More Thoughts On Romans - Day 5

 

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? Rom 2:4

               Wait- didn't we just read about God's judgement and wrath? And as we continue on in Romans 2, don't we continue to read about it? Where do we see God's kindness at all?

 Maybe it's in the fact that he turns people over to let them reap the consequences of their actions. Letting them do what they want and not interfering with their free will is being kind, right?

Maybe it's in the fact that even though justice would say," the soul that sins shall die", or" the penalty of sin is death", or "the day you eat of it you will surely die" - and yet we don't - that's kind, right?

Maybe it's in the fact that as the depravity spirals downward, God has promised that He will never again start over like He did with the flood. That's kind, right?

                   The other day I was watching 6 year olds play Upward Basketball. The whistle could have been blown every 5 seconds(not exaggerating) for rule violations. When facing defense, kids would stop dribbling, then start again. (double dribble). Sometimes they would just say to themselves, "If I dribble, they will steal it so I am just going to pick up the ball and run with it." (travelling) When they passed the ball in, never was their foot behind the line. The best way to avoid getting the ball stolen - return to your side of the court because no pressing is allowed (Over and Back) And the best way to prevent a score was to grab a kid's arm so he couldn't shoot. (personal foul). If the ref called everything, the game would have been unwatchable. No points would have been scored, the kids would have felt like failures, no one would have had fun, and frankly no one would have signed up next year. However, the refs, by their kindness and mercy brought enjoyment. By calling the occasional flagrant abuse of the rules, the kids did learn that there is a right and wrong way to play and there was slight improvement by the end of the season. It will be amazing to see the improvement by next year, even without playing, just from the physical maturation of the kids.

               Jesus tells a parable in Matthew 18 about a king who forgives his satrap an insurmountable debt he owed rather than sending him to debtors prison. Like the verse in Romans or the refs in Upward, you would hope that the kindness of the king would lead to a change in the Satrap. Unfortunately, the forgiven one goes to one of his subordinates who owes him money and beats him and sends him to prison when he can't pay. When word of this reaches the king, he is irate and sends his satrap to debtors prison because I think the king felt used. I have a grandchild who uses fake crying to get whatever (s)he wants. It drives me CRAZY! This is how the king must have felt. "There's no real sorrow here!" "I've been duped. I've been used!" As the point of the parable goes, imagine people trying to use God. Not so hard to imagine - we do it every day. The king (God) would say, "If you were truly thankful (Rom.1:21) for the debt (sin) I absorbed myself (the cross), your actions would have demonstrated it. Since your actions (works) didn't prove it, I will call in the debt you owe. (judgement). This is what we read in the following verses of Romans 2;

 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.  There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile;  but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: Rom. 2:6,8-10

                Has God's kindness to you led you to a changed life? Are you giving people grace? You know, there were some fans in the stands yelling, "That's travelling. Come on ref get in the game!!" Is that you in life? Do you realize that you too were a fellow "traveler" who has been shown kindness and forgiveness? Let your good deeds prove that you have been changed.

More Thoughts on Romans - Day 4

 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 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.

21 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.

24 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.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.  Romans 1:18-32

             Verse 18 talks about Godlessness and Wickedness which seems to be two sides of the depravity coin. As you flip it and it comes up Godlessness, that points to the vertical relationship of mankind. Mankind deep down knows there is a God who created this vast ordered world which couldn't have possibly gotten here by chance, but if we acknowledge that fact we know we are under the authority of that God - He is greater than me - I am in debt to Him - and we don't want that. Therefore we suppress that fact and live like we are God and live without a God or in other words "Godless". I guess you could flip the word and say we serve a "lesser God" - ourselves. As worshipping creatures, Paul says that just because you aren't worshipping God, you are still worshipping something and that something is a lesser god and totally incapable of running your life. No wonder there is so much anxiety and fear of the future. God has let people be their own Gods. If He didn't want people to have free will to choose Him He wouldn't have put the tree in the garden. He is in effect saying, "You be your own God. See how that works for you. Hopefully it won't be too late for you to see that you can't do it and you will worship me the only One worthy of worship when you reap the consequences of self worship." It reminds me of that passage in 1Corinthians 5 where the adulterer is excommunicated (turned over to Satan) in hopes that once they have experienced the full destruction of sin, like the prodigal son, they will come back broken and be restored. That's what the passage means by God has" turned them over."

                If you flip the depravity coin again, this time it lands on "wickedness". If you pretend like there is no God and live like you are God, it will effect your horizontal relationships. Like two cars playing "chicken", when two "gods" are on a collision path, which one is going to defer? Neither. That's why there is so much hate, fighting, division, racism, back stabbing, gossipping, greed, poverty, etc., it is because we want what is best for ourselves. Even things like sex are affected by being our own God. Sex is treated casually to meet our biological needs not as it was meant as a total vulnerability and oneness with another person in love. If love is considering others as more important than ourselves, in a world where I am my own God, how can there even be such a thing as love? Could homosexuality even be a manifestation of this that we are so in love with ourselves that we want to have sex with our mirror image? If there is no God and evolution is true, it is survival of the fittest, yet humanity argues for sacrifice, helping the oppressed, etc. but if there is no God that doesn't make sense. It's like the scientist arguing at a debate that there is no such thing as Oxygen while using Oxygen as he breathes and talks to argue that it doesn't exist. 

     Paul in Romans has discussed the gospel or the good news and unfortunately the good news can't be appreciated without the bad news and Romans 1B is the bad news. The good news is that as God, like the prodigal's Father, lets his child run off into the two sided coin of depravity, He is longing for mankind to come to their senses and in humility come to the Father who is waiting with open arms to receive them back after they have realized that worshipping anything other than the true God doesn't work.

More Thoughts From Romans - Day 3

  For in the gospel the righteousness of and from God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith. Rom. 1:17

I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness Isa.61:10

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying:  “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.  He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” Matt.22:1,12-14

            In the realm of classic Christmas movies, I would have to add The Santa Clause starring Tim Allen as Scott Calvin who startles Santa Claus into falling off his roof. His son declares, "You killed Santa Claus" as Santa disappears and his red "robe" is left behind. At Scott's son's urging, he puts on the robe to encourage the reindeer to get off his roof not knowing that by doing this he has accepted the Santa "clause" which in fine print says anyone who puts on this robe will become Santa. Scott, over the next year grows white hair and a beard, gains 100lbs, learns to distinguish naughty from nice, his heartbeat goes to the beat of Jingle Bells and everywhere he goes - kids start lining up to talk with him. His life completely changes because he put on the robe of Santa Claus!

           Obviously you can see where I am going with this. Isaiah says that we have received a robe of righteousness and Paul says that it is given to us from God and it is His righteousness. All we have to do is by faith put it on. At the age of 5, I did. Like the movie, did I know what I was doing? No. I just did it for a purpose and it wasn't to get reindeer off my roof but it was to go to Heaven and not go to the place where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. Little did I know that by putting on that robe, which by the way Someone had to die for me to obtain, my life would change. When the righteousness of God came upon me it transformed me from the inside out through the Holy Spirit living in me. Unlike the movie though, it continues on for the last 61 years - it didn't happen in one calendar year. Hopefully I am looking more like Christ year by year who wasn't obese, jolly with white hair and a beard but was loving, joyful, had peace, was longsuffering, gentle, good, kind faithful, meek, and temperate. (Gal.5:22,23)

         It's interesting that becoming Santa wasn't work for Scott. He just had to just let it happen and quit trying to diet, dye it, and shave it. The same is true for us. All we have to do is daily surrender to the Holy Spirit's work inside of us and stop resisting it by trying to grasp on to the old us. When you look through the New Testament, never are we commanded to work "for" Christ, we are always commanded to work "in" and "through" Christ. That just means let Him do His thing with you as the willing body.

        So why include the red letter parable of Christ? This represents the person that shows up at the gates of Heaven expecting to get in but has never surrendered to Christ by receiving and putting on the robe of righteousness. They are just trying to get into Heaven with their own merits. That does not get you in because our good deeds are compared to wearing filthy rags. Have you exchanged your filthy garments for a robe of righteousness? Yes you will cease to exist as the person you were but who you will become will surpass anything you could ever have imagined.

More Thoughts From Romans - Day 2

 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.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Romans 1:21-23

     So could this really be the problem of all mankind - a simple problem of bad manners - not giving thanks to God? We are taught since kids, and we are teaching our Grandchildren, "What do you say??? " "Thank you." Did God really create the universe and put mankind in it and on the 6th day say to Adam and Eve, "Now what do you say...? Was the first sin not saying thank you? And then what kind of God punishes the verbally ungrateful one with the punishment spelled out in Genesis 3?

     I wrestle with the problem of thinking I deserve things. Don't you? Doesn't humanity? We think we deserve health care, a nice house, cars, pay raises, a long life, more channels and cheaper television, vacations at Disney, cell phone and internet service, education ... Lately I struggle with thinking that I deserve respect. After all I'm 66. Age in and of itself should demand respect, right? I'm an MD with 12 years of post high school training, that should have nurses and hospital personnel deferring to me - right? The other day, I told an LPN (the lowest status nurse) that I needed to do a circumcision on a baby and to get it ready. She proceeded to do that but then the Pediatrician came and she also got a phone call , she informed me that I could do the circumcision after the pediatrician saw the baby and after she returned her phone call. I had moved to the end of the line despite being on the medical staff 37 years, previous chief of staff, chief of OB and Pediatrics for 37 years, and having asked first! I deserved better and anger started welling up because I deserve better - right?

       The question is, What did Adam and Eve deserve, anything? Their very existence was due to God creating them. The paradise they lived in was waiting for them to arrive. Yet Satan convinced them they deserved to be like God and know good from evil like Him. They were ungrateful - unthankful - entitled. What does mankind deserve who though they knew God, decided to worship themselves instead? What do I deserve when my longevity, mind, family that could afford to send me to school, my very existence  is all a gift from Him?

        The answer to the question, "What do I deserve?" is blunt and painful and one 4 letter word - "Hell". That's all this traitorous, proud, self seeking, self worshipping entitled race deserves, an existence apart from God because we wouldn't give thanks, wouldn't honor the one to whom our very existence is do. So it's more than bad manners it's cosmic plagiarism.( I have to give credit to Tim Keller for that thought otherwise I'd be committing it.) It is taking someone else's work and taking credit for it. So because of that God lets us go and see where worshipping ourselves as God takes us - and it wasn't a pretty picture, it isn't a pretty picture, and it won't be a pretty picture.

         Repent - turn and thank God. Give Him the glory. Let Him be God. There is a second chance and it is the good news of Jesus!

       

More Thoughts From Romans - Day 1

   Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”    Romans 1:5,17

             

                   The difference between Christianity and every other religion in the world could be summed up in this - Christianity says you don't get to God by being good. As a doctor, I like to think of Christianity as the doctor with a bad diagnosis. Christianity is the doctor who comes in after a battery of tests and says, "there is nothing you can do to fix your disease; you need to surrender to the knife and let us cut it out or you will die." Every other religion/doctor tells you to exercise more, eat healthy, take vitamins, lose weight, quit smoking - you can fix yourself. Christianity says you are too messed up to fix yourself. I'm reminded of my bus boy job as a teenager working at the Ponderosa Steak House. I was a super hard worker bussing and cleaning tables and when the manager called me in to his office one night, I was sure it was to give me praise! Instead he told me that a customer had complained because I was cleaning tables with a dirty rag. I guess all the steak grease had accumulated on my rag that I was failing to change out enough, and all my scrubbing of tables was only making them greasier! Christianity says that we are dirty rags and all our efforts , no matter how hard we try, are not making us clean before God.

                 So then, where do good deeds fit in to Christianity? Paul says in Romans that we are declared righteous - in right standing with God, rightly related to God - through faith. It is through believing and basing your life on the fact (surrendering to the Doctor's knife) that you can't be good enough to get to God but God sent His Son, Jesus, to be good and sinless in your place and accepting His righteousness on your behalf. He died and through His blood washed away my sins and buried them in the ground and came alive to give me a new clean forgiven life with a robe of righteousness on where I can stand before God, clean. No more dirty rags!

               So then, where do good deeds fit in to Christianity? Paul says in verse 5 that he is calling people to obedience or good deeds. I see it like this; if you truly have by faith been forgiven, cleansed, declared righteous, "born again", "saved" ... your life will change. You will start acting like Christ because He has put His Holy Spirit inside of you. Paul didn't come to form a forest full of trees in Rome but an orchard producing fruit in Rome. A changed life of good obedient deeds is the evidence that true conversion has taken place.

               Imagine a couple getting married but after the ceremony nothing changes. They retain their same names, don't move in together, don't wear rings, continue to date other people, spend all their time vacationing and hanging out with their friends ... you would question their marriage! If you would ask them, they would name the time and place they got married and might even tear up at the sentimentality of that special day and even produce their marriage certificate, but unless their lives changed after that day, you would have to question the validity of that marriage.

                 So that's where good deeds come in. God has given us His word to declare to us, among many other things, a "right" way of living. If our lives are not following that pattern of behavior then we have to ask ourself have we really by faith recieved the righteousness of God? If we are Christians our deeds need to show it!

I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.  Isa. 61:10,11

Making "Your" Faith Your Own

 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”...

 you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[f] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.  Matthew 16

                  Growing up in a Christian home or for that matter in a church environment where you are raised going to Sunday School and eventually Youth Groups throughout your formative years, at some point in your life you are going to need to answer the question Jesus asked - "But who do YOU say that I am?" Like the demoniac said to the sons of Sceva, (paraphrased) "I know who your parents are, I know your Youth Group leader, but who are YOU?" Or like the 5 bridesmaids who weren't let into the wedding feast because they were trying to enter in on someone else's oil, the man at the gate said, "Where is YOUR oil?"

               I grew up in a Godly home and asked Jesus into my heart at the age of 5 mainly because I didn't want to go to hell someday or at that age what really scared me was to be left alone when my family raptured. (Home Alone had not yet been released) As I grew into the later high school years and college years where so many kids fall away, Jesus was asking me the question, "Who do YOU say that I am? There are 2 ways out there - the things of God and the things of man. Are you willing to deny self and follow Me or live for self and follow the things of man?" This is what He was asking the disciples, specifically Peter, and this is what He was asking me and this is what He asks everyone who has been immersed in Christianity - is this Your faith or is it someone elses? It's time to decide.

                For me, going to a "Christian" college, it first manifested itself on a Sunday morning. Do I sleep in (go to the church of Reverend Sheets), or get up and go to church? No one would know, others are sleeping in, where should I go, how do I get there...? I know that sounds like a religious activity and no big internal change, but it represented the question, "Who do YOU say that I am?" I needed to decide is this my faith or my parents? For others it might be do I go to that party and drink alcohol or do I date non-christians? There comes a time when we all have to answer that question, "Who do YOU say that I am?", and the answer to that will determine our eternal destiny.

          

Diagnostic Questions

 

    In medicine we are taught diagnostic questions. They are questions we ask patients that lead us to the right diagnosis of their illness. Sometimes you will hear patients complain, "He didn't even examine me; he just wrote me a prescription!" Not that I condone that but in the age of Covid 19 where doctors stand outside the door and talk to you, I can see it happening increasingly. The fact is, at least 90% of the time we know what the problem is just from these diagnostic questions before examining, taking x-rays or drawing blood.

     Some examples are if someone complains of right lower quadrant pain, you could ask, "If I brought you a cheeseburger right now could you eat it?", and they answered "yes", they don't have appendicitis. If it is a woman with an early pregnancy who is bleeding and hurting in one side and you ask, "Does it feel like if you had a bowel movement the pain would go away?", and they answer, "Yes but I tried and it doesn't.", they have a tubal pregnancy. If someone has right upper quadrant pain and you ask, "Does it hurt worse when you eat fried food"?, and they answer "yes", they probably have gall stones. If someone comes in with more than 3 complaints and you ask, "Does your hair hurt?", and they answer "Yes", they have nothing physically wrong with them.

      In an age of spiritual deception, especially in the non-persecuted church, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell true believers from non-believers. Jesus warned us that would be the case 2000 years ago when He talked about wheat and tares in the church and you could make an argument that it isn't up to us to be the "spiritual Gestapo" looking for infiltrators in our midst; that is God's job who knows the heart - just make sure of our own heart. That is probably closer to the truth than what I am going to propose but there are occasions when we are speaking to people on a one on one basis or preaching to a group where I feel it is important for people to examine themselves and see if they are truly believers and this is where spiritual diagnostic questions come in handy.

     One such question is given to us by Evangelism Explosion and it is, "When you stand before the Lord someday and He says, 'Why should I let you enter into my kingdom?', what would your answer be?" If the answer is anything along the lines of, "I'm a good person" or works oriented, then they probably aren't a true believer because the first step to entering the Kingdom of God is to admit you aren't good enough.

    I've been pondering a second question lately and that question is, "What is your goal in life?" According to the Holy Spirit inspired words of Paul in Gal.2:20 and Col. 3:1-3, a believer no longer lives for him(her)self but their life is over and they live in and for Christ. In 2Cor. 5:9 Paul says his goal is to please Christ. Jesus says in John 15:16 that we are to "bear fruit" which is the manifestation of Christ in us. Therefore if one's goal in life has nothing to do with pleasing Christ, in some way, the diagnostic question would reveal that they are spiritually lost. 

     Maybe they just didn't have time to ponder the answers and if you questioned them they would say, "Yes, that's what i meant, I know that." Then why didn't they say that? Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Like I said, it isn't mine to judge, God knows the heart. If you, however, have asked yourself these questions and answered wrongly - reassess whose you are.