God went into the Father Business?

Paul tenaciously collects threads in scripture to weave an astonishing message: true all along.  These Romans verses picture God’s promise and great love for us as Father. 

Inspect a $20 bill.  See its red and blue flecks?  Those scattered threads make no pattern, but they mean everything to the Treasury’s electromagnetic detectors.  So, scattered verses in Romans weave God’s powerful truth.  He is Father to us.  Let’s gather those threads.

This calls to failed fathers, like me.  We fail as fathers in myriads of ways: a child doesn’t achieve well.  Dad on TV do it all better, and a relationship goes south.  If you are a dad and have failed pointedly so everyone knows, welcome.  If your dad might use this, then you can send it.

Once upon a time there was a communion called God.  He still is three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit is important, but not a central character now.  Now, we sing the Father and His Only Begotten Son.

Paul sings in Romans 1:7: “To all [ya’ll] (he was really from Texas) who are beloved of God, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!”  This Jewish Ph.D. in theology sings, “We wouldn’t have known!  We had no idea!  We thought God was about being good and law-abiding.  If it hadn’t been for Jesus we would have never gotten God as Father!”

God talks to us in Jesus.  The single new thing He says in Jesus is that He, God, is Father. 

We rightly trumpet dead-beat dads and abusive fathers who injure kids and wives, but we do what Blaise Paschall warns against: “God created us in His image, and we return the favor.”  He warned against projecting on to God our failings.  Let’s not. 

Remember what were the first things you knew of God?

In a new love with Jesus did you love life?  Did you love release from dreaded terrors?  How wonderful to bring your failures, your naked self to God?  Do you remember “the Clean”?  Can you recall deep joy in being loved, even though He deeply knew you?  Recall an incredible lightness in first loving God as Jesus’ Dad?  That’s the point of Jesus.  He helped me fall in love with Papa, knowing nothing could nix my clean, or being His child.

Did time steal the first blush, your first pang of love?  God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  He is still the One I first loved.  If one of us changed, it wasn’t Him.  Did you try everything Paul tried in religion and mistake those for growth?  God in Heaven shows us the most important thing in His Son.  The Proud Father dispatched angels to tell us it was His Boy down in that manger!

A soccer dad watching his girl get massacred as goalie did a “dad thing”.  He left the stands, walked around, hugged his girl, and stood behind her the rest of the game. 

In Romans we see God work in history.  Having made a garden of Eden He tried to be Father to Adam and Eve.  Perfect God.  Perfect Garden.  The kids not close to perfect. 

Again, God is perfect, but fathers can see God knows our stories.  God gave it His best shot, and still things unraveled.  My failures to my sons are clear.  God differs from me: He’s perfect.  God even knows I gave it my far-from-perfect best shot.  God gave Adam His absolutely-perfect-best shot, and we both as fathers, have watched our failures flounder. 

As reverently as I can, please hear that God knows things go wrong.  God knows fathers can start with powerful possibilities and end with messes.  God knew Adam’s epic fail would take the life of God’s perfect Son?  Think on this sort of love.  God knew.  He still let Adam and Eve have kids that led to us and our loving God through His First Son and still fail!  What love is this?  It is a love entered into only by faith. 

In Romans 4:11-12. Paul mentions another father: Abraham.  What did Abe do to “be the father of all who believe . . . that righteousness might be reckoned to them?”  Paul separates out what Abraham did in faith [circumcision, Promised Land.]  God gives no fatherhood formula.  A father can only act in faith to a life he prays is best for his children.  Abraham acted in faith for us “who follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham.”  As fathers we faith for our kids. 

Verse 16 concludes, “For this reason it is by faith” we love God.  Paul touches Abraham and Sarah’s faith to become parents, “In hope against hope [Abe] believed, in order that he might become a father of many nations.”  Paul as a Jew claims Abraham as their father in bloodlines.  Good.  God smiles on us differently says Paul.  We are Abraham’s kids as we follow Christ in Faith.  As Abe followed in faith, so must we.  So we are God’s kids and Abe’s kids.

Hear it again.  I am Abe’s descendant, so God’s covenant with Abe is mine as I was adopted into the family.  I’m in God’s family not by blood, but by faith.  I’m in Abe’s covenant, not by lineage, but by adoption.  That is how God’s fatherhood comes “to” me. 

How does it go out from me?  God seeks to take more Christian fathers, and build what you have in Christ into children not born into Christian families.  If we are to change the world, more fathers must adopt more spiritual children.

Maybe you have children who love the Lord.  That is great! May God reward you for being such a father.  Amen.  But to grow in Christ, you must become as Abraham was.  To be like Abe you must multiply your number of children-by-faith. 

I see dads adopt youth.  Many do it informally.  Some as teachers adopt students.  Many give their lives to adopt kids in scouting.  Some become spiritual father to young husbands and fathers.  God needs more.

In Abraham’s day the family was topsy-turvy like today.  God sends single moms and dads to His church to find spiritual parents.  God sends youth who need Jesus, and are recovering from divorces, abuse, and absent fathers.  God calls you, dad. 

You, failing fathers, and you, fathers blessed by your kids, may I ask you something?  Do you yearn to invest some of your of your counsel and love into God’s next generation?  Abraham has more spiritual children than blood kin.  Do you see God’s multiplication?  Paul only had spiritual kids: Tim and Titus.  Who do you think put that desire in your heart, dad?

Rand flew to New York to be in Jeff Paoletti’s wedding.  The Wergins adopted Kirsten and Jeff.  Jim and Cheryl Wilkinson were in Tulsa to see Marci light candles at Ann Munn’s wedding.  Why?  Three years ago, Adopt-A-Student finished.  A week later the Wilkinsons came here.  A week after that Jim asked Ann if she had been adopted.  She said, “No.” The Wilkinsons adopted her.  How big is that to Ann?  In a room with 64 invited guests for her wedding and sit-down dinner, four were Ann’s adopted family: the Wilkinsons.  Ann was no disaster.  She came as DIL (Daughter-In-Law) material!  Fathers, Jim and Rand are blessed to be used by God in the lives of Jeff, Kirsten, and Ann.  God put that hunger in your heart, father.  But what if you’re not worthy?  

Look in Romans 6:4 for a Father snapshot: “We were buried with [Christ] through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the Father’s glory, so we too might walk in newness of life.”  God takes us as children after we die.  All of us dies.  God sees in us His completely new children.  All the rest dies in baptism.  My mistakes keep dying, and I keep on being born anew.  He continually bury parts of me as dad, and God makes failed parts new. 

I’m transformed.  I’m new.  Any baggage with me, I had to bring it, I foolishly chased and claimed in baggage claim.  God as Father starts me over.  My Heavenly Father knew every father must start over, and over, and over.  He also knew starting over is hard!  So God said:  “You have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you received a spirit of adoption as sons (and daughters) by which we cry out, “Papa! Father!” Romans 8:15.  Now the Holy Spirit!  He empowers us to call God, “Papa.”  “Go ahead, call Him ‘Papa’.  Start over.  May your kids see you start over, Dad.”  Now for sons and daughters of failed fathers.  God stands with you as the Father you wished you could have had while getting massacred all alone as goalie in front of everyone.  God is with you to assuage horrors and give you the ability to be the father or mother you think is impossible. 

Maybe you think the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father is not strong in you.  So Paul gives one last “father” blessing.  Romans 15:5-7.  This is how God is Father.  This is how we encourage all dads, especially failing ones.  “Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus; that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  So, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to God’s glory.” 

I began by saying the Holy Spirit was not in central casting until later.  Later is now.  The Holy Spirit whispers this love song, “Father God is everything the others were not.  His Son told the Truth about the Father.  They tell the Truth about you.”

We take up the song not if we accept each other like tolerance roars, but as God preaches acceptance.  An old prophet entered Jesse’s house saying, “I’ve come king hunting.”  God dared father and prophet to see what God saw.  The old prophet, himself a failed father, and the father of the boys, looked at all Jesse’s boys.  God said no to all, almost.  The littlest was out tending sheep.  And God chortled from heaven, you didn’t see it, did you?  You missed him because you missed David’s heart!  Davey has a king’s heart!  Father God saw it in Solomon.  He saw it in Deborah, Esther, and Ruth.  God as Father is “first believer” in a boy or a girl and then shows His assessment right to everyone.  God calls and believes first and proves it to the rest of us!

We see this picture’s tail end easily.  At every prison deathwatch, we see a mom who is the last to believe in her baby boy or girl strapped to a gurney, awaiting a lethal injection.  Give us first believers as fathers.  More men must step up and invest in children who the Father of Lights brings when a biological father fails.

That is what communion is about.  The Father who believed in you first, who salvaged you with His perfect Son.  The Father who gave His successful Son for your failures invites you to communion: a family meal!  Amen.  Profess Jesus as brother, and get God as Father.  Adopted.

If you hunt them, these verses were in the Bible all along, like scattered threads. 

Psalm 68:5. A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows, is God….

Psalm 103:13 as a dad has compassion on his kids, so God has compassion on us who fear Him. 

Proverbs 3:12 for whom the Lord loves He reproves, like a dad a son in whom he delights.

Isaiah 9:6 a child will be born to us, a son given to us.  And His name will be called … Eternal Father. 

Isaiah 64:8 O Lord, Thou art our Father.  We are clay, and Thou our Potter.

Paul says, like scattered threads, God knew we could not put the threads into a pattern, so He sent His Son in flesh, pulling together all the threads and pointing to the Father.  So, He sends us men to show us how to spend ourselves as spiritual fathers and mothers.  What say you?

Prayer beyond knowing, beyond passion, beyond anything.

The Heart of the Message:

Part One “And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness”
Part Two “for we do not know how to pray as we should”
Part Three “but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; Romans 8:26

Greek Words in part Three
stenagmos; a groaning.  This is the only time this word refers to God.  It’s the only time it appears in this form.
huperentugchano; from huper (super abounding) and entugchano (to intercede) ¾to make petition for.  This is the only time this word appears in this intensive form.
Alaletos — inexpressible, too deep for words.  This is the only time we see this word in Scripture

We have in us places deeper than we know.  God talks with us there, sketching in our lives, our futures, and the deep truths.

We see God’s heart here.  He yearns with great ardor for us to know Him intimately. 

Many good things flood to us in God’s grace.  Rather than condemn us, He condemns sin in us to kill it, to remove it.  God fashions our escape from the law of sin and death.  He casts off our slavery.  He indwells us, adopts us, and allows us to call Him Papa as joint heirs with Jesus.  God empowers our life, in peace and resurrected power.  He lets us suffer and be glorified in Him, to reap the Holy Spirit’s first-fruits in us. 

This next truth stands alone in scripture.  If “all of creation groaning for the revealing of God’s sons and daughters” is Mount Everest.  This is K2.  No verse in God’s word promises more!  Many climb Everest every year.  Steel ladders help up the west wall.  A Sherpa broke the record of 18 hours for climbing to the top from Base by 6 hours!  Few climb K2.  Few dare its daunting heights.  Few climb verse 26’s dizzying heights.  Paul reveals three pieces we must know to climb these dizzying heights.

Piece # One:  And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness (NAS) or in the NIV helps us in our weakness.  …the Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness (Living).

The Christian message thunders our strength in Christ, while we hold to our weak parts.  We live in Christ, yet still cherish dead things in us.  We grow in Christ, while still stunted.  Do not trust her who whispers all about you is marred.  Dump his podcasts that, on the other hand say we are nothing but potential (to him you’re a potential consumer).  We are both strong and weak; alive and dead; growing and stubby.  We are the only beings in God’s image who must die.  We’re the only animals to be redeemed.  Weakness comes to us.  Weakness need not hunt us to find us, so God’s spirit helps in our weakness.  To soar prayer’s dizzying heights, grasp NOT your strength, but your weakness!  Seize it to scale prayer’s depths.  My friend was so sick with cancer she could no longer pray, but someone left her a mystical, magical bear she could press… it sang her favorite prayer for her. 

Piece # Two:  “For we do not know how to pray as we should (NAS), we cannot see the future.  We do not know what we ought to pray for (NIV), we cannot predict all consequences of one act.  God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along.  If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter (Message).

You may be eloquent or poetic and still not know how to pray as you ought.  The disciples followed Jesus for years before realizing they did not know how to pray.  Paul wrote this after spending three years in a desert practicing his prayers!  Paul knew he did not know how to pray.  Do you know as much as he did?  Do you pray and then humbly ask God to shed light on how to move in spite of your blind prayers?  We don’t know how to pray.  Like climbing K2 for the first time, and trying alternate routes!  Moreover, we can’t guess if our prayer has cut deeply enough! 

Do you sense how deeply your last prayer cuts into all you love?  Hannah prayed wordlessly before Eli, moaning back and forth, appearing drunk, to ask God for a child.  Did Moses say, “I’ll return to this mountain with your folks?”  Did Isaiah know that saying, “I’m here!  Send me!” would cut deeply into his life and times?  Some prayers are too much to grasp, even if you say the words.  Some prayers are too deep to plumb.  So I don’t know how to pray, what can I do?  1) I pray what I know.  God makes up the difference.  2) I pray to know God’s corrections as He makes them.  3) I pray for Holy Spirit, and courage, insight, and humility to act on all He shows me.  Two things:  I know I’m weak.  I know I don’t know how to pray through this. 

Piece # Three has three “onlys” (groanings, superintercedes, too deep for words):  The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (NAS), or with groans words cannot express (NIV).  He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans (Message) The Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words (Living).

The English word intercedes is tepid.  Paul says He super-intercedes.  He aboundingly, with no limits intercedes!  Intercede here is supercharged compared to verses 27 and 34.  You need no saint to intercede for you.  You have God’s Spirit!  Dispense with angels or “spiritual guides”.  Tap the angels’ Boss!  God’s very Spirit super-intercedes for you! 

This is the only place we see another word here for God.  God’s Spirit groans!?  My own depths I do not know, God prays in those!  How?  Fears I’ve not overcome, God prays in them.  How?  Hopes I haven’t courage to hope out loud, the Spirit intercedes in those, but how? 

The Bible speaks of groans throughout, but they’re our groans save here in Romans! 

The Hebrews groaned under slavery in Egypt. Exodus 2:24, 6:5. 

The Hebrews groaned when beaten in the Promised Land, Judges 2:18

Job groaned under God’s heavy hand. Job 23:2

David groaned to make God hear. Psalm 5:1

David groaned at the devastation of the afflicted, and the needy’s groaning. Psalm 12:5

David groaned when he felt forsaken by God. Psalm 22:1

David’s groans pierced his silence about his sin with Bathsheba. Psalm 32:3

Prisoners and the dying groan. Psalm 102:20

We will groan at our latter end. Proverbs 5:11

Wicked rulers make us groan. Proverbs 29:2

A harsh reality made Isaiah groan. Isaiah 21:2

Silence from too much pain makes us groan, gasp, and pant. Isaiah 42:14

Jeremiah was weary with groaning. Jeremiah 45:3

Jerusalem groaned when naked and broken. Lament. 1:8

Ezekiel asked himself, “Why do I groan?” ¾ often. Ezekiel 21:6-7, 24:17, 23; 26:15; 30:24

The prophets groaned deeply.  Joel 1:18; Malachi 2:13.

Today in this verse we see, we hear the only time God groans with us.  His groans are indescribable, too deep for words.  Then scripture says something totally different about our groaning after this. 

We groan to leave this flesh, to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. 2 Corinthians 5:2 &4

God groans with us!  He groans in a depth words can’t touch.  If Christ is your Lord.  If you professed Jesus as Lord, baptized in His Name, then this groaning, this intercession happens for you, know the Holy Spirit super-intercedes for you. 

1)  Can I train to hear God in my weakness, to find Him when I know I don’t know how to pray, to hear His groaning for me?  Moses taught Israel, Be silent, and listen! You have now become God’s people!  Deuteronomy 27:9.  David: When you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent, Psalm 4:4.  Solomon says there is a time to be silent, Ecc. 3:7. The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him Habakkuk 2:20.  Be silent before the Sovereign Lord Zephaniah 1:7.  Have trouble with silence?  Try blowing bubbles.  Absorb a sunset.  Walk quietly. Watch the night sky to practice awe and silence. 

2) I won’t get all of it.  I must obey with what I hear.

3)  Each test of my faltering faith brings me to a place of weakness, not knowing how to proceed… here He intercedes beyond what I can know.

4)  Pray knowing God never compares eloquence(s).  He plumbs your depths you may not know.  Catholics light candles to let God remember the prayer when they’re too tired.

Practice listening in obedience.  Heard a groan too deep for words?  Groaned for heaven yet?

The best I can give you for cleaning out your ears to hear silence better is clear confession.  Make clear, honest confession to God.

He Who has it all, has Me.

He Who has it ALL has Me. 

26 …The Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Knows all that the mind:  oida; to have seen or perceived, appreciate, understand.

28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Causes…to work together: sunergeo; helps in the work, works with.

All things: pas; every, all respects or things, constantly, continually, every, everything, forever.

For good: agathos; good, generous.

Purpose: prothesis; specifically the showbread in the temple.

[See three levels of “the good”]

                                                               

God’s Glory

Me

Things and Circumstances

Physicists religiously hunt a theory to explain everything, to explain all.  God already has. 

In the Bible’ most misquoted verse, see some mistranslations in case one is yours.  “Well, everything happens for the good.”  “Every cloud has a silver lining.”  “Everything always works out for the best.”  Those are impotent Band-Aids … for a heart attack. 

Again: start with verse 26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because He intercedes for the saints according to God’s will.  God searches my heart by means of His Spirit.  Again the Spirit intercedes for us.  God understands. He absorbs all the Spirit brings Him; concerning you.  Why?  God as His Holy Spirit ferrets out what is most true about you… we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.

We know God sunergeo; causes things to work together.  Calvinists, say God helps nothing.  He’s in charge.  He ordains.  He predestines.  God dictates. all else follows.  Paul visits predestination later, but hear this verb — sunergeo.  God works together with.  He responds.  He orchestrates the pieces. 

See three possibilities.  (Godet, 1870) All things work in concert together: like ecology.  Everything is in ML King’s “inescapable web of mutuality”.  Another possibility: all things work in common with God, under His direction: cue the universe’s Conductor.  A last possibility is where we take a turn.  All things work in common with a believer, aspiring for His good. 

God causes and we work with Him aspiring for “the good”.  This is Joseph’s word to his brothers.  They sold him into slavery.  Bloodied his coat.  Lied to his parents that Joseph died.  His brothers now stand before him in Egypt, him who they worse-than-killed and Joseph says, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.[1]  How hard is this to trust?

God made his brothers hate Joseph and barely back off from killing him?  OR God used the brothers’ hatred of Joseph?  God used their animosity?  God let his brothers “send” Joseph ahead to Egypt?  Which?  Ask this, “Which is more amazing — a puppet-master God, Who makes brothers hate and almost kill Joseph, or the One who works with the brothers’ actions?

All things is pas.  Paul says God works together with — all, all respects, all things, constantly, everything.  This God numbers hairs on heads.  For me that’s increasingly easier.  This God lets no sparrow fall to ground but that He knows.  He causes all things.

May I suggest practicing using this bit word, all in your life in Christ?  Some people deride baby Christians, who pray for everything, like parking places. 

What if we place more of our lives for review by God?  We might ask Him about little things like what we eat, smoke, and drink.  We can pass our entertainment to God’s all things column.  Many small things make up “my all”.  Nissan taught me this. 

I called Nissan to replace an AC condenser covered in my extended warranty.  A pleasant lady told me Nissan would not pay for the condenser because, I love this, I could buy a condenser in smaller parts.  If it were a clutch, or a bit or small part, they would cover it, but since I needed the whole enchilada… an entire condenser… she could not pay.  She hung up.  I needed a day.  It cost two more calls and I got heated, but Nissan paid for one, entire condenser.  The point is this: You can’t say you want God to make ALL work to the good and then exclude component parts.

Small bits of my life make my ALL.  Each second with my wife makes the ALL of our life.  Each business decision makes the ALL of my business.  Back to parking places from God.  If I never bother with millions of small bits, then I exempt most of my life from the ALL I hope He uses for good in my life.  Don’t hang the heavens on parking, but examine small life bits in Him. 

Good: agathos.  Good: do you trust it?  We define good in a zillion ways.  Some of our ways are lies.  We’ll bypass the trap of what is good, and look at a wiser version.  Whose good?

For whom may things work out for the good?  See three circles.  In the outer circle, we have the good of my things or circumstances.  Things work out for my dog, my car and house. 

What’s good for my things?  It is good if I’m happy or I get it.  I want a house.  Pray that I get a house.  I want “us” to happen, so pray for us and pray we’re happy. 

As goal-oriented people, we get caught in this.  How did I do on grades?  Did my job go well?  Have a nice trip, date, buying spree or negotiation?  Did “the thing” happen?  Are you “happy”?  Did you finish your race, or go to a doctor, and did those turn out well?

We busily hope church was good, club went well, and work went well.  The outer ring to analyze this verse is “did things and circumstances turn out how I thought good should be?  Did everything come out well, as good as I hoped?”  

This verse does not insure that.  Sorry.  I often think wrongly what would be “good”.  I twist ideas of good-for-me.  Joseph got sold for dead, and yes, it turned out wonderful, but it didn’t start that way.  Joseph took some nose dives, and people Jo helped forgot him for years. 

That’s why Paul says I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed to us” (verse 18).

Circumstances go awry.  We die in prisons so Paul says the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (verse 21). 

Saul hunted David.  Wars happen.  Deserts kill.  Kings tortured Isaiah and other prophets.   Jews died in Babylon, Germany, and Israel.  Esther’s predecessor was discarded like a used tire.  Other women in Boaz’ fields paid sexual favors to glean behind the men.  Tell the truth. 

In this outer circle, I learn to celebrate any kindness, any victory as God’s gift, not as what I earn or deserve.  A promise of all things in my favor is magic; not faith.  Satan dangles magic’s false promise to enslave people all day.  Be smarter than that. 

Pelagius: Whatever we do or suffer out of love for God grows into a reward for us.[2]  Theodoret of Cyr: This is not true of every one but only of believers.  Nor do things simply work together… they work together for good.  If you ask for something which will not contribute to your good, you will not get it, because it is not good for you to get it. [3]

In the outer circle of circumstances coaches pray for victory.  One country’s priests prepare men to fight with a mass, another’s chaplains hold a prayer meeting, who wins the battle?  All those things lie in the outer circle.  God does not bleed your school colors. 

Consider the second (middle) circle. Where is my hope if not in how circumstances pan out?  What is “good” in what I hope?  If my things do not all happily succeed, how does good work?  Perhaps it is IN us that things work out for the good. 

What lies in the second circle?  I do.  Do things work out for my good?  It depends on my criteria for good.  If good means I will always be healed, then no.  We wear out and surely die, unless Christ returns.  What did Paul write before sharing I can do all things in Christ? [4]  He wrote: I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  Circumstances rise and fall.  Who am I in the rising and falling?  Who am I becoming in all this?  What have I learned?

Paul gave us something else.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.[5]  Does this truth color your definition of “the good?”  Truth: going Home is better than staying.  Dying and being with Christ is better.  Slaves and soldiers hummed this.  Can I?  Passing from here to Heaven is better, it is gain, it is wonderful.  Does that define your good?  Going Home to Heaven is good. 

Truth: circumstances do not define good.  I was more alive in a hospital close to death than anywhere else.  Maybe you experienced a deeper joy in a funeral home than in worship.  Good lies not in externals, it is a choice I believe.  I hunt the good in hope in my character.

Who are you becoming as a soul, a person of character and honor?  The second circle is important.  Your character is a good.  Is it most important?  No.  With Christ as Lord, move to the most important circle.  Move to the inmost circle. 

“The good” is larger than me, my family, my church, and my country.  The good ultimately rests in God’s hands.  My grasp of the good must bring Him glory and honor.

Jesus struggled with this, Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’  No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.[6]  Jesus leads us into “the good’s” inner circle.  Jesus says “yes” to God.  He died for us to show us how to do good, be good, even in horrid circumstances.  Move to this good for God’s good, for His glory.

Jesus showed us this good.  People die in Christ’s name, as He died obeying the Father.  Are their deaths “good”?  Balthasar Hubmaier was tied to a stake and recanted.  He returned teaching a believer is baptized after knowingly professing Christ as Lord.  They tied him to a stake again.  This time he begged for a hot fire to finish well, to rub Sulphur in his beard.  People laughed, told him he was a fool, and asked if he wanted to recant again.  These people were the last thing in this world Balthasar saw!  Was his death for good?

Does your definition of “the good” pull you into the inner circle?  The inner circle brings God honor and glory.  Chrysostom said “even things that seem most painful: tribulation, poverty, imprisonment, famines, or deaths, God can change them into the opposite.  God can make painful things appear light to us, and turn them into helpful things.”[7]

God turns even opposition and disappointment into good. This happened in Paul.[8]

Step into the inner circle and face, “To be called according to God’s purpose is to be called according to “the will.”  But is this the will of Him Who calls or the will of us who are called?”[9]

How about it, His will, His good or yours?  Can you see why so many in the world consider us to be no threat?  You can live for God’s will over your own! 

In the inner circle we meet a strange word.  Prothesis; specifically showbread, was sacred, consecrated.  Priests displayed this “bread of face” by the curtain to the Holy of Holies.  When I fell in love with God, I knew to do the good He asked.  God makes us indistinguishable from Jesus.  When you touch that inner circle, you rest in God, you rest in His purpose for your life, and you live out of depths others want. 

Why use such old sources?  They wrestled as do we.  They knew long before us.  They lived and died well. 

Do you see how the Bible defines “love God?”  You are called according to His purpose.  You live as one who has seen His face. 

---

[1] Genesis 50:20

[2] Pelagius Commentary on Romans  AD 370

[3] Interpretation of the Letter to the Romans  AD 430

[4] Philip. 4:12

[5] Philip. 1:21

[6] John 12:27

[7] John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 15.3 390 AD

[8] John Chrysostom Homilies on Genesis 67.19  392 AD

[9] Cyril of Alexandria  Explanation of the Letter to the Romans  444 AD

Live in the Spirit: There is Always More

I will ask how you know you are in the Spirit later. 

On our delayed honeymoon, Jill and I enjoyed upstate New York, Niagara Falls, Canada and drove across Michigan.  Driving in Michigan’s heartland, we crossed an invisible line.  Having passed hundreds of farms, suddenly all of them displayed beautiful order.  Trees lined up in rows.  Hay from mown pastures filled perfect barns beside perfect houses.  We both said, “We crossed into another world!”  We were correct.  These farms were settled by German immigrants.  It could not have been clearer if they had put up signs, “German Chamber of Commerce welcomes you!  Deutchsland loves America!” 

In New York City, the signs are unmistakable: if unreadable.  The Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Lebanese, and Puerto Rican shops and languages scream: you’re on our turf! 

I don’t know about you, but, when I heard that the Holy Spirit is in us along with this lower nature, this sarx, this squishy area, I got confused.  I wondered, “When am I working in the Spirit, and when in the flesh?”  How do I recognize these lands?

Let’s (re)examine some verses. 

Step One: God invites me to move from condemnation to being “in Christ.”  In Romans 8:1, God delivers astonishing news, there is now no condemnation to those who are IN Christ Jesus. 

Step Two: I see two powers (laws) in me.  I can choose the power God put in me to live for Him.

     He is the Power of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (Verse 2).

     He is the Spirit (verse 5).

     The Spirit is life and peace (verse 6).

Step Three: In Texas they ask, “How ‘bout chew?” (How about you?)  Choose to live in the Spirit.  Either way, we ALL choose.  What we choose is the rest of our life.  You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, she does not belong to Christ Romans 8:9.

Why is this Spirit so important?  As a Baptist I did think much about Him.  Religion, denominations politicize truth, and are poorer for it.  Hear Paul.  If you are not IN the Spirit, or He is not IN you then:

Romans 8:9b He or she does not belong to Christ. (NIV)
He or she is none of his. (KJV)
He or she does not belong to Him. (NASB)
He or she is not His. (NKJV)
He or she does not belong to him. (NRSV)
If you don’t have the Spirit of Christ living in you, you are not a Christian at all. (The Message)
[Without Him you] won’t know what you’re talking about. (Living)

What word means all of these possibilities?  The word is eimi; I exist, I am.  It is translated: am (142 times), been (45), being (26), belong (12), come (8), exist (8), or mean (11).  If you do not have the Spirit, God’s third person on planet earth today in you, then you do not exist in God.  You have never been in Christ.  You don’t belong to the Father.  If you think Christianity is exclusive because of Christ; THIS is the exclusive clause!

Paul throws us a sideways question: Where you at?  To help answer it, let’s see some signs to better help us see where we live. 

The way I tend to answer this question is how I was instructed to answer in my Ph.D. orals.  “If anyone asks you a question you do not know, reflect on how good a question it is, and answer another question you do know.”  Do you also do that with “the Spirit” question? 

Someone asks, “Is the Holy Spirit living in you?”  If we have no answer, we answer another question.  “Yes, I ‘got saved’ as a child, and was baptized at such-and-such a church.”  

Consider another question, “Are you alive?”

Now get this answer: “Of course, I’m alive.  My birth certificate’s on file in Garfield County.  I was born at Bass Hospital there.”  The answer does not touch the question. 

Consider yet another question. 

“Did you and your spouse have a wonderful time last night on your date?”

And see this answer: “Of course, we’re married.  We got married in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church 20 years ago!  We keep a copy of the marriage certificate in our safe deposit box!” 

These questions explore the nature of our lives.  The sad answers are book-keeping answers: I am legal in my life and marriage.  I am religious.  Who cares?  Are you ALIVE? God Spirit?  Feel any Power?  How about some joy?

The questions ask after hope, joy, or power and wonder in our relationship.  Our answers are theological and pasty. 

The question is, are you controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit?[1]

Whether you are legally married does not answer how you treat each other or if you’re happy.  Whether you have a birth certificate does not answer if you were thrilled to be alive this week. 

Whether you are saved is an interesting question.  The more important question today is, if saved, do you have power to live for God?  Are you alive in what Christ calls you to do?

Let’s have a grammar lesson.  Am I “in” Christ, or is the Holy Spirit “in” me?  Hmm.  I get confused with the prepositions.  Let’s look at God’s Word.

Jesus lived, died and came alive again “in” the Spirit. 
Luke 4:14 “Jesus returned to Galilee
in the power of the Spirit.”
1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also died for sins once for all . . .
having been put to death in the flesh,
but made alive in the spirit.”

What about us?

Scripture talks about the Holy Spirit being IN us. 
1 Cor. 3:16 “You are a temple of God. 
The Spirit of God dwells in you!”
2 Tim. 1:14 “Guard the treasure which has been entrusted to you
through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us”
2 Cor. 1:22 “[God] also sealed us and
gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.”

But Scripture equally talks about us being IN the Holy Spirit. 

Ephes. 1:13 “[Having believed],
you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit — ”
Ephes. 2:22 “In whom you also are being built together
into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”
Ephes. 6:18 “With all prayer and petition
pray at all times in the Spirit — ”

Both are true at the same time! 
I’m IN the Holy Spirit and He is in me! 
1 John 3:24 “You who keep His commandments abide in Him,
and He in you.”

1 John 4:13 “By this we know that we abide in Him and
He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.”
Romans 8:9 “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,
if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.”

Paul, John, and Peter agree.  We are In the Spirit AND He is in us.”  God’s envoy, the Holy Spirit, invades us to seal us against all claims, and empower us to good works! 

Hear both parts.  When you ask God to save you in Jesus’ name, the Holy Spirit invades you, takes up residence, and never leaves.  He saves & keeps you.  Cool.  When you obey and accept God’s invitation, you step into God’s sphere, His world running on Holy Spirit laws.  Can the Spirit leave you?  No.  Can you act like stupidly rather than IN the Spirit?  Yes. 

I must do two things. 

One: I hope to make you uncomfortable at the idea of living in the flesh.  I do so because living in the flesh kills you in pieces.  Always has, always will. 

Two: I want you to try all God has for you.  Why?  He placed His Spirit IN you so you can live life in the Spirit.  Chapter 8 spells out “in the Spirit” Nothing can conquer you!  Nothing can separate you from God’s love in Christ!  Nothing can steal your status as His child! … So… “Stay in the Spirit!”

IN the Spirit or IN the flesh?  See more markers to tell whose “hood” you’re in.  John: Those who obey Christ’s commands live in Him, and He in them.  And this is how we know He lives in us: We know it by the Spirit He gave us.[2]  How do I know I’m in a real surgical unit?  People dress and act like doctors and nurses, yes.  More importantly they operate on patients, who get better when they stay until healed. 

IN the Spirit or IN the flesh?  See more markers to tell whose “hood” you’re in.  If anyone obeys God’s word, God’s love is truly made complete in him or her.  This is how we know we are in Christ.[3]  Notice two terms blurring together.  Is it that I am in the Spirit, or is He in me?  Which is it?  The answer is “yes.” 

Paul paints the neighborhoods.  It’s common sense, but read So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.[4]

(19) The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”  Paul warns, those who live like this will not inherit God’s kingdom.  Grace does not excuse these behaviors.  They lack love.  My horror if I see this garbage in you is if you feel comfortable with this because God’s Spirit hates it!

Can I tell if the Spirit is in me, and I am in Him?  The Spirit’s fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.[5]

James sketches in more of the landscape.  You can tell where you live by your mouth: The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.  Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  The tongue also is a fire.  It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of a life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.[6]  James, John and Paul say, “Saved people are not comfortable with horrors.” 

I ask others how they know they quit depending on God to operate in their flesh.  They share these things.  “I have fear and anxiety in the night.  I stagnate.  I know I’m living by my own efforts — alone — so I get tired, defeated, broken easily.  My anxieties swarm.  My powerlessness hits me.”

What about in the Spirit?  What are your answers?

Can a church be “in” the Spirit? After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly![7]  They spoke God’s Word boldly.  Wow.  Everyone. 

Jesus died and rose, and the twelve gathered the church to say, it will not be right for us to neglect the ministry of God’s word in order to wait on tables.[8]  They ordained seven deacons.  The deacons ministered, caring for those in Christ.  How well did they do?  So God’s word spread.  The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.[9]

Over and over you see a phrase in Acts.  “The Word of God continued to increase and spread! Those words whet a hunger in me!  Imagine: everywhere YOU go, the Word of God continues to spread! 

Are you in the Spirit, yet?  Is your small group in the Spirit yet?  This goes beyond a wonderful feeling.  We can know.  God meant for us to be able to tell if a place is filled with the Spirit: if we are. 

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[1] Romans 8:9

[2] 1 John 3:24

[3] 1 John 2:5.

[4] Galatians 5:16ff

[5] in Galatians 5:22f

[6] James 3:5-6

[7] Acts 4:31

[8] Acts 6:2

[9] Acts 6:7

In the Flesh. In the Spirit. Your choice.

                                                                In the Flesh or in the Spirit.  It’s up to you!

The Heart of the Message: God want to work powerfully, specifically in my weakest parts to transform me.  I can tell if He is Lord by how I let Him work here

Romans 8:1-8

In the SPIRIT, In Christ	In the FLESH, In Ourselves.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, î
	who do not walk according to the flesh,
but according to the Spirit.	ç
2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free î
	from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh,
God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, î	ç
	on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh
but according to the Spirit. î	ç
	5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh,
but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. î	ç
	6For to be carnally minded is death,
but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. î	ç
	7Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Start with the 8^th verse.  Verse 8 makes Paul’s point.  So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  Paul says our only response to God’s justification in Jesus—  Our only loving reaction to God’s great grace in Christ is that we would want to please God. 

If you don’t want to please God, you can’t follow a discussion about struggling with flesh, or the Spirit’s power.  Intelligent? Clever?  Great, but if you don’t hope to please God, thinking won’t help.  If you most want to please you, not God, you cannot untangle loving God from your twisted flesh’s thinking.  Loving God is good, but not enough.  You must want to please God. 

How about you?  Take a minute.  Is this your end?  Is this your hope?  I seek to please God today.  I must please God in my studies, at home, in my work, driving, and in loving my family.  Do you call yourself Christian (little Christ)?  Then your end is to please God, not you.  Christ pleased the Father.  Silly one, grow up out of yourself!  Jesus sought to please the Father, or there would be no cross, no resurrection, and we would be hopeless.  Do you seek to please God?  Pray to do so.  Put it right.  Tell Him you want to please Him, or please Him again for the first time in a long time.  Ask God to empower you to please Him. 

Read the passage from the table at the top.  Do you remember the last discussion on how God krinows things?  God’s krinow is His laser blasting cancerous parts of me.  God imposes His rule, His decision, His judgment of reality.  God judges sin in my most-rotten self.  He judges sin in all my lower appetites.  God’s judgment came after Jesus busted the curve.  God’s krinow says my most rotten parts can be whole — in Jesus.  He can purify my worst parts.  He banishes my sad lies, purifying what remains, because Jesus came to live in a fleshy collection of cells, just like mine, yet He did not sin. 

Hmmm.  The Greek calls your body by two different words.  The first, translated body is soma.  Soma is your body soaring in dance, carving, cement and bricks poetry, music: good things.  We see the second word, sarx, here.  Sarx has some kind uses for the body’s substance, but it most likely refers to our weaker nature, to the messy, sad seat of sin in us. 

Why bother with my sarx?  Isn’t it my higher thinking or my best desires that God wants to make better?  Why bother with my lower, nasty, gnarly self?  It is dying and rotting anyway!  Do you cherish a notion that God only wants your “higher self” to love Him?  Why work in your “low self” where you struggle!”  God’s Spirit plants a most astonishing of possibilities in your very selfishness — that you might please God. 

So let’s discuss the sarx, the lower self.  If I want to please God, then I fight in my toughest places.  Evelyn Christenson says it eloquently.  “Lord, send a revival — and let it start with ‘not the church, or those people over there, but’ me!”  “Wait a second,” yells my sarx.  “You don’t need a revival!  You aren’t not so needy!”  My sarx points to sexual sinners, druggies, bingers, or bigots.  My sarx lies using half-truths, “They are sinners!  They need God’s Spirit to be clean!)

That is the horror of sarx.  It lies to me to preserve itself.  You see, tons of us love coming to Jesus to proclaim, “Get rid of the sin in my life!”  Then He points out a sin.  “Oh, Jesus, that’s not so bad is it?  I mean, I’m mean, but it’s not as bad as their sins!  Let’s go straight to revival, and to power.  Let’s get beyond this personal holiness silliness!”

In Sarx is where I must get specific in my sins.  I didn’t have thoughts about all women, just that one.  I didn’t cheat in business everywhere, just here.  I didn’t lie to you about everything, just this.  In Sarx, I do specific sins, so sarx is also where God calls me to be specific.  “This sin against her is where you need healing.  This business must change to please Me.  This persisting lie is killing you.  Sarx is where I quit having thoughts about other women, and love only Jill.  Sarx is where I will cherish either Jill, or things that kill my love for her. 

In Who Moved My Cheese, Johnson, points to sins hiding in all our sarx.  He points up how we think the world owes us the best cheese.  He points to our liking to make ourselves at home, rather than travel light, as Jesus said.  He points to our tendency to park where we find anything wonderful, and ignore that our cheese is growing stale, moldy, and smaller if we stay here.  We lie to ourselves here, in our sarx.  We blind ourselves here, in our sarx. 

Do you tell God about what He owes you, rather than seek to please Him?  Are you coasting off of a past experience, or hunting new ways to please God?  To show Him you love HIM? 

We all agree!  We hate sin!  Amen!  “Dear God, purge sin from my friends, especially my friend _____!”  Paul scolds, “Your sin in your sarx is blocking My Spirit’s flow in you world.”  The battlefield has always been in my flesh, in my sarx.  The Bible’s Law Books confirm this. 

The Law of Moses brought sin to the forefront.  It asks God to condemn it in us.  Paul points out in verse 3 how Law is weak  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh.  We must give an account in the secret place we want to protect!  Consider: we want to work in Columbia to keep cocaine from our children.  We focus to indict the Calli and Medellin cartels.  We arrange a meeting.  The cartels pick a safe place in a lab, 80 feet underground. 

Remember, we must keep cocaine from children.  We meet in a cave excavated by the cartel, where cocaine is refined, and money counters are running at high speed to move cash to offshore accounts.  See the craziness?  We need much more than a meeting to clobber the problem!  We need a POWER to stop a cartel or our powerful cravings!

The Law fails.  It fails because it can only point out things to the cartel or to me.  It has no power.  Sarx is powerful.  Paul says that to counter it we need: 2 the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus [to] make me free from the law of sin and death.

We use the word “law” as a legal term.  So the Constitution is good law.  Texas’ 670 laws on barbed wire: not so great.  Paul’s “law” is more scientific.  His “law” is a power.  Consider the law of gravity.  Say I hear you have a law called gravity, and I respond to it as a legal injunction.  I just ignore gravity.  After all, I speed if I want.  I can embezzle.  I can dodge taxes and may get away with it!  SO, I must be able to break this Gravity Law, right?  If no one is looking, and I really want to, I should be able to break this Gravity Law and walk on air! Right?

No.  I go splat.  Why?  Gravity is more than a Law in books to point out infractions to me.  Gravity is a power.  It is a force.  Like life, gravity holds me here, and determines my speed in my walk, my car, and my bike as I peddle.  Paul whispers, “you need a power” in you to best Sin and Death.  You need a power to change your desire from pleasing you to pleasing God.  So God has provided the law (power!) of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus [to] free me from the law of sin and death.  Why?  This Spirits’ power (law) is greater than Sin and Death’s power, even on Sin and Death’s home turf — the fleshly, gnarly, sarx parts of me. 

Something had to give so, Someone did give.  See verse 3: What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.  Paul cracks me up some days.  Paul slips in the universe’s most amazing news: God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh!  Jesus, (very risky) immersed Himself in — sarx!

He did it!  Christmas, is real!  The Angels got it right.  God invaded sarx!  God invades my lower side.  God invades Satan’s home turf in me.  God invades my sarx using the exact same power that aided Jesus — The Holy Spirit!

Oh, I’m ahead of myself.  See this, God fights power with Power.  He does not fight power (sin and death) with shoulds or oughts.  God fights in Jesus to win Round One.  He then sends the exact same Jesus’ power into us (His Holy Spirit) to win Round Two.

I had to take God’s condemnation (krinow) seriously.  I am now not condemned!  (8:1)  Hurrah!  God has plenty of power to condemn sin in my recesses and move it out if I hate it as He does.  In confessing I agree with God.  The sin He points out (condemns) is killing me!  I have lied to myself about this for too long!  I confess this.  You condemn it, God.  Dear, Precious, Holy Spirit, please remove this specific sin, this terrible blot from my life!”

What is God’s power?  What has He done?  Let’s recap.  First, God sent His own Son in verse 3.  He held back nothing from us.  He gave of Himself. 

Second, God sent His Son, to be like sinful me.  Paul words it cautiously.  Jesus was fully like me.  He could have sinned, but in Holy Spirit power did not.  Women were attractive to Jesus.  Money was tantalizing.  Collecting stuff held a power.  Jesus did not look kinda human, but really had a halo.  He was as human as sarx makes me. 

Third, coming in the likeness of sinful me, made Him my sin offering.  For Moses, only a living thing paid for our death in sin.  Millions of lambs, bulls, and birds lost their lives in an ongoing, horrid image of what my sin costs.  Sin costs death.  Sin takes a life: something just as alive as me.  Jesus came to pay the sin bill.  He paid with His life just as every lamb before Him. 

Fourth, God condemns sin in sinful me.  More than point a finger to say, “Hey, you  go to hell for that!”  God points His laser, judges the action (not me!) and executes that action and its desire!  If I (confess) agree with God, He begins right then to kill a craving for nicotine.  He begins immediately to kill pornography’s urge in my sarx.  If I concur with His judgment (krinow), sin’s power is immediately weakened.  Its death begins then and there!  Hallelujah!

Fifth, God’s final reason to send His own Son was so the law’s righteous requirement might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit, (4).  What God’s Law requires, I can now live.  What is good in Law, I can now live in Holy Spirit Power!

NOW, if I agree with God, if I confess my sin specifics, God will change me!  How?  (5,6) those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.  How?  I set my mind on God’s good stuff, the things of the Spirit.  What happens when I set my mind on these?

Isaiah 26:3 Thou wilt keep in perfect peace, because he or she trusts in Thee!

How wonderful is this?  I invite Jesus to my home.  He comes.  I can leave Him at the front door. So people driving by see Him, they see my appearances.  I can run to front door and wave with Jesus as church friends drive by.  I tell my partying friends to come in through the garage. 

Jesus continually asks us to let Him come into our sarxy parts, our kitchen, into what we eat, into what we drink.  Jesus wants to specifically come into the TV room to ask “Does watching this please our Father?”  Jesus wants to explicitly review our finances, to ask if they please God, if our parties please God, if my reading pleases God, if our conversations and actions please God. 

Do you want to please God?  Say, “Yes!”  Then you can pass Paul’s acid test?  What do you think about most during a week?  Did you catch it?  (5) those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.  Remember? Those in the flesh cannot please God.

What did you think about most last week?  Tell me what you had power to do about what you thought.  That answers the, “Did you want to please God last week” question. 

IN this is life.  God sent His Son, to condemn death in my innermost parts, so I can live, not in general, but specifically with my wife, my boss, children, my thoughts and entertainment, my finances, and so on.  God hunts krinows cancer cells in my thinking and leukocytes in my desires. 

How I love my wife this week is not what I feel, as much as what I said, how I said it, how I acted out of my sarxy self! Same for children, Jesus, pleasing God.

Leave the rules.  Move to a place beyond condemnation where you please your Lord!  What a freedom!

No Condemnation

No Condemnation: Too Revolutionary for You?

The Heart of the Message: God’s Grace is Jesus’ amazing revelation.  That first step in him is no condemnation.  That revolution in your thinking, relationships, and future is your first step.  Take it and you are changed ― forever.

Is Paul alone in this revolutionary thought?  Did he “add” to Jesus works and words?

Romans 8:1-4 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Do we feel condemned or judged?  If not, why are anxiety and panic at pandemic levels?

I taught the truth of “no condemnation” this way: the law of the Spirit is a “higher” law, such as the law of aerodynamics versus the law of gravity.  Taxi a 737 onto a runway.  Push its throttles forward.  The engines thunder.  They hurt unprotected ears.  The plane nudges.  It rolls forward.  Its engines scream in air, forcing through a small auditorium’s air every 100^th of a second.  Eighty-eight tons accelerate.  As a 737 accelerates, a second, higher law countermands the law of gravity.  Do passengers turn weightless?  No.  If the power quits, will the plane crash?  Yes.  Nevertheless, gaining speed, air flows over the tops of the wings faster than below them and an unseen force pushes up on both wings, lifting all into the air.  It makes a preposterous statement real:  “I flew to Chicago.”

So I need an external-now-internal power source throughout my life to go where God directs: His Holy Spirit power.  Only by the resurrected Christ’s power can I attain the heights.  This chapter centers on the Holy Spirit.

Chapter eight reveals God’s power in you.  Do you know his power?  Does Holy Spirit power drive you, empower you?  This power enters you when you take Christ as Lord — the Holy Spirit is God’s envoy in you.  Guess who is discussed more in this chapter than anywhere in the Bible?

It is God’s Spirit.  He empowers me to make Christ Lord.  He is God’s fusion reactor, plasma, electricity, the Lord’s clout or muscle to power my life.  Let’s compare.  The Spirit is mentioned 22 times in 150 Psalms.  Isaiah mentions Him 32 times.  The Book of Acts refers 45 times to the Spirit’s spread in the world.  In the first seven chapters Paul mentions the Spirit 6 times.  In this one chapter, Romans 8, God’s Spirit is mentioned 20 times! 

As you push forward the throttles of your life in Christ, God promises the Spirit will flow, the fuel will explode, and you can fly, obey, be different, be healed, and stay new. 

I teach that the Spirit is 1) God’s power in us to be what we cannot be on our own.  Amen.  May the Spirit’s power, Jehovah Jireh’s promise to live in you, empower you.  2) Like aerodynamics, he is a higher law enabling us to overcome gravity. 

I missed a deeper truth.  Why no condemnation?  How is condemnation first before sin?  We know condemnation.  We all experience it.  Older kids chose everyone else for baseball, soccer, or football.  Everyone gets chosen but me and Elbert’s booger-eating brother, I know judging left me standing so … alone.  Judging separated me from everyone already selected.  Judging, condemnation is more than a failed standard, it separates me from God.  At the critical moment, condemnation says, “I’m left out.” 

Condemnation was that feeling walking down a school hall that “they,” whoever “they” were, judged me as less.  Worse, I felt tons of others followed “their” assessments.  If I were a slug, a geek, a dweeb, a dumb jock, or an easy girl, then “they” shared that with everyone and everyone accepted their assessment.  Their assessment separated me as a … whatever.  I was separated from someone I would rather be. 

Krino means condemnation: to decide, to rule, or to judge.  Remember this: krino does not mean an ethical norm, it means an expectation from someone who loves you.  We see judging as standards: for jock, cool or brainy that finds me wanting.  God says the opposite: “you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”  For God it is always about a relationship, and good laws safeguard the relationship.  It is always about being in love with God as He is with us. 

Paul says more than any law; more than anyone’s opinion; more than judging whispers; more than “their” assessments¾  God promised a thing, and now gives it teeth.  He moves the Spirit INTO us.  God showed a relationship is possible, but now empowers it.  God says this beats hell of judging each other.  We glimpse Heaven.  For God, it was about a relationship from the beginning.  He krinos us, loves us. 

The Jews saw God’s Law as an avenue showing we are safe.  It reaches beyond morality and ethics.  The Law helped us love God, but we sin. We fail the relationship.  We whine and hate the standard.  Paul responds, “No condemnation!”  He screams a thing beyond justice, beyond morals.  He screams, “The Bridegroom vanished our entanglements!  He makes us His again in the Spirit!”  Did Paul make this up?  No.  He knows his Bible. 

God has always sought us.  Paul knew this rang true before Jesus.  God described being God: krinowing or judging.  Krinow opposes what we do to each other.  We judge struggling souls.  All our condemnation goes wrong.  God uses krinowing to say the opposite!  He is the coach who tells the truth in love.  You CAN run faster.  He is a lab teacher, coaxing us to think through knotty problems, because He knows you can solve it.  He is always the Father who points out consequences too costly in mistakes, and too wonderful in getting it right. 

Hear God krinow us: Hosea 2:14-16.  [I will again] allure her.  I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.  ¹⁵There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make [your home] a door of hope…. 16″In that day,” declares [krinows] the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’  See God’s judgment?  He will not see us as sluts, or fools.  He judges that we always were and will be His bride. 

Jeremiah 2:2-7 Go and proclaim: “I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert.”  Sinning fails a standard.  Worse, it walks out on a relationship!

Always, God offers relationship and intimacy.  We think we run from His condemnation as Master.  Do you hear God?  He is more like Husband than Master!  Jesus echoes Him, John 15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business.  Instead, I call you friends, for all I learned from my Father I made known to you.  God krinows us to be His bride.  Jesus krinows us to be His friend. 

God sees us as a new wife.  We fail Him.  Jesus sees us as friends who lay down our lives for HIS friends.  We fail Jesus like we fail the Father.  THAT is what Paul screams at the end of chapter seven!  Oh wretched man, WHO will deliver me?  Paul, the Pharisee was trapped in rules.  He knew Pharisees so sure of themselves, of their holiness, that they saw the rest of us as failures.  Paul knew Pharisees so entangled in failures they feared God and eternity.  Wretched man, who can deliver me from religions’ failures?  Who knows me and still loves me?  Look!  No condemnation to those who are in Christ empowered by this SPIRIT!

Romans 8:1-4 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit (Spirit = Power in the Relationship) of life set me free from the law (reality) of sin and death. 3For what the law (all truths, all realities) was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son (Jesus = Relationship) in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law (these = life in God!) might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Can we live beyond negative condemnation?  Cut “8” in half and go to chapter four.  4:3 what does Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God [relationship!], and it was credited to him as righteousness.’  Abraham failed plenty, but clung to his relationship above all else.  Read further, 4:6-8 David says the same thing: ⁷“Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven…. 8Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.  Blessed am I when I step beyond condemnation to love God.  Divide 4 by 2.  In chapter 2:4:  Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance? His kindness reminds you of who you are. 

Is Paul alone here?  Far from it, rule keepers and religionists.  God makes my motivation love, not fear.  Consider a passage too radical for many Christians. 

John 8:3-12 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11″No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

12When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  Can you mean someone like her, Jesus?!  You must be kidding!

Still don’t believe how radical is a relationship God intends for you rather than what you now have? 

Divide John 8 by 2:  John 4:23. 23 … a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth (you need Spirit and Truth beyond religion!), for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

This woman used by six men was condemned (krinowed) by God’s Son as only love.  How did she react?  28-29   she left her water jar, and went back to the town and told people, 29″Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”  Translated: bring your score cards!  Come talk to this man! 

Still sitting on a runway loaded down?  God used Job to show our judgments are pointless.  God kept Job’s relationship.  Jeremiah and Isaiah knew: God restores beyond all failures.  Hosea: beyond his wife’s failures, was a love, a krinow, that he must cherish her. 

“No condemnation” requires God’s Spirit to touch it, much less fly in it.  “No condemnation” is hard to live because you must put down all your scores against, well, everyone.  “No condemnation” is hard to live as you must love and believe God changes people you know are wretches.  “No condemnation” is so hard to live since we cannot live it without Christ as Lord, and His Spirit enabling us as his revolutionary. 

A) You want to be whole?  Paul says, Wretched one, that I am, who can deliver me to a place beyond condemnation?  Only in Christ as the Spirit empowers you.  You see, we don’t replace the law of sin, but live in a higher law of the Spirit.  That’s good, but this is what I missed. 

B) I replace the Recipe Book with the Cook.  I replace a mystery book with the Author.  I move beyond rules to the Ruler.  I bag my legislation to love the King.  I move past poetry to the Poet!  This place with Him beyond condemnation: it’s a place of tenderness, of different motivation, of diametrically opposed assessment.  My failures are not damning, they are overcome as He krinows me to be an overcomer, by placing His very Self, His very Spirit in my breast!