Everything Changes!

“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1)

No chapter of scripture has affected me personally more than Romans 8.  Early in my Christian life I discovered Romans 8, verse 1 and promptly memorized it. It came as a balm to my soul and provided relief for the shame and guilt I had due to years of sinful and ungodly choices.  No one had to argue with me about the reality of my sinfulness.  And I quickly discovered that no matter how hard I tried, I still managed to do those sinful things I did not want to do.  When I read Romans chapters 1-7, I did not debate, but nodded my head in the affirmative while thinking, “I am the man, that’s me.”  But Romans 8 declared to me that in Christ I am no longer condemned. Extraordinary! Even more, now in Christ, God’s Spirit has set me free.  Hallelujah!

And as I took in Romans 8, I discovered that the Christian life is not one of striving in my own strength to be good, but instead of allowing Christ in me – the indwelling Holy Spirit — to live his life through me. Whereas in Romans 7 we see the weakness of the Law because of sin, in Romans 8 we see the power of the Spirit to overcome sin.  It is the Spirit of God who causes us to live godly lives. It is the Spirit of God who leads us and guides us and assures us of God’s love for us.  It is the Spirit of God who causes us to know about and live into our adoption as sons and daughters of God.  It is the Spirit of God who allows us to endure suffering in our lives. It is the Spirit of God who teaches us how and what to pray for. It is the Spirit of God who causes us to be more than conquerors. Yes indeed, in Romans 8 everything changes!

The New Way of the Spirit

“But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” (Romans 7:6)

I am indebted to the theologian John Stott for my understanding of Romans 7. In Romans 7, Paul struggles with the place of the law in God’s purpose. Paul addresses three approaches to God’s law:

• Legalism – you have to obey the law. Legalists fear the law and are enslaved to it.
• Antinomianism – you just ignore the law completely. Antinomianists hate the law and renounce it.
• Law-fulfilling freedom – you don’t count on keeping the law to make you right with God, but you love God’s law and enjoy following it because you love God.

The problem that we have in this life is not God’s law. God’s law is good. God’s law shows us what sin is. God’s law shows us what holiness looks like.  However, our problem is that sin within us, because of its depravity, is aroused and provoked by the law.  The law cannot save us because we cannot keep the law. And we cannot keep the law because of indwelling sin.

Does the law have any place for Christians?  No and yes. No, in that the law cannot empower us to live a holy life. Yes in that Christian freedom is freedom to serve, not freedom to sin.  As Christians, we are still slaves. But our slavery is to God and righteousness. We serve because of love not fear. We do not serve the law that says, “You must!” Instead we serve Christ who is called our husband.  We want to serve. We get to serve. We serve not because obedience leads to salvation but because salvation leads to obedience. “We serve in the new way of the Spirit,” (verse 6). It is the indwelling Holy Spirit that is the primary and distinguishing characteristic of the new age, and therefore also, of the new life in Christ.

Which of the three approaches to God’s law best describes you? If you answered either 1 or 2, perhaps it’s time for a change.

Dead Men Don’t Lust

“For we know that our old self was crucified with Christ so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.” (Romans 6:6-7)

“Dead men don’t lust.” I think that would make a great t-shirt don’t you? Or maybe it could be a bumper sticker for your car? You could just as easily substitute: “Dead women don’t gossip.” Or to be gender neutral it could say: “Dead people don’t lie”. Or covet, or steal or, well you get the point.

Romans 6 paints the picture of two very different lives: The life in Adam which is enslaved to sin and the life in Christ which through grace and faith is enslaved to God.  In order to be freed from our sin-dominated life which we inherited from Adam, we must die to it (verse 2).  It is not enough to work at freedom. It is not enough to struggle with sin.  The old man must die so that a new man can rise within us.  When we place our trust in Christ as our sufficiency before God, our bondage in Adam is broken through being united with Christ on the cross. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, sin’s mastery over us has been broken. Death’s hold on us has been vanquished because we also have within us the risen life of Christ.  Paul tells us that if we died with Christ, then we also rise with Christ and death has no hold on him.

Therefore we are to consider ourselves dead to sin.  How do we do this?  Sometimes when I find myself acting like my old Adamic self again (in other words sinning), I remind that lower fleshly self out loud: “You’re dead self. You’re crucified sin.  And dead men don’t sin. I’m dead. But thanks be to God, Christ is alive in me.  Now, Lord Jesus, live your life through me. Let your resurrection victory be manifested in my life today.”  How often do  you do this, you might ask? Until I experience this theologically correct reality in my everyday experience.

Peace with God

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” (Romans 5:1-2)

Peace is something that many struggle to find in a busy world. We catch it in moments like early in the morning before anyone else is awake; or prior to the kids coming home from school; or after everyone has gone to bed in a quiet bath. Sometimes it comes while we walk quietly with a loved one. Other times it comes while we are outdoors in the midst of nature as we work in the garden, or as we hear the surf thunder and roll in the distance, or as we spy a hawk circling in the sky, or in those last moments of daylight as we watch the sun dip beyond the horizon. Where do you find peace in the midst of your busy day?

Paul has spent the first four chapters of Romans unfolding the utter sinfulness of humanity in contrast to the majestic holiness of Almighty God. Given that reality, it’s hard to imagine that there could be peace with God.  It certainly isn’t deserved and neither can it be earned. And yet, peace is what God offers to us because of the death of Jesus Christ. The extraordinary love of God is available to us through and in and because of the cross of Christ. As the text tells us God can offer peace, “Because at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly… God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Christ,” (Romans 5:6, 8-9). How marvelous! How wonderful is the blood of Christ for you and for me!

How we know we’ll be in heaven

“That is why his faith was ‘counted to him as righteousness’ . But the words it was ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:22-25)

Justification. It means something to the effect of, “just-as-if-I’d never done anything wrong.” Justification occurs in our lives when Christ’s righteousness (his right standing, goodness, moral and spiritual purity before God) is reckoned to us. It is reckoned to us when we place our trust in him as our Savior and Lord and receive the forgiveness of our sins  This is an act of grace (unmerited favor) and the vehicle through which this grace comes to us is our faith. Our faith is counted to us as righteousness. Without faith in Christ, no one is righteous and nothing we can do on our own (works) can attain heaven for us.  By way of illustration: A murderer may stand at the bottom of the deepest mine on earth and you on the top of Mt. Everest, but you are as little able to touch the stars as he. No good thing you might do is enough to merit heaven. You cannot attain the righteousness that God demands, no matter how far you climb.  Salvation is by grace alone through faith and not by works.

It might be helpful to think about the process in reverse also.  If we have no faith in Christ, we receive no reckoning of Christ’s righteousness to us, and therefore we are not justified before God, and this leaves us under God’s wrath and judgment because of our sin. The end result of that process is hell.  Do you see why it is so incredibly important to tell others about Jesus Christ. Eternity rests upon knowing and believing on him.

And how can we know that Christ’s offering on the cross covers our sin, satisfies God’s just judgment, and averts his wrath and the due penalty of our sin? Because God raised Jesus from the dead! It is the resurrection that assures our justification and thus heaven itself. If the penalty for sin is death and hell, then the resurrection of Christ from the dead declares that the penalty has been paid. Death cannot hold him because it has nothing on him! The sentence is paid. The prisoner is set free.  Those of us who are joined to him in his death are also joined to him in his resurrection from death. Therefore the resurrection is how we know we are justified!

When I look toward heaven and remember that the God who sits on his throne has condemned me because of my sin, I rightly despair. But then I see the One who sits at His right alive and ruling with him, holding up a wounded hand, and presenting his pierced feet and side. With these wounds Christ pleads for me and I have his own assurance that they are efficacious, sufficient to meet my needs. What gloriously good news!

 

The remedy for your problems

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-26)

There has been a trend in some American churches in recent years. There tends to be less talk about sin and righteousness these days. And many people tend not to want to hear so much about sin anymore. And because of this much contemporary preaching and teaching (and a huge number of best selling books) center on making people feel good about themselves or finding life principles by which to live. In fact, you can grow a large church in America these days on this kind of message. And while I’m not against feeling good or beneficial life principles, per se, these things are not the remedy for our problems because they do not and cannot save us.  To focus primarily on these things is like getting a manicure, pedicure, and hair cut, when what is really need is a heart transplant!

Romans chapters 1-3 point out that our great need is not more self-esteem or self-actualization or self-help. In fact, Romans 1-3 show that the self is the problem — that is, the fallen self which is captive to sin and in rebellion to God. Because of sin, the self cannot and will not yield fully to God’s leadership. Sin is the revolt of the self against God. Sin dethrones God as king and replaces him with self. And thus sin ultimately is a a kind of self-deification.  And you just can’t pretty that up to God.

It is crucial that we go to the source of what truly ails us.  We need to soberly receive scripture’s assessment of our great problem — sin and the lack of righteousness before God it creates within us. This is our great problem. This is my great problem before God. And it is your great problem before God. We need not blame our behavior on our genes (“But I was born that way”), or our parents (“They did this to me”), or our education (or lack thereof), or our culture. The problem is in us. I am the problem and you are the problem. But there is a remedy! Our remedy is to flee from God’s just judgment of our sin to the One who has born the penalty of our sin on the cross — namely Jesus Christ. Not one of us has any merit to fall back on nor any excuses to make before God because the problem is us. No one is exempt. None are right before him.

But the glorious good news is this: “God has a way to make people right, and it has nothing to do with the law. He has now shown us that new way, which the law and the prophets told us about.God makes people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. He does this for all who believe in Christ. Everyone is the same. All have sinned and are not good enough to share God’s divine greatness. They are made right with God by his grace. This is a free gift. They are made right with God by being made free from sin through Jesus Christ. God gave Jesus as a way to forgive people’s sins through their faith in him. God can forgive them because the blood sacrifice of Jesus pays for their sins. God gave Jesus to show that he always does what is right and fair. He was right in the past when he was patient and did not punish people for their sins. And in our own time he still does what is right. God worked all this out in a way that allows him to judge people fairly and still make right any person who has faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-26 GNV)

 

Do you know what matters to God?

“For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. (Romans 2:28-29)

Romans 1 and 2 lay out the reality that both Jews and Gentiles are guilty before God because of sin.  As we will read tomorrow in Romans 3, everyone is guilty; no one is righteous. The Gentiles who have not had the Law will be judged by God based upon what knowledge of the truth they have had and yet have not performed. For instance I spoke with someone recently who did not grow up in church and had never heard the 10 Commandments. And yet, as I spoke with her, she admitted that it is wrong to steal and to lie and to disobey parents — all part of the law and also all things she admitted she had done in her life.  She knew it was wrong but did those things anyway. Were she to die today and go before the judgement seat of God who shows no partiality (Romans 2:11) but judges everyone with complete truth and fairness, she would be condemned as guilty for having known what was right and yet not done what was right.

Likewise the Jew (and by extension the church person) who has had the law and yet has not kept the law, will also be shown guilty before God who plays no favorites.  There is no favored status before God; he is totally even-handed. We neither get to plead ignorance, nor do we get to plead “close enough” by saying that our good deeds out-weighed our bad deeds. Likewise, no one will be found innocent because of race (“But I was born a Jew), nor familial affiliation (“I was born into a Christian family/”My parents are Christians”), nor because of outward ceremony (“I was circumcised”/”I was baptized”).

At the end of Romans 2(verse 28-29), Paul redefines what it means to be a Jew (an authentic member of God’s covenant people). There are four things he lays out:

1. The essence of being a true Jew (who may indeed be ethnically a Gentile) is not something outward and visible but inward and invisible.
2. The true circumcision (the mark of belonging to God’s people) is in the heart not the flesh.
3. This circumcision is effected by the Holy Spirit not the law.
4. This circumcision wins the approval of God rather than people.

People are comfortable with what is outward, visible, material and superficial. What matters to God is a deep, inward, secret work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

God’s will for your life

“What is God’s will for my life?”  It’s a question I am asked regularly. Did you know the Bible answers that question?  1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “No matter what happens (in all circumstances), always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”  What is God’s will for your life?  Be thankful.  Be grateful. No matter what your outward circumstances are.  This is God’s will for Christians. I know, it doesn’t sound that glamorous or exciting; almost like a recommendation that you use dental floss when you brush your teeth… but read further.

A few years ago as God was beginning to teach me the importance of gratitude, he said something to me.  The Holy Spirit whispered to my heart, “In a culture of abundance, the thing that is most conspicuously lacking is gratitude.”  As I thought about that statement I began to look through Scripture for verification. Whenever we think that we have “heard” God speak to us, we must always test it against the scripture.  If the “word from God” doesn’t align with Scripture, it isn’t Him.  As I searched His written Word, I found the Thessalonians passage mentioned above and discovered in the process the answer to the question people have asked me about God’s will for their lives.

But I learned something else.  Romans 1:18-25 says, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”

Did you see it?  The wrath, yes you read that correctly, the wrath of God is tied to two things.  Verse 21 says that those who know God but don’t glorify Him and give him thanks come under his wrath.  What is that wrath?  Contrary to popular misunderstanding, God’s wrath is not vindictive thurderbolts and earthly cataclysm. No, God’s wrath is that He hands us over to ourselves.  He abandons stubborn sinners to our willful self-centeredness. We become spiritually blind and foolish in our thinking (v 22), we become idolaters (which means we worship things that aren’t the true and living God – v 23), our sinful desires take over our lives (24), sexual sin becomes prominent (v 24), we degrade our bodies (v 24), we believe lies about God (25), we stop worshipping (25), and we become “this-world focused” (25).  When it all boils down, ingratitude toward God leads to sin, unbelief, idolatry and false worship in this life. And Revelation 21:8 says, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death.”  When scripture says it is God’s will that we live grateful lives toward him it is because to do otherwise inevitably leads to hell.

As I have spent time marveling at the cross of Jesus Christ, I have discovered gratitude!  What other response can we have when we truly see that before the Law and Justice of God our actions and our lives rightfully deserve hell. And yet, when we come to the cross seeking His forgiveness, the love and mercy of God gives us pardon, forgiveness, and sonship.  When that happens, gratitude is the natural overflow of mercy received.  But I have learned that it is easy to forget to be grateful; especially in the midst of abundance or in the midst of sorrow.  And so I have made it a goal of mine to be a doer of God’s word, not merely a hearer of His word, and thank him throughout each day.  I thank him for the “little” things and the “large”.  For the joys and the sorrows.  And what I have discovered as I practice gratitude in all circumstances, is that I am more content than ever before.  Imagine that!  Gratitude leads to contentment!  May I encourage you to practice gratitude, for this is God’s will for your life in Christ.

 

A Great Foreshadowing

“Your people shall be my people and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16c)

We come to the book of Ruth. It  serves as the great foreshadowing of the ingrafting of the gentiles into the people of God. It is a delightful story following the dreadfulness of the end of the book of Judges. The last three chapters of Judges showed just how corrupt the people of God had become. Israel had forsaken God and sunk into anarchy and confusion in their religious lives (Judges 17, 18), in their moral lives (Judges 19), and in their political lives (Judges 21). As individual people fell away from God, so also the nation quickly followed.  As Judges 17:6 states, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  This led to anarchy and confusion. When we forget God and follow our own interests, ways, and sinful desires, loss and defeat are inevitable.

In the midst of this great apostasy, comes Ruth.  She was a Moabite woman (a gentile like most of us reading this blog) who was by birth an outsider to the promises of God given to Abraham and his descendants. And yet while she was not a natural born descendant of Abraham, she showed herself to be of the spiritual lineage of Abraham because of her faith in God. (As we will soon read in Romans and later in Galatians, those who have faith in Christ are the spiritual descendants of Abraham).

Ruth declared to her Israelite mother-in-law Naomi that she would remain with her even though Ruth’s husband had died. Neither law nor custom required Ruth to stay. She was not bound to Naomi, but instead had every right to go home to her own people. And yet, she showed herself to be a righteous person (defined by Jesus as loving God and her neighbor). She forsook the pagan religion of her own people who worshiped many gods to serve the One True God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Thus she was ingrafted into the people of God and serves as a picture of God’s grace. Grace is unmerited and undeserved and unattainable favor. This is what Ruth received as she was saved by and later married to Boaz, her “kinsman redeemer.” Boaz serves as a type for Christ.  So we can see a picture of the rescue of the gentiles by grace, who then become the church (the bride of Christ), who are saved by the Redeemer (Jesus).

Here’s the picture: As we walk away from the false gods we have served and place our faith in the One True God, we are saved by the grace of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, who brings us into his church, the bride of Christ. Through the vehicle of faith, we are saved by his grace. Though outsiders by birth, God has ingrafted us into his people and made us his beloved bride!

 

Why is this happening to me?

^” Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul.” (Acts 27:23)

In the midst of some crisis, have you ever said wondered, “Why is this happening to me?” I know I have. Those kinds of statements are usually uttered when in a place of confusion, pain, sickness, betrayal, fear, or loss. In other words, times of weakness when things aren’t going my way.

I remember this vividly when I was in seminary. I had given up my whole life to follow God’s call into ministry. I had been longing to go for years and my chance finally came. My wife and I (as well as our mature and wise counselors, friends and church elders) knew clearly that God had called us and sent us at that time. And within a span of weeks that stretched into months, everything seemed to fall apart. My father died. We moved from the warm South to the coldness of a collapsed steel mill town near Pittsburgh, PA (culture shock!). The house we rented caused us to become terribly sick so we had to move again. I had to take Koine/Biblical Greek (a rather difficult language to learn under the best of circumstances) and 4 other equally strenuous courses.  Our second house flooded (destroying all of our pictures and keepsakes from our grandparents) and we had to move a 3^rd time. Then the winter ice and cold and gloom set in and wouldn’t stop. I was miserable. I found myself in the cold, barren basement of our 3^rd house late one night and I got honest with God…. I cried out, “Why is this happening to me?” And then the next question tumbled forth, “If you really love me, wouldn’t you treat me better than this?”

And it was in the dark aloneness of the night that the Lord comforted me by giving me a revelation that he was with me and that he loves me. He showed me the cross. Not the pretty gold cross that we process behind in church, but the bloody cross of Jesus Christ. And he said to me, “On that day in space and time, my love for you was forever demonstrated.”  And he said, “I am with you.” And that was enough for me. Nothing externally changed in my life. It was still winter outside. And the next 2 ½ years were filled with trial and difficulty. But inside me, a new confidence arose that assured me that we would make it through the storm.

In Acts 27, the Lord was with Paul in the storm. Notice that he didn’t remove Paul from the storm; he didn’t deliver him from the circumstances around him. Instead, he comforted him and assured him that he would survive the storm.  So it is with our lives. The Lord does not promise deliverance from every storm of life. But the Lord will be with us in the storm.  He has promised, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”