Romans 11

In Romans 11 Paul states that all of Israel will be saved, all of Israel is going to heaven.

The same people that denied Jesus, that begged the Romans to crucify Jesus will be in heaven with Jesus.

Why?

Because God's love is bigger than we can understand.

God made a promise to Israel long before Jesus entered the world (verses 26-27) and God does not go back on His promises.

Even though they denied God's son, they beat him, mocked him, treated him like a criminal, stripped him of his clothes and tried to strip him of his dignity, and convinced the Romans to carry out the cruelest form of execution possible.

Still God keeps His promise.

If I were God and I witnessed my son being treated like that I might go back on my promise. Good thing I'm not God.

But how far is God willing to go?

What about people who deny Jesus today? People who mock and murder Christians?

Will God give them the punishment that they deserve?

Or will God offer them the same grace he has offered to Israel?

Romans 10

Verse 17 "Faith comes from hearing the message..."

Paul is writing about the people of Israel. The people that God had promised a savior. Paul writes that they had heard the message, but still didn't believe.

So how is it that some hear the message and believe while others hear the message and don't?

Maybe it is the way that the message is shared.

I wouldn't want to believe any message that involves protesting funerals and damning the world to hell... That doesn't sound like good news to me.

I am more open to listening to a message of love and grace... I think the world likes to hear good news.

But still, some will hear the good news and still not believe.

Unfortunately we can not save others, we can try and try and try but only the Holy Spirit can give someone faith.

I do not know why the Holy Spirit gives faith to some and not to others. My only guess is that the HS tries to give faith to all and some just aren't ready to accept it.

Which is why we have to keep trying.

When we tell the story it's like pouring gasoline on the fire. We can't do the work of the Spirit, but we can help!

Romans 9

Let me begin by apologizing for not blogging on Friday. It was one of those days that started at 5:30am and went past 11:00pm. I did read the Romans text when I got home, but my brain could not comprehend what I was reading. But we are back today with Romans 9.

Verse 20 "Who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?"

I have a friend who used to say to me "God created us in His image and we immediately returned the favor." He is a friend that is not afraid to speak the truth in love. When I need to hear that God is in control, not me, he is the one to say it.

We need to be reminded that God is in charge, not us.

One of the things that we are born good at it... and there is only a few (pooping, eating and crying) is our ability to talk back. Kids have a natural gift to drive their parents crazy. But eventually we all get to an age where there is no authority figure that we can talk back to... but we can always talk back to God.

A kid talks back to his parents because he doesn't like what they are saying, he thinks that he knows better. It is a struggle for control.

We struggle with God for control all the time. We think that we know what is best for us. We think we know what is best for God.

"God, if I got this job/boyfriend/house/car or if I got into _____ University or won the lottery then life would be great."

Sometimes we get those things and somehow life isn't great. So we ask for the next thing. We believe the myth that the next thing is going to change everything. But it leaves unfulfilled and looking for answers. A cycle of chaos.

Our lives are full of chaos. So much is beyond our control.

Genesis 1 tells a story about a world of chaos which is brought to order by God, day by day God works on the world until it is good.

The only way for life to be great is to let God bring order to your chaos.

It will be a process, day by day. The first step is the hardest, giving control to God. And in the end it probably won't look like what you were planning.

But it will be good.

Romans 8

"Verse 38 "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."

This morning has been a holy morning. I feel extremely blessed and humbled that God has called me into the service of Word and Sacrament.

This morning I baptized a man that has been fighting disease. His prognosis for the short term is good, but there is high likelihood that the disease will return. So, with an uncertain future here on earth he made sure that his eternal future was taken care of.

That's what this verse is all about.

No matter what happens to us here. Nothing can separate us from the promises that God has made in love through Jesus.

The one and only thing that can separate you from God... is you.

Some people choose to live their lives separate from God. Some people blame God for the wickedness in the world. Some blame God for wars (some wars were started by Christians in the name of God), for earthquakes, hurricanes and deaths of loved ones.

Some people want nothing to do with God.

I started a book group at Abiding Grace and the first book we are reading is called Love Wins, it was written by Rob Bell. Bell argues that a loving God wouldn't send people to hell.

My response is... what if hell is where people want to go, to stay away from God. Wouldn't it be a loving act by God to submit to their wishes? Out of love God gave us freedom, freedom to live how we want and freedom to deny the One who gave us freedom.

Separation then is a gift to those who want it.

I have returned the gift and exchanged it for something better.

Romans 7

"So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."

Yesterday I wrote about how I want to do what God wants me to do and how sinning isn't fun. But today I found myself having fun and I think I was sinning.

I came home from visiting someone in the hospital and found a huge ant hill next to my driveway. There were thousands of ants living in this big mound of dirt. Ants were created by God, they do their own thing and don't really bother me. But today I felt like I needed to remove them from my property. So I took some Ortho-kill-little-ugly-things stuff and sprayed it on the top of the mound. Then I took a rake and started destroying the mound and a sea of black little ants came pouring out. And I got every last one of them with the sprayer. I don't know why I enjoyed it so much, maybe it was therapeutic.

And afterwards I felt great... I'm still kind of smiling.

Is that what God wanted me to do? Probably not. Was it a sin? Maybe. It felt sinful anyway.

The point of the story is that we are at the same times both slaves to God and to sin.

Martin Luther said that we are both saints and sinners. Instead of being one or the other we are both. We live in the tension of serving God and ourselves. Until we no longer live on this earth.

And that's good enough for me.

I think I know of another ant mound.

Romans 6

Verse 11 "count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus."

Paul has just spent 5 chapters telling the Romans about how salvation comes from faith in God's grace alone. He uses chapter 6 to warn them from accepting God's grace in vain and living a life of sin and wickedness.

(It should be noted that when Paul wrote this letter there were no chapters and verses, it was meant to be read as a whole letter. All of Paul's letters are meant to be read as whole letters.)

There is a tendency to read the parts of the bible that we like and ignore the parts that we don't like. We like the parts about grace and forgiveness and not being able to earn our salvation... But we don't really like the parts about having to live a good life and stop sinning.

Because it is hard to stop sinning.

Paul says that we need to count ourselves dead to sin. That verse reminded me of Band of Brothers, a mini-series about the men of Easy company and their battles in World War 2. In one of the early episodes a soldier is paralyzed by fear and his commanding officer tells him that the only hope he has is to accept the fact that he is already dead. (See the clip below)

The only hope we have to live the life God desires for us is to accept the fact that we are already to sin.

But we don't to be dead to sin, because there is a small part us that believes that sin is fun. The great theologian Billy Joel did say that "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun."

But that's a lie. We have all seen the effect that sin has on our lives. Lies ruin relationships. Friends and families are torn apart by unfaithfulness and lust. Economies crash because of greed.

I'm note sure how to count myself dead to sin. But the first step is realizing that there is a better way to live.

The experiences I have had living the way God intended are the best experiences of my life.

Unfortunately I am still alive to sin.

Romans 5

Verse 3 - 4 "we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character, hope."

The definition of hope is "to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence." (dictionary.reference.com) Hope means believing that what we want to happen will happen.

Hope is a powerful thing. Hope makes life worth living... sometimes it is the only thing that makes life worth living. Nelson Mandela survived in prison for 27 years because of hope.

But hope comes with a price. And the price is suffering. If life were perfect we would not need to hope for anything. Adam and Eve didn't need to hope for anything.

But they ate the apple, sin entered the world and never left, and because of sin we suffer. Our world is broken.

But our suffering makes us stronger... or it destroys us.

We can handle suffering if we have hope. I grew up 2 houses down from a family of 7, 2 parents and 5 kids. The youngest, Paul was a couple years older than me and taught me how to play basketball. Paul's oldest sister died of cancer, then he died of the same cancer, then his other sister died in a car accident, then one of his brothers died of cancer, and then his father died of cancer. 5 deaths in one family in less than 10 years. His mother now suffering unlike any other person I have ever met in my life. Then the doctors told her that the cancer her children had was a trait they received from her. But she didn't fall apart because she has hope.

Hope that her entire family will be reunited in a place where death and suffering are not welcome.

Hope in Jesus is all she has, and it's all she needs.

It's all any of us need.

Romans 4

In Romans 4 Paul uses the story of Abraham to make his point that faith is the path to righteousness, not works. Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

Abraham was an old man with an old wife, Sarah (I'm sure she was a lovely lady though) when God promised him that he would have his first child. Sarah laughed but Abraham believed, even though it seemed impossible. Which is why Paul writes in verse 18 "against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him."

When God makes a promise, God comes through, every time. No matter how impossible the promise seems.

God has made a promise to us. The promise is eternal life. Eternal life that begins the moment we are baptized. Right now we are experiencing eternal life. We don't realize it because we are blinded by our earthly life, blinded by the problems of the here and now.

Problems that are overwhelming at times. Problems that not only blind us to God's promises but make us forget about them all together.

In those moments it is important to breathe... and remember Abraham.

It's never too late. It's never over. Even when this life and all the problems and struggles are over... It is never over.

We are never over.

Romans 3

Any good Lutheran pastor would blog on verse 28 where the Lutheran theology of justification by faith comes from. If you want to read a blog on that, see my blog on the book of James.

Today I want to write about verses 5-8 where Paul is arguing against telling lies to enhance God's truthfulness.

I wish there was more context to these verses. What kind of lies were the Romans telling? Remember, the Christians in Rome did not have the gospels at this time. The Gospels were written many years after this letter. Maybe they were making up stories to make Jesus seem more divine. I wonder how outlandish they were. Did they say he flew around like Superman? Did they say that he glowed at night? (Opposite of the hundreds of emails that I have seen that are full of lies about our Muslim extremist President)

Because the stories we have about Jesus are pretty awesome. He walked on water. He fed 5,000 people with a little bit of fish and bread. He turned water into wine. He healed the sick and raised the dead. He himself was raised from the dead and floated away to heaven. What more do you need to say about him?

Maybe this is a warning to preachers. A warning not to make up stories to better help people understand the Truth. But then again, didn't Jesus do that? He called them parables. And what if Jonah wasn't really in a whale for 3 days or the earth wasn't created exactly how Genesis says it was? Aren't the writers of those books making up stories?

Maybe Paul is writing to the church leaders that mislead people on purpose for the sake of the gospel. Like saying the world is going end on a certain day, that way people are forced to make their peace with God. Creating false urgency... kind of like a used car salesman.

The problem with the Great Commission is that Jesus didn't create a training module for all the disciples to follow. We have been sent to tell the world. We will make mistakes along the way.

Which is why grace is such good news.

Romans 2

I have been blogging the bible now for close to 4 months. I have posted 73 blogs and we are in our 11th book of the bible. I post my blog here and then always post it on facebook so that more people have the chance to see it. Over the past 4 months I have posted on all kinds of things, scandalous things like Osama bin Laden and an innocent man being put to death by the government for the crimes of someone else.

Occaisonally I'll get a comment about my blog, or maybe someone will hit the "like" button. But the one day I talk about homosexuality my facebook page fills up with comments. Every generation has their issue. 500 years ago it was the Lord's Supper, 30 years ago it was women's ordination... I guess ours is homosexuality. We all have an opinion on it.

Which is why I am so thankful for Romans 2:1 "you, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself..."

You don't need any context to understand this verse. There is no other way to read the verse... Yet, it is the one we most often get wrong.

We judge people every day. We make decisions about people from what others tell us.

Sunday night the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA championship and the whole country celebrated because nobody wanted LeBron James to win. The country had judged LeBron and the verdict is guilty... of being a jerk. But do any of us really know him? Of course not.

If we choose to continue to judge people that way, we must be prepared to be judged that way. What if everyone you met knew all the mistakes you made. It might be hard to make new friends.

What if the world believed that loving your partner was wrong? And everyone you ever met knew that you loved him or her anyway? That would be a hard life.

Truth is, it's not the world's decision to make. It is God's. We should not pretend to think we know what God thinks. There is no seat next to God in court, He alone is the judge.

What I do know is this... God loves everyone, no exceptions.

If you want to speak for God then start loving.

Romans 1

Romans 1 is often referenced by theologians that argue against homosexuality, claiming it to be a sin.

What I don't really understand is verse 26 "God gave them up to degrading passions..."





Some argue that homosexuality is a sin because it is a choice that one makes which is against God's will. What I think Paul is saying is that because of a broken world, which long ago has fallen away from God's desires, God has made people with passions that go against the natural order of the world.





I have a friend I have known for a very long time that is gay. She said to me, "do people really think I would choose this? Why would I choose to be persecuted my whole life?"





I don't know the answer and I admit that I know very little about psychology and how the mind works. (Whether it is a sin or not is not my decision, it is God's decision. When speaking on behalf of the God I serve I choose to err on the side of grace.)





What I do know is this...





Romans 1 has a list of sins that at some point in our lives everyone of us is guilty of. We are all deceitful, boastful, gossips, rebellious towards our parents and greedy at times in our lives.





There is not one person that is not included in the sins of Romans 1.





And just like all the people Paul is writing about, we all deserve to die. Gay or straight, we get what we deserve.





But then we get what we don't deserve.





Everlasting life is for all those who believe.





And frankly, I'm excited to get there... because we won't have to argue about this stuff anymore.

The Plan

We have completed 10 books of the bible! It has been a great start. Tomorrow we start Romans, us Lutherans should feel right at home.

Then we will go to:
1 & 2 Thessalonians
Numbers
Song of Solomon/ Song of Songs

That will last us a couple months. See you tomorrow!

Habakkuk 3

***Habakkuk 3***

Verse 13 "You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one."

Habakkuk was a prophet, he saw things before they happened. This book is believed to have been written in the 7th century BC, meaning it was written before the Babylonians came and took the Jews into exile.

We know very little, if nothing about Habakkuk, except that he was Jewish. And like all Jews, he was waiting for the Messiah to come. The first two chapters he got right. The Babylonians came, destroyed Jerusalem and took the Jews into exile. But chapter 3 is a vision of God coming to deliver His people and save his anointed one, or the Messiah.

God does deliver the Jews from Babylonians after 80 years and Jerusalem is re-built. But the Messiah does not come until later.

God is up to something bigger than Habakkuk can grasp. God sends the Messiah, Jesus to save all people, not just the Jews.

The world is delivered by God through the Messiah... but not by God coming to save him, but by God forsaking him on the cross.

God is still up to something bigger than we can grasp. Understanding that is the beginning to a life of faith.

There is danger in thinking that we can grasp what God is doing.

Habakkuk 2

***Habakkuk 2***

Verse 15 "Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors ... so he can gaze upon their naked bodies." When did the bible become PG-13? Is that why my neighbors have yet to offer me a drink? Hmmm...

Let's talk about verse 4 instead "The righeous person shall live by faith."

What does that mean to live by faith? Because it's not very practical. I can't have faith that my fridge is going to be full and my bills paid... I need to work to make that happen. So how is it possible to live by faith?

Our church has been doing a bible study on the book of Acts and last night we studied chapter 20. In chapter 20 Paul says goodbye to some good friends, he realizes he will never see them again so he leaves them with some wisdom.

He tells them that he spoke fearlessly, lived independently and faced the future boldly. I would say those three are pretty good examples of how to live a life of faith.

1. Speak the truth at all times. Don't speak a lie, even if you think it is what the other person wants to hear. Tell people why you believe what you believe without fear of offending. But be open-minded as well.

2. Do not rely on others to take care of you. Work if you can, earn a living and live within your means. Living independently means living on what you make, not what you make and what you can borrow at 20% interest.

3. Realize that all things, good and bad come to an end (sadly, even this blog). Nothing will last forever on this earth. We will quit, be fired or retire from our job. My wife or I will die first. It's a fact of life. Do not fear the future because our hope is not in human efforts but in divine grace. We will live eternally, but not here and not because anything we accomplish.

And the final thing I would add is love. Love all the time. But love the right way.

Alcohol + nakedness does not equal love.

Habakkuk 1

***Habakkuk 1***

Habakkuk is sick and tired of all the corruption he sees and wants God to do something about it. God responds by brining to the Babylonians to defeat the Jews.

God brings an army against His own people because they have become wicked and forgotten what God requires of them.

So the Babylonians come and take the Jews into exile for close to 80 years... or 2 generations.

The eternal nature of God can be annoying because sometimes God takes 80 years to make a point... either live as grateful people delivered from the hand of Pharoah or I will I give you an enemy that I will deliver you from, in 80 years.

We are finite people, we now that at some point everyone of us will die, and since we are living on borrowed time we want God to listen and act in a timely manner. I can't imagine Habakkuk being happy about the answer that he got from God... but he did get an answer.

Is there corruption and wickedness today? Yes. Will God send an enemy to overtake us? I don't know.

But I now He sent His Son, and we treated Jesus like an enemy. But through His death and resurrection we have been delivered from the damnation which we deserve to the salvation which He prepared for us.

We have been delivered from Pharoah... and ourselves.

Thank you God!

Esther 10

***Esther 10***

The final chapter of this strange little book is all about how Mordecai was honored as the king's second in command.

After reading the book in its entirety, I think it should be named Mordecai not Esther. It is a fairytale-like story about a man who spends his days outside of the king's gates and comes up with a plan to get inside. He gets his beautiful cousin into the palace and uses her to influence the king. At the end of the story he is brought into the palace, given royal garments to wear and is the number 2 in command of all the kingdom.

How it happened though is tragedy and comedy.

Tragedy because somewhere around 100,000 people are slaughtered in this little book. And comedy because those deaths were the result of stubborn, prideful men being morons.

Mordecai refusing to bow to Haman is how this story begins. And it ends with Haman dead and Mordecai on top... but Mordecai should have bowed to Haman. Haman was a member of the king's court. Mordecai was in the wrong, his stubborness almost cost the every Jew their life.

Haman deciding that because one Jew didn't bow they should all be killed. Haman had a right to kill Mordecai according to their laws, but to kill every Jew because of the disobedience of one is overkill... pun intended. It reminds me of Mike Tyson telling his opponent he wants to eat his children. Really? I have heard that mobsters will go after your family, but I've never heard of anyone going after an entire nationality because of one person. That's what happens when egos swell up and pride takes over.

Haman and Mordecai just needed to either hug it out or fight each other like men.

The story of how these two plotted against each other is nothing new. We still do it today. We might get in argument with a friend or relative... then we will call all our other friends or relatives to tell your side of the story before the other person does. We include others in our disputes so that they will be on our side. The things we do when we are angry can be pretty funny, but they can also be tragic.

I once punted a basketball in the middle of a game in Junior High because the referee was terrible... I felt like an idiot immediately afterwards. (pretty good kick though... I remember being impressed for a second)

A guy in high school punched a brick wall and broke his hand. Yeah, I laughed, everyday for 6-8 weeks.

Truth is, we all do stupid stuff when we are mad. We are all stubborn and prideful at times. But unlike Mordecai our stories of pride and stubborness will not end with honor, they will end in embarrassment. They will end in regret and important relationships may be gone forever.

In those moments take deep breaths, don't involve others, and don't punch or kick anything.

Life is hard enough already. But if you do, please tell me what you did... I am always up for a good laugh!

Esther 9

***Esther 9***

The Jews kill more than 75,000 enemies in one day... a day that become a religious holiday.

It is a great victory for the Jews who were afraid of being destroyed by the evil plot of Haman... but should it be a religious holiday?

Did God act is the murder of 75,000 men?

I am certain that God did not want the Jews to be erased from the world... but I don't think God wanted 75,000 people slaughtered either.

Did God bless America through the atomic bomb? Should we celebrate every year the anniversary of when we dropped it on Japan? No and no.

It's incredibly sad that it ever happened. This story too is incredibly sad. I shutter when I think of what men are capable of.

God did respond, but he didn't come and kill any enemies, he came to be sacrificed.

At the hands of men.

Esther 8

***Esther 8***

King Xerxes is once again persuaded to change his mind... he decides the Jews will not be killed but instead be honored because Mordecai and Esther are Jews. Instead, the Jews now are encouraged to band together and destroy their enemies.

This decision comes not long after he made the decision to have the Jews erased from the earth. I get the feeling that Xerxes could be a real jerk, depending on what day you went to see him.

He decides the fate of people's lives like it's not really a big deal to him..."yeah, that sounds good, kill them... oh my wife is one of those, ok kill the other ones then."

His decisions, which he didn't really think through have effect so many.

Our government makes decisions every day without knowing or often caring what is best for the people... some only care about what is best for them. (That may have been cynical, but I'm a little cranky this morning... too many dogs barking too early)

We can do it too. We say or do things without thinking through the consequences of our actions. My preaching professor in seminary told us that we will hurt someone's feelings from the pulpit at some point during our career... and they will leave the church because of something we said and we'll never see them again.

It's part of being a preacher, it's part of being human.

I'm just glad it's not life or death...

Or is it?