His Angst Our Angst - 7/9/2017

WARNING PREACHY…

Ephesians 5:25-28 (NIV)

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

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I’ve shared this story before, and I’m sure I will share it again, and again, and again…

When I was first married, my new bride and I had our first fight, and while it’s not often the case, I was actually in the right in this argument.  When night fell, I prayed that God would open her eyes to the fact that she was in the wrong so she could apologize and we could get back to happy-marriage.  While I prayed I experienced one of those moments when you know that God is speaking to your soul and I distinctly heard Him tell me to go apologize myself.  I was shocked, no – worse, I was incensed and told Him in righteous anger that I would not apologize--because I hadn’t done anything wrong!

As I went right back into asking God to change her heart I again heard God say that I needed to go apologize to her, and again I replied that I would not apologize because I had not done nothing wrong. 

And then I distinctly heard God ask me if Jesus had done anything wrong when He died on the Cross for me?

I got the message loud and clear.  In the small still voice of my soul I got it; I was to love my wife just as Jesus loved the church (Ephesian 5).  Jesus sought me by first seeking me, and I was now to seek my wife in the same way.  At that I moment I could feel, just a little, the angst that Jesus must have felt when He went to his death for us.  None of us could have repented of our sin if Jesus had not first sought me and in a way, He said sorry to me even though I was in the wrong.

I eventually did go and apologize to my wife and it was amazing how the barriers that prevented restoration simply fell away; our relationship was quite easily healed and restored.  To this day I never pray when we fight because I already know what I must do; I must love my wife as Jesus loved the church.

And for the record, apologizing never gets easy whether I am in the right, or the wrong, because in the heat of the moment I want to fight and I want to win the battle.  But I have learned that much emotional carnage can be alleviated when I simply approach the situation with the mind of Christ and some humility.

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Romans 5:8 (AMP)

⁸ But God clearly shows and proves His own love for us, by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

 

Incarnate You – 7/2/2017

WARNING PREACHY…

Romans 8:1-11

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

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In this passage, the Apostle Paul begins by telling Christians that there is now no condemnation for the those who are in Christ.  We stated that condemnation is like that moment between the time when your mother says to you “just you wait until your father gets home” and he actually arrives home.  The world is presently in that same sort of position; Jesus will one day return and the Great Judgment of all things to occur, but Paul tells Christians that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Paul then details the difference of those who are in Christ Jesus and those who are not by stating that some people walk this life according to the flesh and some according to the Spirit; concluding that those who walk according to the flesh cannot please God.

And in the final analysis of these present words, Paul assures the young Roman Church that they are not of the flesh but of the Spirit if the Spirit of God in fact dwells in them.

I want to take a moment to zero in on the words “the Spirit dwells in you” (vs. 9);  Paul states that in Christ the very same Spirit of God who raised Jesus back to life from the dead now dwells in us.

That word dwell means to take up residence at a certain location; it means a specific location.

When I was in the army, I would meet fellow soldiers from all over the country, and in the course of small-talk we would talk about “where home is.”  I found it interesting that people who were from the inner cities generally spoke of where they “stayed” while I talked about where I “lived”.  For I grew up in a specific house with a specific family but many of my friends from the inner city did not necessarily know a specific location as “home” because they often bounced between where their mother’s, their father’s, their grandma’s, their aunt’s, or some cousin’s or friend’s dwellings were.  This was not my experience, my experience was that my parent’s had a solid location where we always returned to – a place I called “home”.  When Paul writes of the Spirit of God dwelling in me, I understand this to be a specific location that God is calling “home”

What’s more is that Paul states that it is the same exact Spirit of God that caused Jesus to rise back to life from the dead who now dwells in us.  This is huge!  For the Holy Spirt caused the dead flesh of Jesus to live again: not just re-animated like zombies who are called the living-dead, but like brand-new born-again creations (2 Corinthians 5:17, John 3:16). 

Paul points out that we men are dead because of sin, but just as Jesus was dead in his flesh because of sin, we too are given new life by the Spirit of Him who now makes his home in us. 

And in this way we Christians are quite literally incarnate beings.

I won’t begin to pretend that I have anything more than a fleeting a grasp of this concept but I’m pretty sure that this means that I am never alone and that God is quite literally with me each and every step that I take in my life.

And this mean that neither are you: if you are in Christ.

(Post #100) Should the Church Welcome All? – 6/25/2017

WARNING PREACHY…

The Apostle Paul just told us that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because the righteous requirement of the Law has been met through Him.  With each thing he told us there was a caveat where something is required of us.  He writes that there is now no condemnation FOR THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS and that the righteous requirement of the Law has been met in us WHO WALK ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT.

This begs the questions: are we in Christ and are we walking according to the Spirit?  Most of us shrug off such thoughts and assume that because we consider ourselves to be better people than we consider ourselves bad, that we are fine, and therefore we will be accepted by God when we meet Him face to face.  But Paul is not suggesting that we use some sort of self-determined and self-diagnosed moral scale with which to determine such things.  In versus five through eight Paul shows us how we should asses with a standard that we don’t get to make up on our own.

Romans 8:1-11

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Seeking His Righteousness…

There are two groups of people Paul is talking about in this passage; those who set their minds on the flesh, and those who set their minds on the Spirit.  Though I am simplifying the topic tremendously, I do think we can illustrate the point with just asking the question of who is seeking the Righteousness of God.

I often see signs in front of churches that state, “All are welcome here!”  Such signs are meant to be inviting but I wonder if such signs are really proper.  It seems to me that maybe all are not actually welcome in the house of God. 

Consider the fact that Jesus literally drove the Money Changers out of the Temple courts because they were defiling the House of God[1]: they certainly weren’t welcome.  And consider that Jesus told the religious leaders that “only the sick need a doctor”[2] suggesting, I think, that those who considered themselves to be fine in the sight of God without Jesus didn’t really need to come to Him.  So I wonder if it wouldn’t be more correct to have signs that stated “all who seek the Righteousness of God are welcome here” because it seems to me that too many of us are at the church for other reasons.

Matthew 6:33

^33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…”

How do we start our day; do we ask God to fulfill in us His righteousness or do we go to church with the intent of being transformed by the righteousness of Jesus?[3]  Likely we don’t always.  More often than not we are going because it is ‘what a good Christian does’ or because we like the emotions we get from the worship, or we like the scriptural teachings we get, or maybe the fellowship of the like-minded people that we get.  I would suggest that these are the reason why our culture is so quick to church-hop so easily. 

As churchy and religious as many of us are, are we really interested in being transformed from the inside out by the righteousness of God by the resurrected Christ?  The answer to this question can only be decided by you.

In Isaiah 47:7 God tells the Babylonians “…But you did not consider these things or thing about what might happen.”  I take God’s words here to be a warning for myself to spend more time considering things in prayer and meditation, to mull things over in my heart and mind in order to assure that I am not walking according to the flesh.

As we have signs welcoming ‘all people’ to our churches, I wonder if Jesus really wants all people in His church, or if He wants just those people who are seeking His Righteousness.  Because, let’s face it, too often people who come to church do so as money-changers and Pharisees who have no interest in seeking the God who is but rather they desire the god of their own imaginations.  For remember, Paul tells us in verse 8 that people who are of the flesh cannot please God[4]. 

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[1] Matthew 21:12

[2] Matthew 9:11-13

[3] Romans 8:4 & 10

[4] I may have stated the question but I don’t claim to have the answer.  This is something I am thinking about because I think it appropriate to struggle with such things.

According to the Spirit – 6/18/2017

WARNING PREACHY…

Last week[1] I began looking at Roman 8:1-11, and in those 11 versus I found nine obvious topics that I wanted to explore.  This week I am looking at topic number two – the Law.

Romans 8:1-11

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

THE LAW…

The Jewish Law was burdensome for the most desperate, and stifling against the genuine worship of God by the people.  The religion of the Law knew nothing of individual worship and relationship with God, but rather was more about a corporate fellowship through a regulated priesthood.  By the time Jesus began his public ministry the teachers and leaders of the Law had created a religion that was dominated by and for the elite; not necessarily about God or the people.

The Law is basically the 10 Commandments.  You know, the thou shall nots?  Thou shall have no other Gods, take the Lord’s name in vain, commit murder, adultery, thievery, lie, or covet.  All in all, someone counted and there were 613 total commands that people under the Law had to live by.  No, those were not all God’s doing, many of them were created and put into practice by the leaders of the Jewish religion, but that’s what they had to live by as Jews.  The idea of the Law was that if they obeyed the regulations then God was honored and they would be accepted by Him.  The problem was that nobody could obey the rules because the flesh was not able.  Paul speaks of this impossibility in Romans 7.

It worked sort of like this.  When I was about seven or eight, I was at my grandmother’s house. I decided to go out to swing at the pear tree and maybe eat a ripe pear. I asked my grandmother if I could go outside and she said “yes” but added that I was not to go by the road. Seriously? I wasn’t even thinking about the road but once she said not to I had a strange attraction to go out and see what the fuss was about. This is how it was for people who lived under the Law, for the Law told people not to covet their neighbor’s wife and guess what? They couldn’t help themselves and coveted their neighbor’s wife anyway.

Romans 7:7

“…I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

And so, since the people were not able to actually obey the Law that was to make them righteous in the sight of God, God sent Jesus, in the flesh, to show them the way to true relationship with God.  By living a sinless life and dying the death required by the Law Jesus secured a righteousness that He now offers to men that we might be found righteous in the sight of God.

Just as we saw last week that there was a caveat in the decree that there is now therefore no condemnation, there also is a caveat in the decree that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us.  That caveat is that we must be walking according to the law of the Spirit of Christ and not the Law of the flesh. 

To repent is to be traveling in one direction and then to turn immediately around and travel in the other.  When the Israelites who followed the Law of Moses were called to repent, they were being called to stop walking in the Law of the flesh but to turn around and begin walking in the law of the Spirit. 

For us gentiles who never walked in the Law of Moses, we do walk according to something of our flesh.  Generally it’s some form of self-focused misguided philosophy or religiosity but whatever it is, we need to repent from that Law of flesh and begin walking in the Law of the Spirit of Jesus. 

And for those of us who do, Paul assures that there is now therefore no condemnation.

I pray that you will go this week and confidently walk in by the Spirit of the Christ who secured such a great salvation for us.  Be blessed my friends.

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[1] http://warningpreachy.blogspot.com/2017/06/youve-been-redeemed-6112017.html