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This Sunday Podcast
22 Plays29 days ago
S1:E10
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Transcript
Introduction and Prayer
00:00:00
Speaker
Greetings and welcome to this Sunday podcast. I am Pastor Matthew Hardaway. Alongside me is Dr. Philip Brandt, also pastor. Every week on this Sunday podcast, we take a look at the upcoming readings for the next Sunday in the church here. So we are going to be looking at the second Sunday after Pentecost this morning. I'm going to open up with a call out of the day and then we will dig into Romans chapter four.
00:00:29
Speaker
We pray. Almighty and most merciful God, sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to seek and to save the lost. Graciously open our ears and our hearts to hear his call and to follow him by faith that we may feast with him forever in his kingdom.
00:00:46
Speaker
Through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Amen. man
00:01:00
Speaker
Seeking to save the lost.
00:01:04
Speaker
Cool prayer. It's good prayer.
Paul's Emphasis on Faith
00:01:07
Speaker
um Yeah. i think I think the intersection with ah with our reading and that prayer today is going to come in that that that that intersection with faith where it talks here. Because that's what that's what Paul's going to be talking about today is faith.
00:01:28
Speaker
Should get started? Should we do it? Let's do it, yes. Romans chapter 4, we begin at verse 13.
00:01:36
Speaker
For the promise of abraham to Abraham and his offspring that he would be the heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
00:01:49
Speaker
For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there's no transgression.
00:02:04
Speaker
That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, I have made you the father of many nations.
00:02:26
Speaker
in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told.
00:02:45
Speaker
So shall your offspring be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old.
00:02:57
Speaker
or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God. But he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
00:03:16
Speaker
That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words that was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also.
00:03:29
Speaker
It will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
00:03:43
Speaker
Here ends the read.
Structure of Romans
00:03:48
Speaker
It's always really important when you... ah when you come to read Romans, that you you locate it inside it's um rhetorical place within the letter. Romans is the longest sustained argument in the New Testament.
00:04:08
Speaker
and And it has a ah ah distinct sections within it. and And so, I mean, you of course, you start with an introduction, and then you have this you have this little thesis statement that gets stated in 1 verses 16 and 17, you know, of salvation is out of faith, into faith, this kind of enigmatic little thing that he does there. And then he goes into this antithesis.
00:04:36
Speaker
And if you don't know what an antithesis is, that that passage from 118 through 3 verse 20, that can really mess you up. You have to know what that is.
00:04:48
Speaker
That's Paul telling you, what would what would it be if this isn't true?
00:04:55
Speaker
And then in 3.20 or so, he gets into the he really gets into the, he restates the thesis. But now a righteousness from from God has been made known apart from the law, to which the law and the prophets testify. It is righteousness through faith.
00:05:17
Speaker
Now what we get is Paul explaining that with an example from the Torah.
00:05:28
Speaker
So if you if you if you need to understand what he's saying right here, you really have to go back into that thesis statement in in chapter 3 of Romans.
00:05:38
Speaker
Because what he's really doing right now is explaining it. That's so good. Go ahead. Yeah. when When you say we need to understand Paul's rhetoric.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah. I want slow down just a second on that, just for like raising daughters that are learning how to write papers. Sophomore in college and almost sophomore in in high school. I use the word rhetoric and they look at me like, what in the world? it Actually, it goes in one ear, not the other. Yeah. yeah I'm a dad. But in some ways, it's the structure of Paul's letter. And and it's the the rhetoric is the style or the the analysis of how he structures the letter. a lot like when we were in middle school and you had to write your first five paragraph paper.
00:06:32
Speaker
Right. which is going to say your three thoughts, your three paragraphs, or the three different thoughts, and then your conclusion, and they all wrap up together. But if in in writing that paper, when you get to your third paragraph, you might reference something from the first paragraph. But when I'm reading a paper, I can stop and slow down and go back and reread. When we're reading Paul and Romans, if we don't understand the place where we are, and we don't have what we haven't been just been reading it from start to start to where we are, we're just picking it up. It's helpful to know where we are so that we don't get confused on
00:07:10
Speaker
What are you saying? And and i I think that rhetoric in in this sense is is a little larger than simply the structure, too. True, true. Yes, yes. It's starting from something that more people might. Right, right. Study like as a smaller example of what Paul is doing on a much bigger scale. Sure. I mean, rhetoric in the ancient world was the academic and and power discipline.
Role of Rhetoric
00:07:40
Speaker
um If you studied rhetoric, you were you were kind of the rock star of the ah ancient world. um ah Rhetoricians were were, you know, and and and I think what we oftentimes fail to recognize is that we're we're also immersed in rhetoric today, but we don't call it rhetoric.
00:08:01
Speaker
um A rhetorician is simply somebody who is trying to move you to do something, feel something, believe something, think something by using words to do it.
00:08:15
Speaker
And so a comedian who's trying to make you laugh is a rhetorician.
00:08:22
Speaker
So, I mean, you know, Jim Gaffigan or somebody like that, that's a that's a ah that's a rhetorician. Okay, he's he's using words in both the timing, you know, of of his delivery. And if you've ever listened to him, he's got kind of, he does this sort of different voices where he's got, he's imagining somebody talking, or he's imagining somebody who is, you know questioning, why is he telling me all these jokes about, you know, or something like that. Does he really want to?
00:08:53
Speaker
yeah right yeah that's That's rhetoric. but But I mean, so is Madison Avenue. I mean, um every commercial you watch on TV or and ah on a YouTube or whatever um is is a form of rhetoric. they're They're trying to get you to do something.
00:09:14
Speaker
And maybe with images, maybe with words, that's all a kind of rhetoric where they're trying to get you to to ah ah to do something. You got to buy their product.
00:09:25
Speaker
right to open your wallet, you know pull out your credit card, buy this gizmo or a trinket that they're advertising or this product, that's that's rhetoric. and um or Or you can even say you know a film, a movie, is a form of rhetoric because usually the director wants you to feel something or think something um you know to to have a kind of emotional state. of After watching that, Paul is doing that here.
00:09:59
Speaker
and And I think we ah oftentimes we we kind of treat Paul as if he is some sort of a of ah of a fact book. You know, we we read these we read these these passages from Paul um and and we say, OK, here's what he's, you know, here's the here's the truth that he's speaking but But in fact, Paul is not only speaking truth. He is speaking truth. Don't get me wrong. But he he is using those words to to try and get his audience, his reader, his hearer, to think and believe and feel.
00:10:37
Speaker
Hence, going back to the Pentateuch and referencing Abraham. Well, and and yeah, and what what he's doing right here is with with this piece is he's trying to he's trying to get you to, he's made this kind of bold statement in the earlier chapter that that you're standing with God, your your your rightness, okay, a righteousness.
00:11:03
Speaker
But I kind of like to take the ness out of the middle of that. I just say R-I-G-H-T hyphen ness, your rightness is is brought to you, is given you, is established, not on the basis of keeping the rules, the law, not on the basis of some standard you've met, but on the basis of faith.
00:11:34
Speaker
That's a really kind of ah ah and and and Paul uses that term, and he makes that claim in the sort of all-encompassing sense. He doesn't just say faith is part of it.
00:11:47
Speaker
He says faith is it. it's it's It's everything. and that's a really And so now he's trying to get you to agree. He's trying to get you to think with him these things. and And one of the ways he's going to do that in the ancient world and still for us today is he's going to go back to the Torah.
00:12:07
Speaker
Because for a Jewish guy, Torah was the authority. and he's going to argue, make an argument, you know, back to your daughter's, uh, your daughter's, uh, uh, essays that they're writing in, in both high school and college, they're making an argument. They're trying to get the, they're trying to convince essentially the, the, the instructor to agree with him. Um, he's trying to, he's going to use the Torah to get you to do that. And, ah
00:12:38
Speaker
ah and And he actually does that. ah ah the The actual argument of that is a ah little bit earlier in the text. It's in the first part of chapter four. ah We pick it up at verse 13.
00:12:50
Speaker
But there he Paul makes this really weird, ah to us it sounds kind of weird, ah argument with blue out of a sense of literal reading of the text.
00:13:03
Speaker
He says, listen, it's right Abraham cannot be considered righteous because he kept the rules.
00:13:14
Speaker
because and And the reason that Paul says that is be that that in that that those words, he was considered righteous, happen in chapter 15.
00:13:27
Speaker
He doesn't get the command to circumcise himself and Isaac and his son Ishmael until chapter 17.
Defining Faith
00:13:36
Speaker
and And in Paul's world, anything that happens prior in the text is prior in the in the logic. And so he's reckoned righteous in chapter 15 when he looks up, and that's when he looks up into the sky, so shall your children be. That's the reference he makes to you, like the stars of the sky or the sands of the seashore.
00:13:58
Speaker
the Abraham believes God, trust it trusts God's promise, and that's what That's what makes him righteous. And it isn't until later that the law, the rule, circumcise comes. and so And so Paul says, logically, we have to accept this.
00:14:23
Speaker
But I think what we're getting here is, is i think maybe, ah up ah you know, i I think for us probably an an even more important part of this, and that is,
00:14:38
Speaker
What's faith?
00:14:41
Speaker
I mean, Matthew, when you tell, when i mean, you you teach confirmation classes, you teach Bible studies. really I don't know about you, but when I've been in those situations and I've just asked people, I said, you know, define faith for me. What what is it?
00:14:57
Speaker
you know, I find that Very few of my people or very few people that I've run into would be able to write that that five paragraph essay and convince me on what faith is, you know? but they They don't have the content. They don't have those middle three paragraphs.
00:15:14
Speaker
They usually have the first one, which says faith is really important because Paul says it.
00:15:22
Speaker
But they can't go into what it is. I mean, well i'm I'm curious. what I don't know, if you have you ever had that experience? Yes, yes.
00:15:35
Speaker
Very much that experience, and not just the Confirmans. i mean, this is lifelong yeah Christians, like lifelong you know disciples, and dare I say even lifelong Lutherans, for that matter. Yeah, yeah.
00:15:47
Speaker
the yeah that concept because they don't have all of the and not so we're not saying that everybody's going to fully understand faith it's it's a du divine gift and we're we're kind of we're ultimately going to be left not being able to do this but when when we're applying it and and like you've you've written about before or when we're faithing life when when we're doing the verb of faith um we we get that first part, it's super important, but then it's, well, what what are the other two things? And then kind of ah a theology of of of glory, no, theology of yeah glory comes in. Oh, I need to grow my faith.
00:16:34
Speaker
i mean I need to strengthen my faith. I need to do something to take this gift that is beyond anything I could ever come up with on my own. and and make it better and so for me i've and don't know maybe i learned this uh from you many years ago um to me if if faith is a gift it's a lot like the blanket that is hanging behind you that you got from yeah and when when i receive the gift of faith wherever whenever that happens it's almost like that blanket
00:17:11
Speaker
It's there. Now, from where I'm sitting, and we were talking about this before we we were recording, I can't make out the little details. and I can't tell if that's an elephant or ah baked potato.
00:17:24
Speaker
right But as as I grow in my in the knowledge of my faith, as I study the scriptures, as I hear and see Jesus in my life, as as I go through situations like you know a broken foot or a broken arm when you're a little kid, tonsils, you know and I'm like, how do I do this faith thing? Because I feel miserable right now.
00:17:51
Speaker
right But then there's there's a brother or sister that... that walks alongside me. So I'm on like one little dot on your blanket. I can't understand everything. I haven't experienced it yet. I have a brother, sister, probably mom or dad at that age.
00:18:08
Speaker
go, oh yeah, I've done this before. me walk with you as we are faithing together. And then I can support you just by being there because I know what this is like. And then you get to experience life in the faith that God has given you.
00:18:25
Speaker
Right, right. it's It's much more of an experiential lived thing yes than a than it is a a ah conceptualized you know you don't you know um i and yeah i think there's there's a number of really helpful illustrations we can use some I guess maybe metaphor would be a way to think about it. mean, faith itself is kind of a metaphorical word, but a but but it is it is a it is a noun and it describes a something. and But I think there's a number of ways to to come at that something from different directions. yeah know Anytime you do that, you're always missing what's on the you know coming at it from the other side. you know You can't ever get the whole thing. But I mean, a lot of people talk about
00:19:16
Speaker
you know, faith as relationship. And I find that really useful. um You know, I i think about, you know, and and i I oftentimes use that when when we talk about infant baptism with people, because i i happen to have been at present at the birth of all three of my children.
Faith as Relationship Metaphor
00:19:37
Speaker
and And that was a really amazing thing. thing for me as as a father to be there. And you know what's really cool about ah a newborn child is that um they they lay that child on on on on the chest of their mother.
00:19:58
Speaker
And that child is like immediately at peace.
00:20:03
Speaker
um And it's it's really wild. you know yeah and but I'm sure being born, i have no recollection myself, but I'm sure being born is a somewhat traumatic experience. And and a ah and and a newborn is like awake for um like the the next hour.
00:20:21
Speaker
They're just wide awake. Right. their Their eyes are just like wide open. After that, they get sleepy. And they'll kind of sleep for the next three weeks for most of the time. But ah but for that first hour, they are just fixated.
00:20:37
Speaker
and and and yeah a nurse cannot calm them. ah Nobody else, the only one who can really calm them down, who really gives them that peace, is their mother. Right.
00:20:51
Speaker
and And you go, why is that? Well, they've been listening to her voice. They've been hearing her heartbeat for their whole life. All right. In that womb. And so they they they have a relationship already with her.
00:21:05
Speaker
and And I think it is it is it is you know yeah it is a ah misconstrual of of faith to to say that faith is is the intellectual knowledge of God.
00:21:16
Speaker
Faith is not contrary to that intellectual knowledge of God, but that ain't faith.
00:21:23
Speaker
and And that faith that that infant has, even though they cannot articulate and and can't, india and I mean, a newborn baby, yeah we just don't know exactly what they're thinking because they can't tell us.
00:21:39
Speaker
But yet I would be really surprised if they are able to cognitively you know i you know, name or identify anything at that point.
00:21:50
Speaker
But they know that woman who gave birth to them. One of our daughters when when they were born for that first, you know, baby's born and you've got to do the the tests eventually and measurements. and Right, right.
00:22:06
Speaker
The entire time that she was not with mom. Stressed. Yeah, not just stressed, like utterly ticked off. And you could tell. I didn't know the time. mean, she's newborn. no know Less than three hours old. Oh, that's what her cry sounds like. Okay. um Now that now she's much older.
00:22:31
Speaker
it's It's been the same whenever she's stressed or ticked off. It's that same tone, that same thing she had as a newborn. And I can't tell you you know this as well as I do, I can't tell you the number of times that the only thing that's going to help her through this stressful situation is go talk to mom. Go talk to mom. Yep. yeah and ah and and And I think there we learn something really important about faith is that is that it it really transcends the cognitive. It transcends the knowledge, you know, um that that i think I think faith strives to know God.
00:23:09
Speaker
And just as just as, you know, when I i'm in a i have a relationship with someone, i want to know how their day was. i want to know more about them.
00:23:21
Speaker
but But that knowledge, you know, isn't the relationships. um yeah I think another really, and and this is kind of idiosyncratic to me, and and I don't know, that it has its limitations.
00:23:36
Speaker
But but i I think there's a kind of a really cool kind of technological um illustration of faith. And um i I liken faith to a radio's antenna. i said so So if you can imagine... you know, um we're we're going to do this little picture metaphor. i'm going I'm going to push this to its absurd end for you for a moment. ah That that that that that i am i'm i am a radio, all right?
00:24:06
Speaker
um And i'm I'm this little, you know, transistor radio. I've got this, I sit on the on the shelf maybe and i i can, and I have all the all the parts necessary for it, but I have no antenna.
00:24:21
Speaker
I am faithless. Now, if you think about it, you know god you know i'm I'm sitting in a room right now um in in a North American city, and there are radio waves all around me. there There are country music stations and rock and roll stations and classical and news and all sorts of stuff being broadcast. as It's all around me.
00:24:43
Speaker
of But in order to pick those things up, I have to have an antenna. I have to have something that catches it and And if you think of God as the radio station who is broadcasting this love, just constant outpouring of love into this world.
Faith and God's Love
00:25:07
Speaker
and And yet, if I don't have faith,
00:25:13
Speaker
I'm oblivious to it.
00:25:16
Speaker
But that what faith does when I, when I, when I, you know, screw that antenna into the into the top of my radio if it's fallen out. Or i or even, i mean, and this is the weird thing about it is, it doesn't take much to be an antenna.
00:25:32
Speaker
Right? i can I can simply, you know, duct tape a piece of coat hanger into the right spot and it serves as an antenna. And ah that that we we we oftentimes, you know, we know some I hear this, you know, some dear woman in the congregation has died and people say, oh, she had such great faith. I'm going, you I think what she actually had was a really great Jesus.
00:26:01
Speaker
i love it it. And through faith, he did great things in her. um and And because I think what we oftentimes do is turn faith into this active virtue in which, you know, the faith is a reflection of me and I'm doing something.
00:26:25
Speaker
but But in fact, faith what is is is a passive in in much the same way that, you know, a a radio's antenna doesn't actually do much.
00:26:38
Speaker
It just sort of hangs there. and catches or yeah or or you know is is impacted by those radio waves. And likewise, my faith is impacted by the love of God, and that gets transmitted into my life.
00:26:58
Speaker
um yeah I think that the the the places in the Bible that are that our faith faith definers, faith descriptors faith definers are those great I am passages that Jesus uses in John, where he says, I am the vine, you are the branches.
00:27:18
Speaker
I am the shepherd, you're the sheep. I am the door, you pass through me. you know I am the light, you see because I shine.
00:27:31
Speaker
I am the truth, you know what is and what isn't, how things are because of me. but you know i am the life, you Without me, you're dead.
00:27:45
Speaker
yeah um that that that ah ah That those i am passages in the Bible are really, I think, where where God talks about, well, this is faith.
00:27:57
Speaker
and and and And God there says, god God says who he is and who we are, but we're connected. I think that vine and branches one is really they probably the clearest one because, you know,
00:28:11
Speaker
the the The root and the and the and the vine are what well up all of those all of those things that allow the fruitfulness. And that's what Jesus is talking about right there. um It's not that that you know the the the branch is to be commended because it has a particularly strong adhesion to the vine.
00:28:34
Speaker
who would Who would think that? but um so So Paul here, so we should probably get back to the text a little bit here. Paul here is talking about this faith of Abraham.
00:28:45
Speaker
This relationship, this this this sense that that that Abraham is, is is and and he builds the on this. He says, you know, Abraham was as good as dead.
00:28:57
Speaker
He was 100 years old. Sarah was 90. You know, These are not people who are going to have children.
00:29:08
Speaker
They had no naturally born children of their own. And God had promised them that he would be the the father of these many nations. and And he would have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the and the sand on the seashore. and and And Abraham said, okay, I trust that.
00:29:35
Speaker
God's gonna do that.
00:29:38
Speaker
and And that that gets reckoned to him as righteousness, that that this promise God made as the promise maker and and Abraham as the promise receiver.
00:29:51
Speaker
There's the vine branch relationship. That that is what made Abraham righteous. If you'll notice, I mean, I i find it really interesting that when you read the Torah of, You know in verse 19 here, it says, he did not weaken in his faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead.
00:30:11
Speaker
You know, I read the, to when you read that Genesis story, you kind of go, Paul, did you read all of that? Come on, man. What about that whole Hagar thing? What about that day when he's he's down in Egypt and the Pharaoh, you know, is is making eyes at Sarah and and and and he goes, tell him you're my sister.
00:30:32
Speaker
Yeah. she kind of gets brought into the harem of the Pharaoh and, and you know, god God manages to get her out of there. And it yeah did Abraham, you know, that that doesn't look like Abraham being resolute and strong in his faith.
00:30:54
Speaker
Right. But I think that's us thinking about faith in the wrong way. The relationship doesn't start with Abraham to God.
00:31:06
Speaker
the relationship starts with God to Abraham.
00:31:11
Speaker
In the same way that that that, you know, that newborn child
00:31:19
Speaker
laying on her mother's breast minutes after her birth does not establish that relationship with her mother.
00:31:31
Speaker
Her mother establishes that relationship with her through that entire pregnancy. As she is, what, giving her the nutrients and and all of the all of the stuff of life that that that as she forms in that womb, that's what's establishing the relationship.
00:31:53
Speaker
being Being that place of warmth and safety and growth and nurture. That's what makes her my daughter, you know? and um And that's what allows that little girl to say, that's my mom.
00:32:10
Speaker
And ah it isn't that that she chooses that or that she somehow makes that happen. And I don't think Abraham did either. And so even when Abraham is screwing it up, and even when we're screwing it up, yeah God...
00:32:29
Speaker
is faithful I love that line Paul uses in in Timothy, you know, where he says, yeah where you know, you know we're you know ah ah it's this he does this kind of couplet thing. And at the end, you know, he says, well, if we deny God, God will deny it. He says, if we are faithless, God always is faithful.
00:32:53
Speaker
And it's kind of this this little surprise turn at the end of that little bit bit of rhetoric right there. He's getting you ready, you're ready, you're ready. All a surprises you and he's just caught your ear there. That's um that that that here what I think what Paul is really doing is explaining and and helping us grasp what it is he has said in those earlier chapters.
00:33:17
Speaker
Well, this is this is faith. um
00:33:24
Speaker
So that God in whom he believed, in whom he faithed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that are not.
00:33:38
Speaker
you know Just as that infant daughter receives from her mother those those those gifts of life, you know what gives us faith?
00:33:52
Speaker
God calls from the dead. He raised Jesus Christ, but he also calls into things, into being those things that are not. Genesis one, he creates everything.
00:34:06
Speaker
And that that that we we we and sort of live in that contingent dependent relationship on God.
00:34:17
Speaker
i don't I don't, you know, yos screw up my eyes and grit my teeth and dry real hard and get myself some faith.
00:34:28
Speaker
That is something God has already been doing to me and giving to me from the very beginning. i find this passage just super important for us to sit back and reflect for a little bit.
00:34:44
Speaker
you know we We just use this word faith all the time. and
00:34:49
Speaker
I don't think we really think about it. No, I don't think we do. a My brain is, for some reason, i made a jump to Luther's small catechism explanation to the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer.
Recognizing God's Provision
00:35:06
Speaker
Give us this day our daily bread. And... minutes and it So it's, I think, when he says, you know surely he gives this to us. This isn't something we mean that we need to, we're not desperate. We we don't look for a dictator or a pharaoh or something. Please give me, you know, the but the necessity for life. But he also does this for non-believers.
00:35:32
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It's not a proud... The unrighteous at the same time. Right, right. And and I see some similar... i don't have to think about this, and this might be part of my sermon for this Sunday. This is that connection ah from from you know mother and and child in the womb. Mm-hmm.
00:35:54
Speaker
God as creator and offspring and created. Like there's still how many people don't get that God is the one providing for them.
00:36:06
Speaker
I'm seeing like an outreach type thing like this. You guys have taken for granted everything. And it's not just taken for granted. Like, oh, shame on you. And I'm going to wag my finger at you.
00:36:17
Speaker
but do you realize the source of everything that's been given to you and not because you did anything, just because you were created and loved.
00:36:28
Speaker
Right, right, right. You know, and and I think this is this is, in fact, you know, really the caustic or the the acidic value of, or value, I should say, the the acidic effect of the, of,
00:36:46
Speaker
of the of the reductive materialism that and that so fills the world in which we live is that, you know, that Paul can sit here and assume, well, God made you.
00:36:59
Speaker
know, he's the one who who gave you all of these things, you know, um and yet we now live in a world in which the default the world ah conceptualization or the default attitude and and thinking of the people that that are in the world around us is essentially that that, well, these things just always were, they always have been, and you know that I'm sort of the product of some random cosmological process that that you know resulted ultimately in in an evolution of people, and and I'm one of them.
00:37:36
Speaker
and ah And that that you know my life and myself really has no meaning. And i am i that there' is no there's there's no there, there. what but but that But that in fact, you know even even people who who who are kind of atheistic scientists yeah I wouldn't say, i don't want to I don't want to equate atheist and scientist. That's not that's right proper.
00:38:05
Speaker
But those who are these atheistic, you know reductive materialistic scientists who think that that their lab experiments are in fact the sum total of reality. Even they scratch their head and go, I can't, my science doesn't explain to me why why life exists.
00:38:28
Speaker
you know why consciousness? Why do we think? Why do we feel? How does that actually make sense? and um yeah know and And there's these just these huge arrows, I think, in our world pointing us toward or the reality of something.
00:38:47
Speaker
Now, it doesn't necessarily point us to the personal God that's revealed in Scripture. That takes the Bible. But that that uh you know i think increasingly and i'm kind of glad of this that that that reductive materialism is proving more and more unsatisfactory to people it still is kind of the default mode of a lot of folk but i think when they really come to come to those crisis and and deep thought moments in their lives i think i think they are they are
00:39:25
Speaker
um they're finding that there's got to be something more than that. and And I see that as a huge opportunity or for for Christians you know to to say, yeah, this God is, you know this is the one who, like your mother, you know you were knit together in her womb. know she you This is God doing this for everybody.
00:39:53
Speaker
And and that that that actually makes way more sense of the world we live in than this reductive stuff.
Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser
00:40:04
Speaker
Yes. have a feeling we could keep going on for hours. We can. We can. How far in out where it are we, Matthew? I don't know. I don't know. I lost track of time. But my brain's already going, okay, ah you know, planet earthers. I don't want, you just the pop culture. I'm not saying anything's wrong with that. Like, you can go that route. you can go all sorts of different.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah. how How this text impacts us is is not just, like you said, that that knowledge of faith, but how how the relationship with us and God impacts our relationship with the world.
00:40:44
Speaker
And in some ways, dare I say his, but that's a whole other podcast.
00:40:50
Speaker
Possibly. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, I mean, there's there's probably a good dozen, 15 sermons in this text. um I mean, just on that, and I would just maybe want to leave it on that last little bit. What is it that drives our faith? Yeah.
00:41:08
Speaker
that drives our faith um
00:41:13
Speaker
He says, it was count these were not written for him alone. This wasn't just written for Abraham. This isn't just true about him. But it's also counted on us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up, sent by that same father for our trespasses, and who was raised for our justification.
00:41:37
Speaker
you know that that That whole Good Friday to Easter morning piece, there is there is our There is the the ground and the and the and the upwelling of faith.
00:41:52
Speaker
That's where Jesus established that relationship with us. That's when Jesus birthed us.
00:42:03
Speaker
Cool. Wonderful stuff. Thank you, God, for working through Paul. Yeah. Well, and... Thank you for an opportunity to talk about these things together with somebody because, boy, these words were never meant to be heard alone. They're really just always meant to be to be pondered, but also to be talked about.
00:42:26
Speaker
And so i think it's really great we're doing this, Matthew. Thank you. Thank you. I couldn't do it without you.
00:42:35
Speaker
all right. Well, with that, thank you guys for joining us for this podcast. Next week, when you get to our next show, we'll be in the third Sunday after Pentecost and continuing with Romans. Romans 5.
00:42:52
Speaker
Sounds good. Sounds good. All right. Anything else before I let you depart in peace? Let's go. right. Sounds great. See you next week. All right. God bless you, manyy God bless you, too.