no gospel at all

The Galatian Christians had a problem, one I read about this morning in the first part of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The problem is summarized in Galatians 1:6-7: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.”

It seems after Paul planted his churches there, some others came behind him and contradicted him. They didn’t believe in grace, and encouraged the people to try to earn their salvation. As Paul said, that’s not the gospel.

Here’s the uncomfortable part, though: the ones who came preaching a false message were God-followers too. They were Judaizers, a sect of the new church that tried to reconcile the Gospel with all their previous rules, like circumcision. To them, those rules were what made Jews Jewish. They saw this time in Galatia as a mission trip.

That makes me uncomfortable because I wonder how often the leaders of my denomination do that. Do we ever try to make people do things that aren’t part of the Gospel in order to meet our preferences or perceptions? Do I do that?

I’m reminded to be very careful when I express my opinion about church matters. When I want to require more of my church than Jesus does, I create barriers between people and him. That’s the last thing I want, or Jesus would approve of.

build them up

I wonder what Jesus would have done if he’d lived his life for himself. Maybe all the same things, since he was still God while he was here, but a side comment of Paul’s in Romans 15:3 (“For even Christ did not please himself . . . .) makes me think that sometimes he may have wanted one thing but done another. So I wonder if sometimes he wished he could go be with the snooty rich people and have a little luxury, or maybe take some time off from preaching to go sightseeing in Egypt.

Idle speculation, really, because that phrase is connected with this, from Romans 15:1-3: “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself . . . .”

Christ put himself last when it came to the push and pull of being in community. It’s as we try to fit into a town or workforce or church or any other group that we find what others are doing impinges on what we would prefer. And in that context we’re told that Jesus looked to other people first.

Paul makes a winning argument here, in his assumption that his readers are as strong as he is. Once he makes the tension about strong, selfless people and weak, self-centered people, of course we all know which group we see ourselves in.

Then why, though, do I so often assert my own desires? Why am I so grumbly about my neighbors’ noisy activities at 9:30 at night? Why am I so short-tempered in lines or in traffic? Could I be one of those weak people that Paul is writing about, not to?

There’s a purpose to Paul’s instruction: that we build our neighbors up. Encourage them. Help them become more than they are, more of what they want, not us. What’s important is not that we have a pleasant life, but that everyone has a chance to grow.

Not a bad instruction for our snarky age, when the most admired skill is the art of the put-down. Christianity is truly counter-cultural. Here’s the revolution we all need, folks.

authority

Citizenship is hard. I want to contribute to society rather than burden it. I also want to carry out my civic responsibility to participate in the national dialogue and shape the direction of my community, my state and my nation. But mostly that just gets me into fights.

One reason that happens, I think, is that few of us want to honor God’s direction as given to us through the Apostle Paul. Paul wrote this, in Romans 13:1 “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

You see, when Bill Clinton was my commander in chief and implement Don't Ask, Don’t Tell as the military policies toward gays, I didn’t want to go along. I didn’t like President Clinton, so I didn’t feel I should have to follow him. And as a businessman, I had (have) some serious issues with the Affordable Care Act. Now, I’m struggling to embrace our current president.

It can be hard to remember that elections aren’t random, and there isn’t anything that happens on earth that God doesn’t see and control, and use for his purposes. We humans want that to mean that it’s God’s will to have Christian leaders, but even when he was here on earth he took no interest in politics. He left the Roman occupiers and the Jewish Pharisees in place when he ascended.

Paul is clear: the authority of President of the United States comes from God. A stable government and a peaceful society are part of God’s plan, part of common grace, if you will. Government mandates for religion seem not to be. Can it be that God wants us to win souls, not legislate obedience?

Despite my reservations, I think I do OK because I learned as a young officer candidate that you respect the role and the rank even if you wonder about the person. I think that’s what Paul is saying. As hard as Obama was to swallow for the right, and Trump is for the left, God doesn’t want chaos and anarchy. We all submit to a democratic, fairly-elected government.

Due respect to the office of President is an important component of civil order, and civil order is necessary for justice to be available to all. And it’s plain from scripture that God cares a lot about justice.

sober judgment

Sometimes it’s no surprise to me that me and my fellow Americans at this point in time have such trouble being spiritually attuned with God. In fact, sometimes I’m amazed that so many of us are doing as well as we are.

When I was an English major in college, we studied a strong thread in American literature called the Great American Adam. Much of what American authors wrote contained a strong, independent person going to a new place to begin a new world. But American Adams didn’t succumb to sin, they created civilization through their indomitable will and strong character. A key attribute was independence, and the willingness to throw off old ways and be confident in ones own rightness.

I’m not sure about the rest of it, but I think the confidence in our own rightness has survived the intervening 241 years intact.

This morning I read this from Romans 12:3 “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”

To see myself as I truly am is a sort of spiritual gift. It’s human nature, and maybe part of American character, to see myself as better than others, as special. I think my own desires are above rules; I want other people to follow them but I shouldn’t be constrained by them. I’m prepared to resent my neighbors if they don’t conform to my standards. How do I pierce this bubble of my own inflated ego?

I’m not completely sure, but it’s interesting that Paul connects my ability to think of myself with sober judgment to the faith God has distributed to me. This suggest that the closer I walk with God, and the more faith I put in him, the more I am able to see myself clearly, not as the center of the universe but in the context of all of God’s people.

I think that ability more than anything else could revolutionize this country. Another reason to pray for revival.

culmination

I’ve never liked the smell of blood. The odor is strong and unpleasant, and it brings bad memories. I don’t like the way burnt flesh smells either – not just something over cooked on the grill, but the smell when a barn burns down, or worse.

These gruesome thoughts are in my head this morning because I’m reminded of what worship for Old Testament believers was like. Every time they went to church, they started with a sacrifice. Blood had to be shed, and caught in bowls or allowed to run down. Carcasses were burnt. Can you imagine, the noise of bellowing and bleating animals who can smell the death and know it means bad things, along with the horrible odors?

There was a purpose to it all, which was to remind the people in a very visceral way how much God hates sin. What happened to the animals is what sin deserves, but no animal can atone for all of a person’s sin. God’s law of the sacrifice allowed, for a time, a way for people to try to make things right with God.

Not me, though, or you. We live in a wonderfully different reality, after the cross. This morning, in Romans 10:4 I read, “Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”

The law of the sacrifice was fulfilled completely and for all time by Jesus’ sacrifice. His blood running down the wood of the cross was such an amazing act of grace that the righteousness it earned is enough for all my sins, and for yours.

This is the great wonder of our faith, the thing that no other faith on earth offers. God loves us completely and forgives us fully because all the death we owe him, death equal to thousands of animals, was made good by one death, that of Jesus. A free gift of grace that frees me forever from guilt. Now, every time God looks at me, instead of my grimy, sinful self he sees the clean white clothing that Christ has dressed me in. He sees Jesus’ righteousness as though it were mine, and he loves me as he loves Jesus. I will never have to pay that price. My trips to church don’t include blood and burnt flesh, nor does my future.

How to respond? There isn’t enough I can do to adequately express my gratitude, and to my shame I don’t do all that I could. But today, I’m resolved to do better.

more than conquerors

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“‘For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39

This morning, I’m just going to let scripture stand, without comment. One of my favorite passages, one that never fails to comfort and encourage. And certainly one that needs no amplification or explanation.

wages and gifts

One of the things I talk about a lot at work is what to pay people. I sit in on a lot of meetings about what our pay scale should look like. Are we competitive with the regional manufacturers we compete against for workers? What jobs should be worth more than other jobs? How much does night shift get more than day shift?

And then we hire people pretty much weekly. We decide whether to hire them at our starting wage, or whether maybe their experience or qualifications justify a higher rate. Sometimes neither is true but we need them, and they have other options that pay more.

What are we worth? What do we deserve? Paul has a discouraging answer, in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If, as at work, I deserve what my actions are worth, then hell should be in my future. I’m a sinner, and much as I want to, I can’t seem to shake it. On the spiritual pay scale, that means my pay is death.

But the other thing I get to do a lot at work is give stuff away. We give bonuses, and have a company incentive plan. I approve rewards for good work – things like gift cards and jackets and nights away. Those are a lot more fun, even if numerically they’re considerably smaller.

That’s reversed in the second half of Paul’s verse above. God has a gift for me that’s breath-taking in significance: eternal life. In God’s pay structure, wages are a big negative but the bonus plan is heavenly. And the bonuses come courtesy of Jesus, whose spiritual bank account with God is so high he couldn’t possibly spend it all, not on me or all of humanity.

Wages are what I deserve. This gift is what God chooses to give me. I’m immensely grateful once again for his grace.