Romans 1:12 states, “That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”
There is a church in Spokane, Washington called “Family of Faith.” My wife Donna and I visited there one Sunday because my cousin attended there. The congregation was excited about Jesus. They were renting a school gymnasium and packing it out twice each Sunday morning. I was introduced to the pastor—an ex-hockey player of average stature, who removed his partial denture, revealing a couple of missing teeth, to prove he truly played the sport. Jesus used this guy to build a great group of believers. The key was that God had delivered him from addiction and he was out to reach people for Christ, one addict at a time. The people thronged him. The hungry homeless had found a family of faith.
I love the song by Gloria and Bill Gaither, “Plenty of Room in the Family.” It speaks of plenty of room in the fold, room for the young and the old, plenty of happiness, plenty of love, plenty of food on the table. It gives the invitation, “Well if your lonely and looking for friendship, And you’re lost but you wanna be found, Well there’s plenty of room in the family of God, And plenty of love to go ‘round.”
In our text, Paul is speaking of a mutual faith between him and the church at Rome, a faith that brings comfort to both parties. I spoke to a man recently who surprised me by how much he seemed to know about the Bible. Though he was addicted to cigarettes and swore a lot, he felt he was headed to Heaven. I asked him where he went to church. He said he had tried it a time or two, but wasn’t about to go and be with a bunch of hypocrites. He had not found the mutual faith Paul spoke of.
Roy K. Orbison penned the song, “Only the Lonely,” describing the feeling of losing at romance. In one verse he mentions the possibility of finding love again, “Maybe tomorrow, A new romance, No more sorrow, But that’s the chance you gotta take.”
Sometimes a church can fail at mutual faith. Paul spoke of his faith as a high calling, separated to the Gospel, with Jesus as the center, “…according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans. 1:4). He spoke highly of the faith of the Roman church, “First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world” (V. 8). He realized that they were not established—not perfect, “For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established” (V. 11). They did not have equal faith, but mutual faith—enough to comfort each other.
There is no perfect church or perfect family. When I was maybe four years old, my Mom and Dad took in two little brothers for a few weeks while their parents were trying to work things out. My dad nicknamed them “Roger the Lodger, and Greggor the Beggar.” They became a part of our family, a family of faith. They trusted us, and were comforted by MUTUAL FAITH!
