 Throughout my life I've increasingly found that reading scripture in public isn't just about feeding our own spirits and minds. It's about rehearsing the mighty acts of God for God's glory. So let's think together about Romans 15 verse 12. And first let's have some tea. Isaiah says once more, there shall be the root of Jesse, the one who rises up to rule the nations. The nations shall hope in him. Now at first sight you might think, well that's quite a nice quote from Isaiah, but it doesn't seem to add very much to what Paul has just been saying. But on second thoughts it adds an enormous amount. And in fact that line, Isaiah 11 verse 10, sends us all the way back to the beginning of Romans because in the beginning Paul quotes a variety of scriptural passages to talk about Jesus descended from David's seed in terms of the flesh. Now being marked out as God's son powerfully by the resurrection of the dead and that he is now the Lord of the world. In fact by quoting Isaiah 11, 10, in this passage, Romans 15, Paul has bookended the theological argument of the whole letter which is about Jesus as the true Messiah descended from David who was the son of Jesse, the one who is now enthroned as Lord of the world. This is a major point that many indeed many lifelong practice in Christians have never really grasped that in the New Testament the Jewish idea is retrieved that when God sends the true King of Israel this person will be in fact the true Lord of the world. Of course the New Testament redefines the very notion of kingship or lordship around the cross and resurrection of Jesus precisely as Paul does here. But there is more because when Paul quotes a passage from Israel's scriptures as here one of his favourite books Isaiah we should see not only that one verse or the one line that he quotes but the immediate context which it's bringing with it. If Paul had quoted all the bits of context that he might have wanted to his letters would have been ten times as long but what he's done is he's dropped in these hints and when we then go back and look at the original passage we see the larger context. Because Romans 14 and 15 which is drawn to its conclusion here at least in the argument that he's making in chapter 14 and on into the beginning of 15 is all about the necessity for Jewish believers and Gentile believers to come together in worship and fellowship learning to set aside the things which culturally and in terms of their inherited practices would otherwise have divided them whether it's the food laws or the keeping of special holy days or whatever. This becomes quite explicit in the beginning of chapter 15 and then in this great climax from verse 7 welcome one another as the Messiah welcomed you for the glory of God and then Paul sums up his whole gospel the Messiah became a servant of the circumcised people to demonstrate the truthfulness of God confirming the promises to the patriarchs and to bring the nations to praise him and then he quotes from Deuteronomy from the Psalms and then this passage from Isaiah. What is he saying with this? He is saying that actually it's only when a great multitude from every nation and tribe and tongue as in Revelation 5 and elsewhere is worshiping God together that the people of God are really being the people of God's new creation as always intended because Isaiah 11 verses 1 to 10 which is this picture of the Messiah through whose judgment the whole world will be put right this picture develops into the idea of new creation where the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard with the kid and a little child will lead them and so on climaxing in they will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain because the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea this isianic vision of new creation in which the warring animals will come together and live at peace is the image Paul is evoking now as he's seeing Jews and Gentiles coming together in one single body and what about that image of the world being full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea well says Paul you yourselves in your shared worship your cross-cultural shared worship you are to be the advance sign of that filling because after that quote he says may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit in other words the work of the spirit in the worldwide church the Jew plus Gentile family filling them to overflowing is the sign in the present that God's new creation has been launched how tragic it is therefore that so many of our churches completely ignore Romans 14 and 15 and divide up worship into different ethnic and cultural groups only when we address that question will we be actually faithful to what Paul is arguing throughout the whole of the letter to the Romans so may God give you grace and strength in your worship to share freely with one another across cultural differences so that coming together as the single family of the Lord Jesus you may demonstrate to the world that his new creation has indeed begun Amen.