Episode 16: Gifts Are Greater Than Wages

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Brenton
This is further a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome back to Further. I'm Brenton Graham and I have Matt Mitchell here with me today. How are you doing, man?

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Matt
Good. Yeah, I'm glad to be here.

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Brenton
Good. I appreciate you coming in. We had Andrew Weise in Burlington and Danville and Matt in Fort Madison. So I really appreciate you guys, given the given the messages and putting your work into this, what what was prep like on this on Romans for for you.

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Matt
Yeah. Prep was really good this week. Sometimes it's a grind and you're just it's just the Lord every week. But sometimes it's more joyful, I think, to dive into it. And it's almost more devotional than than other times. But this, this week was pretty life giving for me as I was kind of looking at what Paul was saying in the text and then going back into like Genesis chapter 15 and reading the account about Abraham, like what?

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Matt
Said he believed it was kind of his righteousness, like what was he believing and looking at that. And then he references David. And so I'm 32 and reading that psalm and its context and kind of meditating on those two passages and what was going on, taking me back in to here's what I'm supposed to preach is what here's what Paul is trying to get across.

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Matt
And that has made it more exciting is makes more sense when you realize what things are in their context. Then like, wow, that's that's more powerful than I thought. Yeah, yeah, sure.

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Brenton
For sure. Yeah. And just reading through the David, they're talking about blessing and how much discussion there is. There is a, it's, it's, it's a good, a good way of looking back at our lives and realizing what, what Christ has done as a blessing in our life. And so we'll be getting into that a little later. But right now, I want to start by talking about faith.

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Brenton
So this this passage talk specifically about faith quite a bit and we'll see if if you can kind of just define that for me to start with. What does Paul mean by faith in this passage?

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Matt
Yeah. So faith is all over the Bible and there's different ways we see it, too. So in our passage, actually, the word it uses as belief, um, and faith belief. It just means trust. Confidence to have a conviction, to have assurance about something. So faith, belief, it's the instrument in which we take hold of God and His promises.

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Matt
And yes, we'll say saving faith. And it is saving face, but it's not like we we've worked up this, you know, this kind of belief in our heart about something. And that belief saves us. It's no our what is our belief in and our belief is in always in an object. It's always in a thing or, you know, in this case, it's the person of God and what he's accomplished.

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Matt
And what we're saying in Romans is he has accomplished something amazing in Jesus in that he's put him forward in our place. And when we believe that and we lay hold of that truth, we're right in God's eyes. So.

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Brenton
Yeah, yeah. And I think that the word faith can kind of get out or it can get thrown into a lot of different categories, too. So we have one objection to the Christian faith would be that we just have blind faith in something that we we can't necessarily prove, we can't see. Do you think that these are kind of different definitions here of faith or how would you kind of sort of sort this out?

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Matt
Yeah, definitely. There's like the pop culture, you know, blind faith or just, you know, you just got to believe it. And there's but there's like no evidence. It's like blind faith is like walking into the dark and somebody just says, it's going to be okay. And you literally have no idea, like, if you're gonna run into something, there's no evidence to prove you to be all right.

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Matt
But, you know, I'm just saying that through the New Testament, it is obvious when you read through the New Testament that faith is something that you can't always see. But but the evidence is there. And so, you know, it pulses and sacred these five. I think we walk by faith and not by sight. And he's talking about our relationship with the Lord and how when we depart from the body, we're going to be present with the Lord and we make it our aim to please Christ.

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Matt
And like we have never seen Him, yet we make it our aim to please him. And so, yes, but some of those evidences, it's like we've got God's Word, we have the church, we have the Holy Spirit that confirms these things. And so, yeah, it's not blind at all. I'm I'm thinking of Peter. And in the first chapter of a first Peter, he says, you know, you believe in the one that you haven't seen, even though you haven't seen them.

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Matt
You know him and you love him. And I just think that that's it's it's a mystery, but it's what God does. It's there's this evidence that we have the Holy Spirit brings about that we really are following the Lord and He confirms that there is word. He confirms that through a lot of other things. But yeah, Yeah. I mean, your thoughts on that.

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Brenton
Yeah. I mean, the way that Paul is using the word in this chapter, I think is what you were talking about earlier of this is actually how we lay claim to the promise that our the object of our faith is Christ. Faith is just the the means by which we accept that promise. Yeah. And, and especially viewing, I think biblically that faith itself is a gift from God.

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Brenton
Yeah. So but, but I think on the other side when we talk about Christians just have blind faith. I think first of all, it's it's kind of silly to say it's not true.

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Matt
Right.

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Brenton
But but also that's I think it's just a confusion of categories in a lot of ways that we're not talking about whether when we talk about faith, we haven't Christ. It's not whether we believe he exists or not, it's whether we believe in him.

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Matt
Yeah.

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Brenton
In, in his promises. Yeah. So, yeah, I think we we can have knowledge but not have faith in something as well.

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Matt
Yeah, that's a great way to put it.

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Brenton
That's good. Appreciate it. So speaking of faith, what, what do we do with, with James too? So I probably should have pulled it up here. But James essentially is going back and talking about Abraham, just like Paul is and Romans, and he uses Genesis 22. The story of Abraham and Isaac to talk about how Abraham wasn't only justified by his faith, he was justified by his works.

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Brenton
Does he? It doesn't it seem like he kind of contradicts Paul here?

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Matt
Yeah, this is a great question. And I will definitely say that I'm not an expert on showing how Paul and James are complementary to each other, but I will take hundreds of years of discussion. That's right. That's right.

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Brenton
I don't plan on fixing it today.

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Matt
And, you know, I've always thought with these that I remember as a newer believer. I remember reading through Romans and being like, Yes, amen. I like I'm with Paul and I remember reading James and saying, Yes, amen. I'm with James. And not even thinking that they were contradictory at all. And and I'm not saying that as some sort of compliment to my early self.

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Matt
I'm actually saying that I think a lot of newer Christians that aren't looking for, you know, these inconsistencies in the Bible or alleged inconsistencies, they don't see it that way. And they actually see it at face value for what it is. And I think really what it all comes down to is that our faith and our faith alone justifies we cannot earn anything as eyes.

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Matt
We don't deserve anything that God can give us, but he freely gives it. And we accept those promises in Jesus by faith. And then what James is trying to get across is if we have faith, there's not going to be this void where there's not going to, you know, and put another way, there's going to be a changed life.

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Matt
There's going to be works consistent with the faith that we have. And so, yeah, faith is the root and works in our life that Jesus is king now and we live for him. That's the fruit. And I think that they they are truly complementary and they're not trying to carry the same material that.

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Brenton
Yeah, absolutely. I think I think if we read James and look at the context and the question that he's asking in answering there in verse 14, he says, What good is it my brothers? If someone says he has faith but does not have works, can that faith save him? So he's he's answering a very different question than what what Paul is answering.

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Brenton
Right. And the answer to that is no. And I think I think just to frame this a little differently, it's kind of the difference. What James is saying is the difference between simply professing faith and actually possessing, possessing faith, having having a faith that has actually transformed our our hearts. And and then the works come after that. But if the if the works don't come after a profession of faith, anyone can profess faith.

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Brenton
But if the works don't come after that. And then it's not a true position of faith that you have.

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Matt
Yeah. And and what's so great about this, the references used here, Paul, in Romans four is talking about God's promise to Abraham when he's out in the field and says, Look up at the stars. This is what your offspring are going to be. If you can even count all these stars and like there's to be this promise seed that comes to you, Abraham and he believes that's justice.

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Matt
15 And then James is referring to Genesis 22, or Abraham by faith, is going to sacrifice his promise on Isaac. Now he's got the promise, son, but he's still believe in God. And so it's like, No, like what? Can't linearly what came before the other Genesis 15 comes before Genesis 22. And that's just a good way. I think to look at those is Abraham believes.

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Matt
And then he's showing that he believes Genesis 22, but even at that point, still is faith. You just believe in God and what he's promised and that God's really come through and let what he's promised. Yeah.

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Brenton
Yeah. I think just to kind of get practical and maybe we've talked about it here on the show before, but I think I think what, what James is, is, is actually fighting against is this kind of easy believe ism where we just can can give a mental A and can say that we we believe in Jesus but but our life never changes.

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Brenton
Yeah. And I think there's biblically you can't read read scripture seriously and think that that's even a category that you can be in where yeah we are saved by a grace through faith and that's it there. There's so many places that that sanctification is absolutely necessary to come next.

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Matt
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree.

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Brenton
So yeah, just a little practical way of looking at that. But yeah, I think just, just to wrap that up, they are talking about two completely different things there, but they would both agree with each other, I think. Yeah. Is there any difference in the way people were saved in the Old Testament verses after Christ.

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Matt
Yeah. And another good question and I just looking back at the passage I had the privilege of preaching this week, I think Paul settles that in one of his main points of this is that the answer that question is no, they're not two separate ways. God's people are saved in the Old Testament. In the New Testament. And, you know, he says in Romans four, you know, verse two four If Abraham is justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

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Matt
And then verse three, he says, four What does the Scripture say? Points back to Scripture, and he quotes for Genesis 15 and verse six and says, Abraham, believe God. And it was counted to him as righteousness. And what he's doing there, I believe, is he's pointing his Jewish brothers and sisters. These people who are Christians believe in Jesus.

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Matt
He's pointing back to Abraham saying, Abraham is right in God's eyes because he believed God's promise. And ultimately we see in the Book of Hebrews that Abraham is actually waiting for Christ, for the promises of God to be fulfilled in Christ ultimately. And he didn't get to see that fulfilled in his lifetime. But yeah, so the Book of Hebrews, you know, Romans four, I think says it perfectly, but like Hebrews is all about the there is one Lord and there's one faith and all the sacrifices of the Old Testament.

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Matt
They just were pointing towards the ultimate sacrifice Christ, and he's the one that truly mattered and that everyone was anticipating and they were looking ahead to Christ. And now we look back to Christ, as is the one who's accomplished this work.

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Brenton
Yeah. So that's, I think, one common misconception when when we look at the whole scripture from people is that God was different in the Old Testament than he was in the in the New Testament. He's changed once once he once the Jesus was was incarnated. And so he was he was much more of a task master before and then and then he, he, he stopped and he is now a God of grace.

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Brenton
And I think when we when we see passages like this from Romans, where we were kind of given a different view into what those with those stories actually were, it was it was of grace that Abraham was saved as it was. What would you say to someone that kind of has that objection?

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Matt
Yeah, I would just say that's a really good question, and I think I understand why people ask it at times. I've asked that myself, but I think it's a it's a surface question. But, you know, things are supposed to stay on the surface. And when I say that, I'm kind of using that as an analogy for we need to go deeper into God's Word and actually get into these passages from Genesis to Malachi and see that God is always responding with steadfast love and mercy and grace towards his people.

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Matt
And He gives them a law. I mean, this is this is big. This is my learned Bible school that really hit home for me because I didn't grow up thinking this or even whether it was taught or it was it taught. I didn't grass on to it, but I had a seminary professor that just pointed out. He said the gospel is always first and then the law.

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Matt
And, you know, he was saying, God brings his people, the Israelites, out of Egypt with a strong outstretched arm, you know, defeats their enemies, delivers them, didn't do anything to deserve that. And then he gives them the law. This the way to be set apart and to live for him. And so I'm kind of answering this question in the sense that, you know, God's people in the Old Testament did not earn righteousness, did not earn God's merit and favor by doing these things in the law.

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Matt
The law was given after they were saved, you know, and it's the same way for a Christian. And Paul points that to the end of Romans three, you know, says, Jesus, come, nobody deserves this. We're all sinners. We're justified by grace through our faith in him. And then at the end, he finally says, you know, do we do we throw out the law?

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Matt
And this is no, we uphold the law. And the best way to uphold the law is not by trying to do it on our own, but it's by believing in Jesus, by faith. And then the Holy Spirit empowers us to live for Jesus. And so I think God's got steam of that grace and that good news coming before the law and all that, that is so consistent throughout the whole Bible.

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Matt
And and then we see in Revelation, we see that the God of justice, He's come in with a vengeance to anybody who's against them. And they're not going to remain when God brings us his kingdom in full and the new creation and I'm glad he's that way because I don't want a world where there's a bunch of injustice continuing to just occur and no one wants that.

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Matt
We want our Lord to be a God of justice and praise the Lord that we're under the banner of Jesus blood and that's not us anymore. Yeah.

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Brenton
Yeah. We were talking a little bit before we hit record on this about Hebrews ten, and I'll just read a little bit of it here. Start in verse two. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshipers, having having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices there's a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

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Brenton
And and what the writer of Hebrews here is talking about is he's comparing the Old Testament sacrificial system to Christ, to Christ once for all, atonement and and so if we if we look at what Matt was saying earlier about the Abraham was saved before the law was given. And so the the the sin the law was never meant to be a wave of his people being saved.

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Brenton
He people were always saved under under his grace through through the promise of Christ.

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Matt
Yeah. And I, I can't remember if it's later on the Romans or if it's in Galatians. I think it's in Galatians where Paul literally makes that same point that the way before the law was even given through Moses Abraham as an example, that he believed in what I was doing.

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Brenton
Yeah. And I think going back to the question I asked earlier, if if God is the same from the Old Testament to the New Testament, I think I think that's where our minds go first, is that God was he's gracious now, so he was gracious in the past. But but I think also it kind of gives us a different view of who God is.

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Brenton
Now, if we look at the Old Testament, because there was a a lot of things that God did in the Old Testament that would it's hard for us to swallow today. Sure. In a lot of ways. And sure, I think there's there's a maybe a more of a gravity to situations when we when we read through the Old Testament and realize that the God of Nadav and a by who or is still the God today he hasn't he hasn't changed Right.

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Brenton
And so there is there's seriousness and sin that that maybe we we don't see as much or as explicitly in the New Testament right. But but that God hasn't changed.

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Matt
Yeah. So yeah certainly and yeah I mean I mean they get to really get there eventually but it's a verse pretty familiar everybody but you know Romans 623 for the wages of sin is death and that's part of the verse, but that's a true part of the verse, and that's what all of us deserve. Apart from Christ, our dues for sinning is spiritual and physical separation from God for eternity.

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Matt
Yet the second part of that verses but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. And so yeah, there's we have a God of justice, but we also have a God of tremendous and amazing grace and mercy. And he's shown us that not just in some abstract way, but in his son. Yeah.

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Brenton
Yeah. This discussion, these discussions we've had through Romans have had so often come back to the recognition that God is a just God. And and I think that that can be kind of hard to swallow at times that the God demands justice when it when it comes against us. But luckily, we're fortunately for us, he he sent Christ and that was that was what we needed to to avoid that.

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Brenton
Yeah. The justice we deserved.

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Matt
Yeah. Amen. And Paul basically is saying that exact thing and the pastor is get down here in this week from Romans four. So yeah, it's consistent.

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Brenton
It's great. Let's let's talk a little bit about as Paul brings up so I'm 32 here he talks about what it means to be blessed by God. Hmm. What what do you think David is trying to communicate here in some 32?

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Matt
Yeah. This is this so meaningful verses seven and eight of chapter four, he's quoting from Psalm 32 is the first couple verses. They're Davidson and blessed is been hijacked by our culture you know yeah and I think people are really well-meaning but it's like what in the world does that even mean? It sounds like a Christian to be blessed today thing to say.

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Matt
Yeah. And, but you know, as I, as I looked at it and I've got a there's a lot of different tools you can use out there but sometimes I just get on the there's a website called Blue Letter Bible that just helps you in a really severe way. Anybody in our church could do this. It can help you look at words too, and biblical Hebrew and Greek and blessed just means joyful or happy or fulfilled.

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Matt
And that helped me as I was preparing with this talk because I'm looking back on it. I'm like, okay, blessed. That means happy. Which items? Certain Bible translations translate things in the Psalms as like happy happy.

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Brenton
In other words, hijacked.

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Matt
By each other were this with hatred? That's true. And so, yeah, let's say joyful and, you know, joyful are those. And it's like, what's what's next? Joyful are those who whose lawless deeds are forgiven. Okay. Who sins are covered. Um, how joyful is the man or woman that the person against whom the Lord will not count his or her sin?

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Matt
And, um, this is just amazing because it's it's not. How joyful are the ones who do everything right? How joyful are the ones who have the great church attendance and are doing everything their church has asked them to do? Joy for the ones you don't, you older kids, how joyful are the ones who and this is implying have turned to the Lord have repented and said, God, I need you?

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Matt
And He has offered that fresh forgiveness and that covering of all sin, all lawlessness and all sin. And not only that, it's not just a forgiveness and a, uh, a covering, but it says how joyful or blessed is the person whom the Lord will not count their sin, which is like the opposite side of count. You know, we're counted righteous, but we're also not counted with our sin, you know.

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Matt
And so it's it's the it's the double and the double blessing. And, you know, we are counted righteous and we're not our sins are not counted against us. And it's like, okay, David just gave us a really good definition of what it really means to be blessed, what really means to be joyful. And that's good news. I need that every day of my life.

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Matt
I need that kind of news coming at me.

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Brenton
Yeah, Yeah. And I think that and as you're reading through that, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven that they can get really personal really quick because we, we are the ones whose lawless deeds are forgiven. And so I think just to you who's listening, think back to to when you were say think back to that experience.

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Brenton
That's that's what David's talking about here. You on at that at that moment your lawless deeds or forgiven and your sins were covered and that I think when we when we think of blessing was not just that but a joy that that is joy that is that is blessing through Christ. And so yeah this this passage, I think, can just really take on a very personal a personal experience in our in our lives.

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Brenton
So it's good. Yeah. Well, I appreciate the discussion on you, you know, faith and and what what he meant by blessing here and so yeah thanks for coming in and thanks for your message.

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Matt
Yeah I'm grateful to you.

00;25;49;20 - 00;25;54;02
Brenton
It was a good time. All right. Thanks for listening. And we'll talk to you next week.