Results tagged “Works”

Galatians 3:1 - "O foolish Galatians!" Paul says. Why? Because they were buying into the notion that they had to follow the law to be justified. What law? Well, specifically he refers to circumcision in chapter 2, but not directly. I don't think it's clear here what law or laws they were relying on, the sense to me is bigger than that. It's not that this law or that one isn't needed, nor that the law isn't valuable, it's that it is powerless to save. Not only that, but they were taught not to rely on the law but on faith in Jesus, so Paul calls them fools.

If Paul came back, i suspect he'd enter many of our churches and cry out "You foolish Americans!" hearing sermon after sermon on proper moral living and how to improve ourselves. We like to think that we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, that we can work hard to fix ourselves. We cannot, and to preach, teach or live by that philosophy is the height of foolishness.

In fact, if we could fix ourselves, it was Jesus who was the fool for coming here to be tortured and die for nothing.

Galatians 3:10-14 - The standard of the world is that if you follow the rules, things go OK. Well, that's conventional wisdom anyway, we see examples all over of folks who skirt the rules and get ahead anyway, at least superficially. but Paul here refuses even to pay lip service to conventional wisdom, pointing out the elephant in the room - that we simply can't follow the letter of the law. We forget the rules, we defy them, we are simply pulled into disobedience by the attractiveness of sin. So, if we rely on good behavior, we are finished before we've begun.

But, he says, Jesus turns the conventional wisdom (that's patently false in reality) on its head. He becomes the one and only human in all of history to follow the rules, the only one qualified to receive the prize on his own efforts, then he swaps rewards with us. We get his (eternal life with the father), he gets ours (death on a cross). Remember Monte Hall and Let's Make a Deal? You've won a new set of cookware, but do you want to trade it for the mystery behind door number 3? It might be junk, might be a new car, who knows? Well, Jesus took the deal and swapped rewards with us, except he knew both prizes ahead of time and that His rightful reward was far superior to what we earned. But he knew that the only way that we would earn anything but death was if he earned it for us, so He made the deal.

So don't pretend that you are all that and have worked hard for that which Christ has gave you. And don't fall into the trap that, somehow, if you're not good enough, Jesus is going to switch back. He's not.

Galatians 3:15-29 - Most of this stuff goes over my head. I squint my eyes, cock my head and read it over and over and I still don't quite get it. One thing I do get is that Jesus is the fulfillment of a promise made to Abraham long before (centuries before) the law was given. No number of laws can make that covenant void. The law was given temporarily, our guardian is says in Galatians 3:24-25 (ESV), until the promised faith was revealed completely in Jesus. Now that He is here, its purpose is complete, its job done, and we have no need of it. Wow, cool.

James 2:1-7 - The way of the world, and frankly too often the church, is to look at those ho are poor as failures. They made bad choices, or are not that bright, or else they wouldn't be in that spot. James calls these things 'evil thoughts' in verse 4. If we are honest with each other, there are people that we are tempted to do the same with. They are harder to love because they are needy or maybe just annoying. Do you avoid them in the fellowship (or the workplace, school, wherever)? I know that I am tempted to. I see them on the caller ID or at church or wherever and I hope they won't want to talk to me or I'm tempted to let the call go to voice mail. Oh, I know what I ought to do, so I take the call or have the conversation. But is that what Jesus or James would have us do, gut it out for the sake of doing the right thing?

Instead, I should pray to see them as Jesus does and have his heart to give to them. This goes back to that John Piper list of 5 ways to handle it when you don't want to do what you ought. Instead fo gutting it out, we ought to pray for God's heart.

I was tempted to leave most of this out, because, frankly, it's embarrassing to admit. I have a hunch that many others have these same thoughts and temptations, however, and as disciples of Jesus, we need to be called higher. Jesus spent most of his time here with those who were outcast by society, why should we do any different? The only way we can do as He did, however, is to pray for the transforming work of the spirit in our hearts.

James 2:12-13 - James calls us to live under the law, not the old law but the "law of liberty". In other words, as Paul taught, we are free to live God's way as opposed to being slaves to disobedience. So we should live as one with the freedom, finally, to do the right thing.

What does being judges by the law of liberty mean? It means being judged on our mercy, according to James 2:13. So, having been set free and shown mercy, we must do the same. If we do not, we will not be shown the mercy we claim to embrace.

James 2:14-26 - Some like to point to this passage as saying that good works are required for salvation, even saying that James said that Abraham and Rahab were "justified" by their works. But if you read it properly, James is not saying that at all. he merely points out that the two go hand in hand. Faith without the "good deeds" to back it up is a lie, it simply isn't faith. And note, he never talks about "Good deeds" apart from faith. The two are inseparable. If you claim one without the other, you deceive yourself.

Nehemiah 13:1-9 - I'm unclear on the time line here. Verse 1 seems to indicate that they discovered the part of the law about associating with the Ammonites and Moabites on the same day as the events of chapter 12. Verse 4 inidcates that Tobiah was given the room before that, but the rest of the paragraph seems to indicate that Nehemiah had been away for some time and this had happened then.

So, was this just more reform that Nehemiah participated in, or was a a slip into old ways after Nehemiah left?

Nehemiah 13:10-13 - This passage seems to support that Nehemiah had returned to the King for a time and returned to find that people had slipped into their old ways.

It points to a challenge any leader has. Nehemiah's heart was for God's honor in all this, that seems to be what motivated him. It was a dishonor for the wall of Jerusalem to be broken, that lead to further restoration of the temple practices, following the law, etc. While he restored all these actions and behavior, based on what happened after he left, it's clear that he didn't instill in them the passion he felt for God and His honor. Those practices seemed good to them at the time, but once Nehemiah left and took his conviction with them, they felt no conviction to maintain them.

The bottom line is that it is easier to use your passion to create change in behavior than it is to create a change in heart. but a change in heart produces the change in behavior on its own, even if you leave.

Nehemiah 13:18 - Once again, they've forgotten the consequences of the sins of their fathers and are perpetuating them, thinking the same will not befall them.

Nehemiah 13:23-27 - The people had forgotten who they belonged to, they forgot the price that was paid by their ancestors and by God in His bringing Israel to the promised land and removing the pagan peoples from it for them. They no longer saw themselves as chosen, but simple another resident of the land. The blended in.

As disciples of Jesus in America, we do this all too often. There is no difference between us and the non-believers. We intermarry with them, thinking nothing of it. We allow our children to build unhealthy relationships with those who have no fear of God at all. We forget the price that was paid for us and in doing so we act just like Israel. The answer is not forming communes or closed, isolated communities, but we live a long, long way from that.

Nehemiah 13:14, 22, 29, 30 - Four times Nehemiah pleads for God to remember what he has done on His behalf. You can almost hear the frustration and the pleading. I can understand it, he's trying his best and the people aren't getting it. But I wonder if maybe there's something in that repeated plea (and it's happened elsewhere in Nehemiah too). Perhaps his focus was to much on the doing instead of teaching them to want to do on their own. It's hard to say, but I wonder if perhaps he had done more to instill his passion on a few leaders if perhaps they could have carried the torch while he was away, and instilled that passion in a few more. Then they would do the same and the passion would spread leading to a longer lived revival.

Sound familiar?