The Book of Romans - the great equalizer

 A coworker asked a couple weeks ago if I would be willing to start a Bible study with him. I, of course, enthusiastically said yes. We met last week as a preliminary meeting to plan out how we wanted to move forward. As we ate, hung out, and talked, I listened way more than I did talk. It seemed as if part of he desire to have a Bible study was to get off his chest many things he has been holding onto and unable to process on his own - about life, faith, etc.

As I have prepped for this weeks study (we are going through the Epistle to the Romans), I am reminded of the Gospel and its power in my own life. The reason I chose Romans is that is acts as an overview of the Christian faith - people suck, we need Jesus, we need to act like Jesus to others. That is a pithy and hyper-broad paint brush stroke of Romans, but it is still accurate.

Romans reminds me that we need Jesus every day. Christianity isn't a one and done worldview. It takes diligence, humility, love (for others and for self), and lots of patience and self-awareness. I am reminded that every day we need Christ. Not salvifically of course. That is a one and done, but in the sense that until we are with Christ, in Glory, we have yet to attain true holiness and purity. As such, we need to be humble enough to say that we need His influence, Spirit, and mind every day as we engage with the world around us.

Chapter 13 really highlights this when it talks about not viewing one another with stank-eyes - my words, not Paul's. Though it is the premise of what Paul is getting at. While is he speaking to believers, it is still apropos to read it as how we interact and engage with everyone - those who believe in Christ as well as those who don't. This is lived out in how we view those of differing political, religious, and moral stances. While Christianity has it's eyes focused and fixed on God's objective truth, it must be mindful that not all believe that and as such we ought to not view with contempt, belittling, or dismissiveness those who do not view as we do God's truth, love, mercy, grace, hope, and peace.

More specific examples of this can include how we view, and view those who wear/don't wear, masks during this pandemic. The pandemic itself. Whether or not our neighbors subscribe to the same political affiliation as we do. Climate change believer/non-believer, that too. BLM v. Back the Blue, yup. 

Anything and everything in our lives today can be viewed through the lens of the Epistle to the Romans and further still through the entirety of the Gospel and Scripture as as whole. As we engage with one another, it would behoove us to have humility as we live with each other. Each of us is broken. Each of us is in need of mercy and grace. Each of us, given our broken humanity (thanks, sin - jerk!), twist and corrupt that which should be good and wholesome. Each of us has been offered the most incredible and satisfying gift (hint, hint - Jesus!). Each of us simply has to reach out, take said gift. Each of us need seek Him each and every day. Each of us is capable of being that reflection of Jesus to others - to be there, to comfort, to encourage, to support, to admonish, to remind, to forgive, to love, to be merciful toward, to be gracious to.

Regardless of whatever is going on in your life, as I told some old students of mine the other day - you are irreplaceable. You stand unique and special. And you are deeply and genuinely loved simply because you are you. When you get a chance, read/listen to the Epistle to the Romans. Listen with an ear for the here and now, not simply for the then and there. Let it be alive. Let Christ be alive in you.

Be Blessed,

The BGRT

Removing weeds and brambles

Today I was removed bramble out of my rhododendrons. I knew they were there for a few months; since we moved into our place last October. The crazy thing is I didn't realize how extensive the brambles were. This shouldn't have surprised me as I used to weed and remove weeds for my job while I was in college. In the event you don't know much about brambles, they are a pokey, thorny, weed that winds and binds around other plants. They don't necessarily choke the host plant out, but they do stunt the growth of the other plant(s). Here is the thing, sin is a lot like brambles. You don't realize how much you have until you begin digging it out.

Sin is a lot like brambles because it starts out "small and innocuous." Yet it never stays that way. It grows, slowly and steadily. It never rests, and it isn't easily stopped. Like brambles that will move and navigate around obstacles, sin isn't easily discouraged and will find a way to continue to grow and strangle. Left unchecked, brambles (and sin) overrun that which was intended to be beautiful and full of life. What is left is stunted, malformed, and a shadow of what it could have been.

As I removed the bramble I was able to remove the harmful plant in my shrubbery and leave the good. I was gentle and careful to make sure I wouldn't hurt the plant. While I have some skill gardening, God is the master gardener. He is gentle and careful with us as He prunes sin out of our lives. He doesn't simply rip sin out, though sometimes it can feel that way. He does what He does out of love and care. For us. For me. For YOU!

As I removed the bramble in my backyard, my thoughts drifted to what are the areas in my life that are like the bramble? What needs to be removed because it is sin and not actually beneficial and healthy and life giving? I posit that same question to you - what is the sin/areas in your life that need to be taken out? Not managed, but removed completely so that you can thrive and be what God created you to be!

Jesus suffered it all

The song “Jesus paid it all" is a good song, dare I say it’s a great song. And it is true, Jesus paid it all. However, Jesus didn’t simply paid it all, Jesus suffered it all. The brutality of the Cross is found not simply in Jesus doing something that we couldn’t. It is in how He suffered for something that He shouldn’t. But for love sake - genuinely divine, unadulterated, reckless, love Jesus paid it all and suffered it all. For the worst of us. For me. For you.

When we talk about Jesus taking our sin and paying for it Himself, we sometimes, unintentionally sanitize it, and clean it up. Yet sin is dirty work. Jesus was beaten, tortured, and crucified. It was a brutally horrific process meant to intimidate those who would resist Roman rule. It is through this cruelty that Jesus identifies with us in our broken humanity the most while He is on the cross.

While He was tempted in the wilderness by the adversary, Jesus was tempted to sin in every way. That means He knows the struggle of every addiction, unkind through, reaction, premeditation, and intention toward sin. Yet it is only when He is on the cross that the full weight and failure of those sins comes crashing down on Him. His sinlessness became sinfulness. He who knew no sin became sin – our sin, my sin, your sin incarnate.

Part of that suffering also is, as we just explored Jesus was tempted in every way. It is on the cross that those temptations turn to torture. All of us know the feeling of wanting to sin and feeling terrible after the fact. Jesus didn’t just experience that for you or me. But for every man, woman, and child that has, is, or will ever live. The consequences of sin, all sin, in one moment was dumped onto one man to suffer and be crushed by.

Another way Jesus identifies with us the most while on the cross is the logical conclusion for sin – rejection and abandonment by the Father. Scripture is replete with instances where God says that HE hates sin, the consequences of sin, and those that champion it. That for those who refuse to turn (shuv) from their sin and repent and be faithful to Him the end game is many much weeping and gnashing of teeth in darkness, in fire, in suffering. Forever. Because purity and impurity cannot co-exist. And as Jesus experiences this rejection and abandonment for us there is an extra suffering that is far beyond any human infraction and sin against God. The final pain Jesus experienced wasn’t simply rejection and abandonment. That is part of it, but it is the person and intimacy from whom the rejection is coming from.

We can’t forget the special relationship Jesus has with the Father. Before there was anything there was the Godhead. In perfect harmony, perfect relationship, perfect unity, perfect love. Jesus has never not known the love of the Father and the fellowship with the Holy Spirit. It is literally part of His identity. Part of who He is. And now, for the first time ever, Jesus has that violently, and completely, ripped from Him. In Jesus’ restoring broken humanity’s relationship with God the Father, He allows His to be condemned and destroyed.

As we celebrate this Good Friday let’s keep in mind all that Jesus went through for our sake. For the sake of divine, eternal, perfect, love He sacrificed His relationship with God the Father so that we could have ours restored. It is for this reason that Jesus paid it all, and why Jesus suffered it all.

Jesus and Tough Times

Flip to any news site, scroll through any social media platform, or listen to the scuttlebutt at work or your local coffee shop and you will hear about or know of someone who is having a tough time. Go through all those motions again and you will hear just as many explanations and/or remedies for said troubles. yet for all the "expert" help we receive, we can't seem to shake our difficulties.

In spite of all the gloom and doom we see, there is hope - that ray of light that pierces through the dark and stills all our fears. In and through Christ can you and I endure and overcome the tough times we will experience in this life.

Picture in your minds eye three siblings - two sisters and a brother. Bro-ham is seriously sick and near death. The two sisters are beside themselves with worry, doubt, and fear of loosing their brother. The sisters reach out to a close family friend, telling him to please visit before their brother dies. A couple days pass and the brother passes away. The sisters are ruined by his death. It isn't for a couple more days that the friend makes it over. He too is distraught over his friend's passing. The older sister is brutally honest with the friend and tells him that only if he had come sooner. Their friend, hurt and grieving himself, says to her that it is okay to be hurt and confused. He tells her that even in her pain and hurt to trust God - to hold to her faith in her tough time, because God is with her, even though she can't see, touch, or hear Him.

The fiend then does the unthinkable. He goes to the friends grave - a tomb in the side of a hill, and instructs the stone be moved away from the entrance. He then calls to his dead friend - "Lazarus, come out!" It seems insane that anyone who call to a dead man and expect them to do anything. Yet this friend is anything but ordinary. Jesus comforts His friends in their time of need. He is deeply moved and mourns, himself. Yet despite this, He does not waiver or doubt God. In His own tough time, Jesus places His faith in God. And then the impossible happens - Lazarus gets up (but not in a zombie sense) He is alive again. Fully and unequivocally alive. He comes out of the tomb and is reunited with his sisters. (The Gospel of John 11:1-44)

While we don't see overt miracles often these days, God is still present with us in our pain, hurt, and tough times. If we are willing, if we are honest with God and with ourselves, we will see that even in the midst of our difficulties, we are not alone. That we can, and do, overcome our trails. That is a promise of God, one that we can take to the bank every time!

While I can't know what hurt or experience you are going through, I know that if you are honest with God, and with yourself; if you allow yourself to see pain the immediate hurt and pain you can see God present with you; and if you trust Him, He will enable you to have incomprehensible joy in the midst of your trails and bring you healing and wholeness afterward - something the world can never give. It is only through faith in Jesus that we can overcome our tough times. Though the road is hard and uncertain, know you have someone with you that will never leave you or abandon you.

Do you have enough second chances for me?

Questions are some of my favorite things. Whether they are my own or another's, questions draw out my curiosity and I can lose myself in discovering the answer. Recently, at a monthly high school hangout night, we had a panel of local pastors answer questions the teenagers wrote down the month prior. One of the questions was "do you (God) have enough second chances for me?" As have said, I like questions. This question cuts straight to the heart of the Gospel. The short answer is an emphatic YES!. The more nuanced answer is also yes.

A quick recap of the Gospel is helpful to set the stage - God calls existence into being (yay!). He makes everything and calls it good (yay!). He then makes mankind, calls us very good and has us be stewards of His creation (double yay!). Human sin enters the picture and wrecks our relationship with God, with each other, and with creation (all of the boo!). We have a problem now, we need to be restored to God, we need forgiveness. To rectify this problem, God sets in motion His plan for redemption - to forgive us. Enter Jesus (woot, woot, God incarnate!!!). Jesus (God the Son) was born as a human, lived a sinless life, died for our sin to reconcile us to God the Father, and rose from the dead. In doing so He defeated sin and death and opened the way for everyone to receive that forgiveness. The only thing we need do is ask for it by trusting in Jesus.

 Another way of saying this is that sin broke our relationship with God - we need forgiveness (second chances). Jesus fixes the broke (1 Peter 3:17-19) and allows us to be in right relationship with God once more (second chances offered/given). Jesus paid that price, once for all, because we couldn't/can't. The end result is we can confidently approach God (Hebrews 4:15-16). And the biggest reason that we get second chances to the nth degree is because God loves us, all of us. No matter what you or I have done. He loves us. He does not love the sin and pain we inflict, but He loves us. So much so that He gave His Son in our place (John 3:16-17) so that none would have to die. This is because nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing. Period. Ever (Romans 8:38-39).

The next time you may question whether God has enough second chances for you, the answer is, has been, and will always be yes. So run to Jesus, jump in His arms tell Him you need Him and let the love and forgiveness of God wash over you, cleanse you of your sin and live in the newness of life of the Redeemed!

The Gospel - The Promise

Hi everybody! I am glad you are here. Last time we hung out, we started our trek through the Gospel by looking at it from the beginning in the book of Genesis. We saw how the universe was created ex nihilo – from nothing by the command of God. We saw God calling creation good and His chief creation, us, as very good! Things where good. Then they went south. Humanity rebelled against God because they thought they knew better than God. Sin entered the world because of that, and all of creation suffered and became broken because of that sin. Not allowing His creation to remain broken forever, God proclaimed the Gospel (the Good News of His salvation) for the first time to Adam and Eve. That proclamation is also the first promise God makes to broken humanity.

The Gospel - Creation and Fall

What is the Gospel? Answering that is a little difficult because it is a somewhat loaded question. Are we talking about the four New Testament books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)? Are we talking about the Gospel of Jesus - that He has come to redeem sinners? Or are we talking about the Bible as a whole? As with most things it is helpful and constructive to give a comprehensive, yet concise explanation of what is being inquired of. That is my hope in my unpacking of the Gospel to all of you, my readers. To that end I will write four, hopefully full, yet brief, posts on the Gospel - Creation/Fall, The Promise, The Law, and The Promise Revealed. Through these I will traverse the whole of the Bible, highlighting the key components of what the Gospel entails. So, let's jump right in, shall we?