The Notes are Good

In business, we desire to assess our performance.  We measure all kinds of things.  We set goals.  We have KPIs, Key Performance Indicators.  We monitor industry numbers, the economy as a whole, and businesses in our sector.  We look for trends and strengths and areas for improvement.

We measure ourselves by benchmarks.  We grade on a curve.  Am I doing better than others?  Am I ahead in the race or falling behind?

We do the same in our lives.  We compare ourselves to others.  I’m not perfect, but I’m no____ (fill in the blank).  I went to church (check), donated clothes to the needy (check), called on sick friend (check), that’s way more than most people so I’m doing pretty good!

But, God’s law is not on a curve.  It does not care what others are doing.  It is not based on averages or norms.  It is based on the holiness and perfection of God.  God’s law is not just outward signs (check boxes), but it includes everything we think, say and do and also the things we fail to think or fail to say or fail to do.

Benchmarked against others, our sin might appear insignificant, lost in rounding.  But compared to God’s law, all sin is sin against God and sin is death.  In this way, our sin increases as we come closer in our relationship with God.  The prophets fell on their face at the sound of God’s voice struck by their own impurity in relationship to His.  Isaiah said, when he came into the presence of God, I am a man of unclean lips, woe to me.

But God’s grace is manifest in His love for us.  That He sent His one and only son into the world that we might live through Him.

This isn’t something new, but has always been a part of God’s nature.  Some people believe that grace came with Christ, but Christ was and is always a part of God.  Look at the commandments in Exodus 20.  We know verse 5 where God says, in reflection to the command to not have any false gods, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,”

God is a jealous God and we know that sin does have consequences and those consequences hurt others for times to come. And, all too often, we stop there. but did you notice the punctuation at the end of that line?  It is a comma, not a period.  We, too often, forget verse 6 from that same passage in regard to God, “ but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

God’s grace is not new.  God’s grace is far greater than any sin and always has been.  Grace has always been a part of God and always a part of His plan.

My Answers:

10.
a.
Because it points out what is sin. Instead of measuring sin against others or norms, we are forced to measure it against God’s standard of perfection. In contrast to that our sin is much greater.

b.
If I hold to the world standard I do what I can get by with. Holding to God’s standard calls me to integrity and ethics and character and charity.

11.
God prompted me and protected me to remove a sin from my life. By so doing, when it was brought up by another as something that was causing others to sin, it was weeks/months in my past.

12.
The dominion of darkness and the kingdom of the Son. (these would also make awesome names for a band!)
D of D ==> Death, eternal separation from God, lake of fire, gnashing of teeth
K o S ===> peace, love, joy, eternal presence with God, holiness

Here is an illustration.  You and your wife are on a very big boat at sea.  The ship-builder equipped the boat with everything you could want or need and visits with you daily to care for your needs.  There is just one rule – don’t drill a hole in the bottom of the boat.  Seems like a pretty reasonable rule, right? Except that is what Adam and Eve did.  Wanting to be “like God” they brought destruction in to His creation.

Ever member of their family since has shared a common fate.  We are all born on a sinking boat with no ability, on our own, to repair it.  Some days we may be in denial that we are sinking, but we are.  Wishing it wasn’t so, lying about it, going along arguing that it is not so are all foolishness when the truth rushes in.

Adam was a man who wanted to be like God

Jesus is God who chose to become a man to save the world.

Jesus offers an alternative.  He has brought us a new boat, one that he navigated through the worst storms without a scratch and one that is perfectly seaworthy to take us home.  He comes to each of us individually, with an offer to accept his hand and come on to his vessel.  But it is up to us to choose.  He paid our ticket, He invited us aboard, we don’t earn our way, but we do have to get on His boat.

My Answers:

8.
separation from God, sin, wickedness, sorted and thrown away into the blazing furnace, wrath and anger, trouble and distress, destruction

9.
a.
Jesus’ death and resurrection as payment for our sin

b.
eternal life, Christ in me, living by faith, ability to approach God with freedom and confidence, heavenly citizenship, equiping, a desire to do what pleases God, glory, holiness, boldness to spread the word.

I pray and strive for it to be evident in all I think, say and do and that His words and spirit flow through me.

Artists will draw or paint a 3-D perspective on to a 2-D piece of art by using a technique know as a vanishing point.  They pick a point on the drawing and connect the lines to that point creating triangles, wide in the front, but narrowing to a single point in the back.

It has been said that art imitates life and, in this way, that is very true.  We see life and options available to us as a wide path.  We are free to go any direction, do anything, be whomever we want to be. But, the truth is that path narrows to nothingness.  The all things along that path converge to a single point that Adam brought in to the world. Death.

But, Jesus opened a new perspective.  As we first see it as a non-believer it is a single point, a tiny gate, a narrow path.  This point is the choice of faith.  Believe or do not believe.  Love God or hate God.  A single point for a single choice.

However, this choice is the exact opposite of Adam’s choice.  Instead of a path that starts wide and narrows, the path of being a believer is Christ starts narrow and goes eternally wide.  We grow in knowledge and faith.  We grow in holiness.  We grow in love.  We grow in compassion.  Instead of an end, we live for eternity.  Instead of being hemmed in by the walls of this world and this place and this time and this body, we will be set free to live in new bodies in heaven forever.

My Answers:

5.
Both had free will and choice. Both were fully man. Both knew God personally and intimately. Both men brought eternal change to mankind.

Adam was a man who wanted to be like God. Jesus was God who elected to become a man to right the wrongs of the world.

6.
Righteousness, being made right with God. It is the connecting point. Without the bridge or Christ’s death to bring righteousness, we do not have an opportunity to exit the path of sin and death.

7.
We are born into Adams family. We are chosen and elect to become members of Jesus’ family through faith.
I’m united to both

We are fickle about choices.  On one hand, we like alternatives and don’t like being hemmed in.  We like variety.  We like freedom to do what we want.  On the other, we hate the need to make so many decisions.  Sometimes we feel overwhelmed and just want someone else to decide.  Where do you want to go for dinner?  No, where do you want to go?  We fall into ruts for the simple reason of avoiding making a new decision that we might not like the results.

But we sometimes forget that the ability to choose is a gift from God.  God did not have to place the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden.  He could have told Adam and Eve, there is nothing here that will harm you, do as you wish.  This is like the environments we try to create for toddlers, working to remove anything that can cause them harm.

But, instead, God placed the tree in the center of the garden.  Not because He wanted Adam to sin, but because he wanted him to choose to obey.  Without the fruit of the tree, Adam could not choose to love and obey God, he would not have had any other choice.  But God gave Him the gift so that He could participate in true and free love, just as the Trinity is love.

As you go through your day, today, making choices such as choosing what to wear, what to do, where to go, what to say, when to get up, when to lay down, what to eat, who to pay, remember the most important decision of them all.  As Joshua said in Joshua 24:15, “… choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, … as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

My Answers:

3.
Adam, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or he would die. Sin and death entered the world through him

4.
Born sinners. A lot of people believe that others are basically good, but only God is good and without God we resort to wickedness.

A few years ago our hometown team won the baseball world series.  In celebration the entire city came out.  Schools were closed.  Businesses shut down.  People literally parked on the highways and walked to the location of the parade and party.

Everywhere you looked, everyone was wearing uniforms, jerseys, team colors.  Flags, logos, banners.  Cheering, yelling, celebrating.

And what were we celebrating?  That our team scored more points than the other.  That we had more success with a ball and bat.

Now, let’s compare that accomplishment to the accomplishment of Christ.  To defeat death!  To rise, on His accord and own power, from the grave.  To be exalted to the most high.

The boasting and celebrating that Paul discusses is to boast and celebrate in Jesus in the same way we wear the jersey and celebrate the accomplishments of our hometeam.

Whose name is on the back of your jersey?  Hopefully it says Christ Jesus!

My Answers:

10.
justified by His blood, saved from God’s wrath, through Him. Reconciled to him while still God’s enemies. reconciled through the death of His Son, having been reconciled, saved through His life. Boast in God, Through Jesus Christ we have receive reconciliation

11.
a.
balanced, no outlying debt or obligation, brought back into full communion, returned to an original state.

b.
We are reconciled to God – God did not sin and leave, we did.

12.
through Christ’s death and resurrection we are saved. We boast in His gift, his sacrifice and His accomplishment. we don’t “do” anything for He did it all.

While we are working on vocabulary this week, let’s look at the word “powerless”.  It does not mean power-reduced or power-decreased.  On a scale of power from 0 to 100 it isn’t a 99, a 90, an 80 or even a 20.  Powerless doesn’t mean we have less power, it means we have ZERO power.  Zip.

Our ability to save ourselves is not a “we can take it part of the way and then God runs the final lap.” We don’t even make it to the starting gate.  We don’t make it to the race.  We don’t even make it out of bed.

Grace is God coming to our house to pick us up and carry us.  Running the good race is to realize all of the strength to run comes from God.  Without the Holy Spirit we have an empty tank and no wheels.

My Answers:

8.
a.
powerless, ungodly, sinners
Because it is clearly not something earned nor do we need to “qualify” for it by ancestry or deeds.

b.
Powerless means without power without ability. We don’t have some ability, we are completely without.

9.
It is unqualified and unearned. Salvation was given in love not reward or obligation.

For my fellow nerds, today’s passage has to be one of the best in the bible.  It is a formula.  A straight forward input/output model.

If you are feeling hopeless and want to gain hope, the formula is straight forward.  To gain hope, you need to add character.  To develop additional character you need perseverance.  To grow in perseverance, you need suffering.

Let’s look at how this makes sense.  As we discussed yesterday, hope is not wishing, hope is anticipation of a time of completeness and unity in God’s Kingdom with fellow believers.  But if we despair or are pulled down by the challenges of this world, how do we grow our hope.  The key input is to gain confidence in God’s promises.  The way to do that is to grow in confidence of our own word and promises.  In other words, to develop our own character.  Character is what we stand for, how we see ourselves and the world and what we choose to do when no one is looking.  As we grow in our own character, we gain an appreciation for the character of God and how He keeps His promises.

To grow character we need to exercise.  Not physical exercise, but discipline all the same.  How to stay the course.  How to stand.  How to be strong.  How to be reliable and resilient.  This doesn’t come from head knowledge, it comes from practice.  From doing and failing and doing again, each time better and stronger.  We persevere.

To persevere, we need challenges, resistance, struggles.  Without struggle, it would be like exercising without weight or movement.  While no one likes or wants struggle it is the only way to practice our ability to persevere.

Do we then pray for struggle?  Do we request God bring hardship into our lives?  In a way, yes, but it is actually far easier than that.  Anytime a Christian steps out in faith to spread the good news and grown the kingdom, we face struggle.  The evil one will through anything and everything in our path, every barrier, every hurdle.

So, the root of the formula is found in Christ’s words, “take up your cross and follow me.”

My Answers:

6.
a.
It is like exercise. I do not enjoy every moment of exercise, but I do it because it builds my body which is a gift from God. In the same way sufferings glorify God because they are exercises that build our perseverance. This in turn build discipline and character. Stronger discipline and character give hope (see 5) because they make me more dependable and God is far more dependable than I

b.
Charles Spurgeon called it the dark night of the soul. When things seem dark, there is always a great God story on the other end. For me it has been mostly health related, but there have been financial struggles, relationships and other training grounds.

7.
Hope in something that will not come would be foolish or shameful. But the Holy Spirit’s presence in our life is a bond securing us to God’s family and a covenant (promised by Jesus) that gives us assuredness of our future.

We live in a world that waters down and misuses words in such a way that it reduces the meaning and strength of the words.  We see two of these words in our lesson today: Hope and Peace.  Hope has come to mean nothing more than a wish.  I hope I get that raise.  I hope I can fall asleep tonight.  I hope I do well on the test.  Peace is something that is calm and soothing, such as music or a nature scene.  It is something we “give a chance” to.  It is a hand signal, a symbol, a saying.

But the meaning of these words in Paul’s letter is far more significant.  Hope is an anticipated promise, a future that is assured but also longed for.  It is more like someone yearning for home knowing they have tickets in hand or an anticipated family reunion in an exotic land as you set off to the airport.

Peace is the difference between a prisoner hearing a calming song while sitting in their cell and a prisoner being exonerated and declared not guilty and set free to be reunited with family.

Don’t miss the meaning of the words as intended by Paul.  Don’t miss the promise of God they convey and the way the world desires to water down and distort that promise in to something meaningless.

My Answers:

3.
Peace is to be no longer enemies. We fight against God every time we choose to sin because all sin is an act against God. We can only have peace with God by being justified in Christ through our faith in Him. This is as different as healing a calming tune while in prison and being declared not guilty and reunited with long lost loved ones – they don’t compare.

4.
Full access to the grace of God, the holies place in His temple. We can approach God as brothers of Christ and Children of a heavenly father. I do not earn this high regard. I should be grateful and acting in an honoring and respectful way.

5.
Hope is not a wish. It is a looking forward to. My wife and I share a shopping list. If she or I are going to the store, the other may hope (look forward to) the other bringing home items on the list, but we don’t hope (wish with great uncertainty) that they will. Why else would they go to the store as a reliable and dependable family member? Knowing what is to come gives me great strength.

Paul seems to divide the times into three sections: Before the Law, Between the Law and Christ, After Christ.  In our lesson today he provides examples from the first and second periods to speak to the third.  God does not change, but it is good to see the application of righteousness throughout our time periods.

One of the biggest lessons in this is time.  We quickly grow impatient.  We begin to doubt.  We worry and fret.  We become anxious.  We take matters in to our own hands.

All of these are opposites to having hope.  I don’t mean the type of hope that is just a wish.  I mean hope that is looking forward to an event that is promised and paid.

From the stories of the bible we see that years may sometimes pass, decades at times, between when we receive a promise and when it is fulfilled.  What we fail to see is the perspective of what else is happening during that time.  We don’t see how we are becoming stronger by feasting on His word.  We don’t see how God is moving all the pieces of the world into alignment.  We only see that it isn’t happening right now, which is what we would prefer.

What should we do when we feel impatient and anxious?  We should do the same thing that Paul did for the Jews in Rome – remember God’s faithfulness.  As children of Abraham through our shared faith in God, we receive and inherit all of the promises and covenants God provided to “His People.”  He has never failed to deliver on those promises.  He doesn’t rush.  He doesn’t delay.  He provides them as the time is right and we are prepared.

By filling ourselves with hope, by serving, studying, reading, teaching, praising, praying, trusting, obeying – we keep hopelessness, doubt, worry and anxiety at bay.  God is the creator and His timing is perfect.

 

My Answers:

11.
faith was hopeful, not weakened, strong. We (all who have faith) are Abraham’s offspring

12.
With hope, with faith that was not weakened, with strength in God

13.
Family challenges

As humans, we love to arrive, don’t we?  We love to reach an accomplishment.  It means celebration.  It is a mark, a medal, something to add to our side of the tally.  Something to be proud of accomplishing.  It really doesn’t even matter what it is, we celebrate it.  We set goals.  We set milestones.  We benchmark against others.

But last week in Romans we discussed the downside of pride and how it separates us from God.  Circumcision was a covenant, not an accomplishment.  Faith, works, deeds, when they become religiosity and plaques on our walls are not longer things that point to God because they have become things that point to us.

So, what is the value of obedience and the law?  What is the point of doing good works?

An interesting answer to this comes from Deuteronomy 30.  As the Israelites were preparing to make their entry into the promise land, God provides them with instruction.  As you read it, you will see that He lays out two paths from which they can choose.  They can choose the path that leads to peace and long term possession of the land which involves following God’s laws and commandments and continuing to commune with Him.  Or they can choose the path that leads to battles and loss and being scattered in exile from the land with disobedience and separation from God.  The outcomes of each of these choices is not a threat, it is not a blessing or curse per se, it is simply a fact from one who knows the future.  The choice is completely left to the Israelites.

We get the same choices.  Following the laws of God and being obedient is not an accomplishment to check off, it is simply a sign that we are still on the right path.  When we recognize that we are not being obedient to God, that too is a sign, one telling us to repent and turn back.

While we could hang signs on our walls, the more practical thing is to use them for their intent – to provide direction.

My Answers:

9.
~14 years. Ishmael was 13 and he had not been conceived when God declared Abraham righteous. ~430 until law.  Not earned. years wait

10.
a.
They, in essence, say that the price Jesus paid for their righteousness was insufficient so they need to “add to” what Jesus did. Obedience and signs is not a currency that God accepts for righteousness and salvation

b.
Easy – I have sinned. Any sin is an imperfection. Any imperfection is not “right”.
But, I do not believe that God looks at my righteousness but at the covering that Christ has provided to me.