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This Sunday Podcast
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S1:E13
Romans 8:12-17
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Transcript
Introduction and Weekly Readings
00:00:00
Speaker
Greetings and welcome to the next episode of this Sunday podcast. I am Pastor Matthew Hardaway. Alongside me is Pastor Philip Brandt.
Focus on Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
00:00:09
Speaker
We have every week we'll take a look at one of the readings for the upcoming Sunday as a devotion for for the church body and then also as a sermon help potentially for pastors that will be preaching on that text this this this next week.
Understanding Romans Chapter 7
00:00:26
Speaker
Today, we are going to be in the sixth Sunday after Pentecost, looking continuing to look through Paul's letter to the Romans.
00:00:37
Speaker
Today we'll be in chapter 7. The actual reading is verse 14 through 25a, but we're going to start at verse 13 so that we can actually understand the question that Paul is answering when you pick up at verse 14.
Lectionary Division and Its Implications
00:00:53
Speaker
Definitely one of those things, Dr. Brandt, where you kind of have to scratch your heads when you look at how they were dividing everything out for the lectionary and just go, huh?
00:01:04
Speaker
Well, there are points there where where you do that, but usually it makes a fair amount of sense. But oftentimes it makes sense because they're trying to pair it with something else going on in the day. And so they kind of want to single out this part of it. But when you start to look at that text, you really need that larger context to quite really get exactly what that that's trying to do.
00:01:29
Speaker
So let's
Prayer and Reflection on Change
00:01:30
Speaker
pray. All right, let's pray. Gracious God, our Heavenly Father, your mercy attends us all our days. Be our strength and support amid the wearisome changes of this world. And at life's end, grant us your promised rest and full joys of your salvation. Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and drains with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Have you ever wondered, I...
00:02:03
Speaker
I've prayed that prayer now for 35 years as ah as a pastor. um And ah I've really come to appreciate the idea of wearisome changes. um Change is actually a a it's an exhausting thing.
00:02:24
Speaker
and and I think about you know, just the sheer volume of change that is going on because some of it accelerated technologically, some of it accelerated by by other other political, climactic, whatever things that are going on. um But, yeah, i it's really exhausting, um you know, that that ah you know Jesus...
Jesus' Message of Rest in Today's Context
00:02:51
Speaker
you know We're going to get those those words, you know come to me all you who are weary and heavily burdened and I will give you rest. um I really think if Jesus was walking along the streets of Portland or almost any other city today, um he would he would really hit that rest and and and and the gospel as a as a treatment for weariness.
00:03:16
Speaker
as as ah as an address, a redress of the of the of the exhaustion that people feel today. i mean, in the first century, he talked food all the time because almost everybody was...
00:03:28
Speaker
you know, protein deficient, I mean, and calorie deficient. they were They were hungry a
Modern Struggles and Biblical Metaphors
00:03:33
Speaker
lot. And so he talked about, you know, the gospel as free lunch, right? ah but But I think today, he you know, but today, you know, you look around, our refrigerators are full and our doctors are telling us don't eat so much. And, ah ah you know, food is for many people become kind of an enemy.
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah. You know, whether it's because you have like gluten intolerances or things like that, um or just they're struggling with their weight. um and but But we're exhausted.
00:04:08
Speaker
I find that weariness theme really, really interesting. um And it kind of really plays into this whole section we're going to be, we're looking at here in Romans. And we're going to hear Paul say that.
00:04:22
Speaker
At the end of this Romans text, you you have this kind of exhausted Paul who's struggling back and forth with all of this stuff. And he says, who is going to rescue me from this body death?
00:04:36
Speaker
And then he just answers his own question. And he says, well, praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, that that that yeah here I am in this sort of titanic struggle of my my a reality and identity of who I am and and how am I going to live this life? And and and it's hard. and i'm And I'm just eat up tired with it.
00:04:59
Speaker
and and and And I love it that Paul just just finally throws his hands up and says, I can. And then says, Jesus can.
00:05:11
Speaker
And Jesus will be the one who does that. You know what I I think that's just such a powerful ending to these chapters six and seven, which have really wrestled with these big, tough questions of of what that salvation by grace means.
00:05:30
Speaker
and and And it just ends with that that sort of crescendo shout at the end.
Righteousness, Law, and Salvation
00:05:36
Speaker
um What it means is, i in Luther's terms, fall into the hands of my gracious God.
00:05:46
Speaker
and And I fall because I can't stand up anymore. I just can't do it. Let's look at this reading for this week. Let's do that. ah We back up one verse in Romans into verse 13. If you remember, Paul is in this in this kind of ah of ah of a rhetorical device that he's in right now, where he has posited this salvation that comes by grace. It is through faith. um It's apart from works of the law, although the law and the prophets testify to it.
00:06:18
Speaker
ah But it is it is this free gift that God has given. And and and he's he's compared it to, he said, well, by so by great ah you know that by in this gracious righteousness of God, life is coming to the world where sin brought death, Christ brought life. um But in chapter 6 and 7, he's posited these sort of questions that that you might ask. um We don't, like we say, think anybody was asking the questions.
00:06:49
Speaker
But but they they allow Paul to, in answering the question, to tell you something really important about the thesis of Romans. And that is this righteousness of God through faith given to you. A passive righteousness that comes to us through this instrument of faith.
00:07:12
Speaker
So in verse 13, he asks his next question. Did that which is good, namely the law from the verse right before that, then bring death to me?
00:07:25
Speaker
in other words, do I die because the law kills me?
00:07:31
Speaker
By no means, he says. It was sin producing death in me through what was good. In order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
00:07:50
Speaker
You mean, the question that Paul is is kind of asking is, you know, what what is the relationship of the law, the rules, okay, ah the the ah the the the Torah to to my own sin and its consequence, which is death?
00:08:12
Speaker
And um that's ah that's a really good question because, you know, You know Paul has said, you know, through grace comes life, through the law comes death.
00:08:23
Speaker
and And so he says, so do I, am I really saying then that the Old Testament, the the books of Moses, um the, ah all of those, those commandments, are they, are they my enemies?
00:08:40
Speaker
Are they bad? And, and that's a little like taking it out on the mirror, you know, that, that, or the scale, you know, that reports, well, yeah, you you probably do need to shed a few pounds here, Brant.
00:08:57
Speaker
Your daily trip to the to the bakery might need to be curtailed, you know? um That's not the scale's fault. The scale is speaking the truth. You know, the mirror, which shows me who I am,
00:09:11
Speaker
I mean, unless it's a distorted or broken mirror, the the but the mirror shows me who I am. it's not it's not a It's not doing bad. In fact, it's a good thing. But the message it's delivering is what's crushing me. And, and in in of course, in the case of like the the law of God, you know the Ten Commandments and the and the and the law that's written on our heart that that says, you know, I have been... you know greedy and vain and lustful and all of those those things and it shows me just how how broken I am it was a good law it is a good law and it is a good thing it is God's holy and pure law
00:10:04
Speaker
but what it does to me as a sinner you know is is really painful to experience. Right, but nobody in their right mind would say it was the scale that has caused me to gain weight. Yeah, exactly.
00:10:21
Speaker
Exactly. I might go and say, I think your scale is broken. Yeah, is it a cracked mirror, you know? Right, like right, right. but But no, no, no, it is. it And so Paul is really in in this last section really asserting That no, the standard by which we're being measured, that's good.
00:10:48
Speaker
And ah and this and he's really he's really here in that second function of the law, you know which is the mirror function. I've used that image intentionally because, and and Paul even says it right here, that sin might be shown to be sinned.
00:11:04
Speaker
That's the mirror function of the law, where it it it it it it exposes my my brokenness. but it's But in doing that, ah law you can't say that the law is bad. And there's a very good reason why Paul doesn't want to say that the law is bad, because once we go through that redemption, that regeneration of baptism and the graciousness the gracious action of God on us in in in his in his word and spirit,
00:11:34
Speaker
you know We're going to wake up, and as we've already said, we're going to say, well, what what do I do now?
Spiritual Orientation and Mundane Activities
00:11:39
Speaker
and he's going to send us right back to that holy and pure law that used to condemn me is now going to become a guide a um a ah pathway forward for me to lead a good life.
00:11:59
Speaker
And so paul Paul really wants to be very clear about this distinction of who it is that's got the problem. It's not the law.
00:12:12
Speaker
We know that the law is spiritual. Picking up here at our reading on Sunday. We know that the law is spiritual. But I am of the flesh and sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
00:12:31
Speaker
Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it's good. mean, if I look in the mirror and i I see this very pear-shaped human being that needs to lose some weight, and I go, I got to lose weight, and I don't want to. i don't want to go to all that work.
00:12:51
Speaker
But I am actually in saying that actually saying that, no, the message that it's giving me is the truth.
00:13:01
Speaker
So now, it is no longer i who do it, but sin that dwells it within me. And now we've got to talk a little bit about, I think, to really understand that, kind of what he means when he says the is spiritual.
00:13:17
Speaker
And the and that the the but that I'm of the flesh. um and And just to be real clear here, the Bible really struggles against, and and for a lot of it, I think Paul is part of that part that doesn't really know it that way, um does not really get the Greek idea of of the opposite of spiritual being physical.
00:13:43
Speaker
and And that's truly the way that that a lot of people operate today. They always say the opposite of spiritual is physical.
00:13:54
Speaker
And they put those two things kind of on a spectrum. All right. um That's not really the way the Bible uses that word spiritual at all. um When the Bible uses that word, it's it's really, it's contrasting that. I like the word choice that that the ESV uses here, that I'm of the flesh.
00:14:19
Speaker
that that the opposite of of spiritual is really carnal or worldly. And that that spiritual is to be aligned with God and to be opposite is kind of be at a 90 degree going the other way um aligned with something else.
00:14:45
Speaker
And ah And so, I mean, I used to always ask my my New Testament students when we dealt particularly with John, and I would i would just look at it and say, well, is my, i was at that time driving a Honda minivan, and I said, is my is my minivan spiritual?
00:15:04
Speaker
And, you know, they would always go, well, no. and and i would say, well, if by that you mean, does my minivan have ah have a soul Probably not. You're right.
00:15:16
Speaker
But I said, that's not the way the Bible thinks about that word, though. And when you see it in the Bible, you need to think of it this way. And that the Bible would say my van is really spiritual because I'm using it to, you know bring my kids to school and to be a good dad and to go buy groceries and to take them to church and to, and to do those things that I need to do for them to fulfill my vocation as a father and a neighbor and a husband and all these things. That van is important for that.
00:15:50
Speaker
And so in that sense, because I do those things in a life lived toward God, the van becomes spiritual. And so the the that that when Paul says the law is spiritual, what he means is that the law is really oriented and, and and and and well, oriented is really the best word, toward God.
00:16:21
Speaker
And it's not oriented away from him. But I, on the other hand, I'm flesh, okay? I'm i'm i'm in that that broken world of sin.
00:16:34
Speaker
And what sin really does is takes everything and directs it, you know, in another direction away from God.
00:16:46
Speaker
And, you know, whether that's to my own passions, desires, you know, my self-serving, greedy, whatever. um That's what it means to be of the flesh.
00:17:00
Speaker
um and It is in a case that one of them is float in the air, non-corporeal, and the other one is real. that's, I think, how a lot of people think about spiritual versus physical, is that, yeah, that spiritual stuff, it isn't real.
00:17:18
Speaker
But, you know, the
00:17:21
Speaker
The stuff I can touch, now that's real. And that is not what what what Paul or the Bible means about Even when Paul says, keep your mind on heavenly things in Colossians, he's talking about things.
00:17:39
Speaker
Things you can touch. But they're oriented toward heaven. instead of oriented toward you know some earthly, human, um you know fleshly thing that I've got in mind.
00:18:01
Speaker
So this is where I think you need to have an idea of when Paul says, I don't understand what I'm doing.
00:18:08
Speaker
that That what Paul's talking about here is is really this orientation piece that he's struggling with.
Human Nature, Sin, and Struggle
00:18:16
Speaker
in here that, that ah am I oriented toward God or am I oriented toward, toward the, uh, toward the, toward the things of the flesh.
00:18:27
Speaker
And that is, yes. So, so, of so when he says, I'm doing stuff I don't want to do, what's he really saying? You know, I think what he's really saying there is, is that this is really hard.
00:18:41
Speaker
It's really hard. Um, and And even when he says, it's no longer I who do it, that doesn't mean Paul isn't participating in in the you know those harsh words you know that he might speak if he gets angry or the or the the all of those other things. It's not like Paul is is postulating some kind of kind of you know split personality here.
00:19:11
Speaker
All right? um I think Better to say what Paul is really is really talking about here is that as a as a human being, I know better, and yet I still find myself, because my my my humanity has been broken by sin, that try as I might, I can't stop sometimes.
00:19:44
Speaker
And just like that person who looks in the mirror and realizes they need to lose weight,
00:19:54
Speaker
sometimes just can't walk by the refrigerator without opening the door. um and And all of us are subject to those things. And, you know, and If you've never read Bo Geertz's The Hammer of God, did you read that one, Matthew? Oh, of course. Yeah, I mean, that that is just such ah such an interesting book. That that sermon, that Lenten sermon the guy preaches in the last part of that, where he talks about the guy who's trying to clear the stones from his field.
00:20:26
Speaker
and And he just keeps getting, he keeps finds another, there's another bigger stone under that one. So he digs that one out and he finds another one and digs them out and finally gets down to, there's just rocks down there.
00:20:40
Speaker
And, and, and he, and he, and he kind of pauses and he imagines this guy sort of sitting in the bottom of a hole and it just rock all around. there There is no way to clear the stones from the field. And that, that it's at that point, you know, Jesus looks over the edge of the hole and finds you in this pit. It says, but I've got another solution.
00:21:00
Speaker
And, uh, And I think a lot of times, you know we just get too way too comfortable with those sins in our lives. you know we never we We just sort of, if you want to use that image of the of the farmer in the field, we just clow and cultivate around the rocks and and kind of cope with them and and never even try and remove them. and I mean, at least the farmer in Bo Geertz's image, at least trying to get rid of him. He was trying to get rid of his sins. I commend him for that.
00:21:32
Speaker
um I think we just too often don't engage in the struggle that Paul is engaged in here. And and we we don't we we just go, well, oh, well, I'm a terrible person. You're a terrible person. I guess we'll just have to find some set of bylaws to keep us from killing each other, you know? Yeah.
00:21:59
Speaker
I know that nothing good dwells in me, says Paul. Verse 18. That is in my flesh. So this is in this thing that is oriented away from God. For I have the desire to do what is right, but I don't have the ability to carry it out. I'm like a and like an addict. i'm like ah I'm like this person who just can't control their impulses. you know ah The donuts are are possessing me.
00:22:25
Speaker
I do not do the good I want to do. But the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
00:22:34
Speaker
Now, if I do what I do not want, it's no longer I who do it. But it is sin who dwells within me.
00:22:45
Speaker
and And here Paul is helping us with a very careful, nuanced separation that that is super important for us.
00:23:00
Speaker
And that is that God can see something that is really, really important. And that is you are not your sin.
00:23:14
Speaker
Now your sin has thoroughly infected you. It's thoroughly addressed you, but you are not your sin. know, it's kind of one of those things that, that, yeah i when I've dealt with parishioners who have cancer, you know, and, and if they, in certain kinds of cancer, you know, require these really life changing treatments and all of these things that go on.
00:23:42
Speaker
And that person can kind of become, if you will, this, they they can identify, I am, i am my cancer. Or I am at least this, this cancer patient that, that this is,
00:23:55
Speaker
And go, no, you know what? you were a You were another person before your diagnosis, before this affliction came upon you. You are still that person. You know, that person who, I don't know, liked to play the piano. did they know Maybe right now it's not allowing you to do those things.
00:24:14
Speaker
But you are still that person. You are not just, you know, i think and And sin loves to reduce us to to what it controls and to who it is.
00:24:32
Speaker
mean, I see that in in and so many people who are struggling with yeah know really something dark in their lives that they can they can sometimes become become just, it it becomes their identity.
00:24:53
Speaker
But I love this, that that that he says, it's no longer I who do it, but it's the sin that dwells in me. And that those are not the same things.
00:25:05
Speaker
The sin in me are different. Right. my My wife's background is in special education. oh yeah. And...
00:25:15
Speaker
one of the things that that field has worked a lot on probably before she entered into it, but definitely as she entered into it was using people first language.
00:25:27
Speaker
so So Bobby has autism. He's not autistic. He's not autistic. Yeah, he's not an aut he's not an autistic. or he's Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have, right, right. And and it's it's that that really careful um like you know yeah He's using language to do it here, but it's this very careful observation that that you and this this this horrible reality are not the same thing. If you did it on a Venn diagram, there might be quite a bit of overlap. But there's a you that is distinct from the thing we're talking about.
00:26:09
Speaker
and I think that's just critical that that Paul... is making that that observation with this. It's no longer I who do it, but that sin dwells within me. So I find, says Paul, I find it to be a law.
00:26:28
Speaker
Now here here's another part. of ah Paul's use of the word law in this book is sometimes so confusing. Here I would say a better word would be like, here I find it to be a principle or or a truism.
00:26:44
Speaker
That when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. Whenever I'm trying to do the right thing, evil lies close at hand. I mean, my my church has has these as a ginormous window on the on the behind the altar.
00:27:04
Speaker
And when they were building the church, they originally had dreams of making that a stained glass window, but they ran out of money. um Didn't have it. And they've never done it.
00:27:16
Speaker
um They've planted some trees behind it, and it's just gorgeous. It is it is it is really beautiful. um But there's there's a ah ah moderately busy street that runs out there called Decom, and there's a bus stop right there.
00:27:35
Speaker
And so on Sunday morning, when you know you're in church, well, here comes, there's cars going by and the bus. And ah ah you know it would be so easy to sit in church and think, oh, I'm here, and those people are not.
00:27:54
Speaker
yeah And suddenly entering to this into this comparison game and imagine, God really likes it that I'm here. And he must like me better than them.
00:28:07
Speaker
yeah and I think that's what paul part of what Paul means when he says, when I'm doing something good, evil lies close at hand. That could be a spiritual pride, like I just described.
00:28:19
Speaker
It could be, you know, a lot of times when you're working, you know, with with vulnerable people, you know, the the opportunity to take advantage of them yourself pops up. um That you have you have all of these, these you know, these ways that that it seems like the more good you do,
00:28:42
Speaker
the more easily, or more should we say, the more significantly it gets corrupted. if if if if that That if you were to fall into sin, it is a corruption of it.
00:28:55
Speaker
I delight in the law of God. In my inner being, God has put this new man inside me, this new person.
Hope in Jesus' Resurrection
00:29:05
Speaker
But I see in my members, in the reality of my life, There's another principle waging war against the principle of my mind, and it makes me captive to that principle of sin that dwells in my members.
00:29:19
Speaker
Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ. oh That ultimately when when when resurrection day comes and Jesus calls my name and I answer,
00:29:39
Speaker
um I'm going to leave this struggle behind. I'm going to leave this fight behind because because that that that that fleshly fill that is oriented away from God it's going to stay dead.
00:30:00
Speaker
um And that the new person that God gave me in baptism, that has been living in fits and starts and sometimes showing up and other times not so well for the last, you know, 60 years now. That's
00:30:16
Speaker
going to be all that's there. That's the new thing. Yeah, you will not be weary anymore. I won't be weary anymore. I won't have this weary sickness.
00:30:28
Speaker
It's going to go away.
00:30:33
Speaker
yeah praise be to Praise be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
00:30:40
Speaker
He's the one. And it's his resurrection that is my hope. And it is his his outpouring of spirit on me that that makes that possible.
00:30:56
Speaker
Again, they cut our text. you know we we only get the first half of that verse. the So then I myself serve of the law of God with my mind. no i can sit here and I can acknowledge the mirror is good.
00:31:12
Speaker
But with my flesh, with this this this human life I live that is oriented away from God, you know just because Just because Jesus has died and risen and forgiven me all my sins doesn't mean that I've got this figured out.
00:31:33
Speaker
Doesn't mean that I'm doing it right. I still sought serve that law of sin.
00:31:40
Speaker
That's a reality for the Apostle Paul. That's a reality for Matthew and for Philip and for everyone who's watching this video and and for all of humanity.
00:31:52
Speaker
that that we are simply incapable of it. And and i mean you see that you there's all kinds of people promising you that if you just do this, then you'll then you'll succeed.
00:32:09
Speaker
And whether it's it's you know the the latest fad diet that's going to tell you if you just eat paleo, just take this out, put that in, whatever,
00:32:26
Speaker
no Right. Well, and it's the, we were speaking earlier about kind of the separation and in our modern context of spiritual and and physical. yeah This is that spiritual battle that's being waged over us by Satan.
00:32:47
Speaker
The attacks that as soon as we're reorienting ourselves or God has re has reoriented and us to him through grace, mercy, forgiveness.
Challenges of Comparison and Judgment
00:33:01
Speaker
It's like Satan's spidey sense goes off. He's like, uh-oh, uh-oh, and he sends one of his demons over, you know, or himself to automatically, it's just right there. Okay.
00:33:15
Speaker
I see you. Don't think you can sneak away because, you know, you turned down that donut in Sunday school. I'm going to, you know, deem you with a free coupon for, you know, a donut on your text message when you're on the way home.
00:33:31
Speaker
You know, but the silly things, you know, that that we don't we don't associate as being spiritual. Right. But it is. are it is yeah Or even or what he's going to do is he's going to plant in you that little seed that that when you when you when you walk away and out of the corner of your eye, your eye you see this other person grab the doted off the plate. yeah He's going to plant this spiritual pride in you.
00:34:00
Speaker
you know that I did that and you didn't. yeah I resisted and you could. and um And that's just as detrimental and just as terrible as as and and maybe even worse then than the actually succumbing to that that very carnal um you know sin of of of abusing your own body by eating too much.
00:34:28
Speaker
is that now if you if you manage to get control of it and you turn around and you look at that person who's struggling with their with their weight, say, um and you say, well, I'm just better than you.
00:34:41
Speaker
and you and And you go, oh, you know, a thousand times worse. Oh, that's terrible. oh no yeah i I wonder how how often as sinful beings we crave justification.
00:35:01
Speaker
Or approval. Right. God approval. Yeah. And even the you know you look at somebody who's yeah in any situation, and it's so easy for us to go, I wonder what they did to get there.
00:35:17
Speaker
And maybe I'm seeing it. Maybe I'm seeing it's, you know, oh ah maybe it's one of the parishioners seeing Pastor Hardaway grab a donut. Ooh, isn't he diabetic? Is he supposed to be? yeah Yeah. And he really shouldn't be, you know, I mean, look at that midsection, um you know, or or even those that have a whole litany of of ah stuff going on in their wives.
00:35:44
Speaker
Yep. And we just go, yeah wow, what'd you do? It's like, oh well, you just missed the whole point of Jesus showing compassion to you by not thinking compassionately towards your neighbor.
00:35:59
Speaker
Well, and I mean, we we we are so easily diverted from this from the even this whole thing about, from all of this this language Paul has been using about grace.
00:36:11
Speaker
And, ah you know, even even, you know, I think as ah as a corporate body, we do this all the time. You know, my um we we have a, my my congregation hosts a a ah church of the ACNA, the Anglican Church in North America. We host them in my parish.
00:36:33
Speaker
And this parish was started by a young mission developer a few years ago. And it is just filled with all of these young families. Because this guy had a real gift for reaching into a particular community that I had no access to.
00:36:48
Speaker
And I think even if I would have had access to it, they wouldn't have responded to me like they did to him. and ah And yet I find myself doing this and I hear my own parishioners doing this all the time. What did they do that? How can we get, how can we,
00:37:02
Speaker
and it's just and And I just say, I think God gave them this because they were able to do something for these people. Let's ask what God is giving us and ask who God is leading into our lives rather than playing this comparison game.
00:37:24
Speaker
you know And what's what what's so interesting about that is when I was... when i was ah a pastor down in, in Southern Oregon. um We had a parochial school and we, we were, we were a strong congregation. We, we did, we were, we did pretty well, but boy down the road, there was this, this, ah this really thriving um non-denominational church that, you know,
00:37:57
Speaker
They were just hitting all the right buttons, it looked like. you know Their parking lot was full all the time. They were growing. They bought a new facility because they outgrew the one they were in, you know that kind of stuff. and yeah and And my people and and and and this preacher was all were also feeling like, man, we're missing the boat here.
00:38:14
Speaker
and We should be doing something. and And I remember being at some function where a clergy had been invited. And I sat down, and this person sat down next to me. um And it turns out to be the to be the the pastor from that that non-denom. And we started talking and he found out I was from the church I was at. And he goes, Oh man, you would not believe how jealous we are of you guys with that school. You guys are making such an impact on the lives of people. He says, all that I'm doing, it just feels like so ephemeral. And he just went on and I was like, and do you realize that we're saying exactly the same things about each other?
God's Unconditional Love and Roles Balance
00:38:51
Speaker
And, uh,
00:38:54
Speaker
you know that that But that we have this this like internal, ah sort of automatic default position that we have of of of entering into this comparison kind of thing that God just never does.
00:39:10
Speaker
No. That God just doesn't think that way about us. He loves you because you, well, because he does.
00:39:21
Speaker
and Not because you met some standard or did something good or that you are somehow lovable. He just loves you. and And we always want to, you know, and I think there's that, there's that, just that, that human nature that Paul's talking about here, that we want to turn that into, into a, into something else.
00:39:47
Speaker
and And, and yeah, I mean, yeah, we we can talk about turning God's love into a liberty to go and abuse myself, you know my body through through alcohol or drugs or too much eating or whatever, yeah or into a spiritual pride or something like that. But boy, it comes even when i'm I want to do what is good.
00:40:11
Speaker
yeah Even when I want to be a good congregation and reach into my community and bring the gospel of Jesus Christ, you know i' those are my best moments. you know And i just find, oh yeah, Satan found a way to twist that too, didn't he into Into something that came back around and I started asking, what what do I need to do? you know and And how am I going to make this happen?
00:40:42
Speaker
Instead of asking, oh what is Jesus blessing? What is Jesus doing? What, what, where where do I need to pay my, you know, where where can I pay my attention to?
00:40:57
Speaker
One of the, I was early on in my time here at Christ Lutheran. The gospel reading was Mary and Martha. Yeah. and And Jesus said, you know, Martha complaining, Jesus, tell my sister to come help me. like ma And i I don't remember that. I remember the sermon, but I think one of the points is a lot of where you were going, is that Jesus loves them both.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah. and and And maybe he wants all of us to be doing both. Now, we can't be working in the kitchen, and that's, well, now we can with technology. But, I mean, we can't necessarily, we can't be in worship and in the kitchen at the same time.
00:41:37
Speaker
So we got to find that balance between it. But just stop being Martha, people. Yeah. And and it's it's one of the first sermons that stuck because now i can't tell you the number of times I can say now in a situation, council, elders, just one-on-one.
00:41:54
Speaker
All right, individual, stop being Martha. but And then they remember that and they smile like, okay, yes, pastor. Yep.
00:42:05
Speaker
Indeed. Well, I hope, I mean, this is such a powerful text. such a such a powerful text else You know, this whole section, this this whole part of Romans we're coming into here.
00:42:20
Speaker
Boy, there is so much good stuff in here. And again, there's I think there's a half a dozen sermons in these verses easily. And
00:42:31
Speaker
yeah, I know what I'm going to preach on with it yet. Still got to narrow that down. But boy, there's a lot there. There is. A lot there.
00:42:44
Speaker
Of course, it's from God. That's right. And it's a good thing. That's right.
Conclusion and Sermon Hopes
00:42:49
Speaker
Preach him a good one on it, Matthew. All right, you do the same, Phil. All right. All right, until next week.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yep. Bye-bye.