen on our roads—severe accidents that take lives. Yet we wake up and jump into our vehicles and drive 80 miles an hour down the interstate, knowing accidents happen daily. We stay mindful and attentive, stay in our lane, and respond to what's coming our way.
The same applies to faith. Accidents happen daily in the church. We're trying our best to stay in our lane and get to where God is taking us—to a place of no fragmentation.
Let's build out the acronym SCOFF and apply the shimmer of the gospel to the scoff of culture.
Paul says in Romans 8: "The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace." We've established early on in this study that the gospel can be condensed into two words: grace and peace—in that order. Grace is the vehicle. Peace is the destination. Peace is where we're going. Grace is how we get there.
To the person on the negative side of a broken experience with a Christian, I say: as believers, we have anchored ourselves to an eternal reality and promise. We will be at peace, in harmony, for all of eternity with God and each other. We are reverse-engineering a peaceful future into our present.
So the next time you bump into a Christian who's a disruptor, failing to recognize they're called to be a peacemaker—I'm sorry. That's not what the gospel has in mind. There will be no fragmentation in God's kingdom.
Here's what's evident throughout church history: there are hundreds of thousands of denominations and variations of Christianity around the globe. Why? Because every time we disagree, we divide. The windshield of our faith is scattered like a spiderweb—all because we can't stay in attention.
People have lost the ability to engage in deeper dialogue, to stay in conversation, and to ask: "Hey, I hear your scoff. Would you hear my shimmer? Can we stay in the tension and see if there's anything reconcilable or redeemable here?" We are redemptive people. If you are a follower of Christ, you are called to be a redemptive person moving toward no fragmentation.
Why do we keep mismanaging relationships? Because we treat people like objects rather than subjects. When you treat someone like an object, you label them. The moment you label, you stop learning. Once you've defined and labeled someone, they become a tool with a function and purpose. You no longer have to be curious. You no longer have to continue learning about this person.
That's dysfunctional for relationships. If you're married, you understand this. When you got married, you committed to a lifetime course of learning. Much of marriage is learning to love the stranger you committed to. You see God's redemptive work in their life over time. The person who says, "They're not the person I married"—well, none of us are. We're constantly growing, changing, becoming new versions of ourselves. And every step along the way brings funny, fascinating developments.
When you grasp who you truly are in Christ, everything changes. There's a story of a young man who was reckless in school, skipping classes and on the verge of dropping out. His mother made a deal with him: "I don't care about the GED as much as I care about the SAT. I want you to take the SAT."
He took the test and received a 1480—Ivy League level. His mother thought he'd cheated, but he hadn't. That score fundamentally shifted his identity. Suddenly he thought, "If I'm a 1480 person, I should probably start doing what 1480 people do." And 1480 people don't skip class. They do their homework. They hang out with other high-achieving people. They go to college.
So he did exactly that. He went to community college, transferred to Wichita State, then to an Ivy League school, graduated with honors, and built a successful business. Twelve years later, he received a letter saying, "We regret to inform you that you are among 13 people who received the wrong SAT score. You actually received a 720."
But it didn't matter. That kid had experienced a fundamental shift in his thinking about who he was. And he lived a 1480 life because he believed he was a 1480 person. Paul is saying in Romans 8: take that dynamic and multiply it by a million. That's the power of understanding God's love for you.
Paul makes two profound arguments about love in Romans 8. First, unconditional, permanent, pure, truthful, faithful, eternal love is the most powerful force in the entire world. That's what he's declaring.
Second, this most powerful force is being leveraged by the most powerful and wisest being in the universe. The most powerful force in existence is aimed in your direction every single day. You have been targeted by heaven. The laser dot is on you. You live a marked life—the hound of heaven patiently, diligently, faithfully, gently, and creatively pursues you.
When you turn to Christ, you discover an overwhelming, life-shattering, mesmerizing liberty. In Christ and Christ alone, you can live a fruitful, righteous life. But here's the crucial thing: that righteous life is only extra credit, not for earning and receiving your salvation. Simply by believing and trusting in Christ, you now stand with the righteous requirements fulfilled.
There is no obligation. There is no condemnation. There is no separation. If you are a believer, your judgment day is behind you.
