Episode 47: How Should We Therefore Live?

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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 Britten Graham, and I'm here again with Chris Carr. How are you doing?

00;00;23;20 - 00;00;42;14
Chris
I've been better as my voice probably will give away, but I'm actually doing better than I've been the last couple of days. So hopefully we'll get back there, come back around by Sunday. But all that said, excited about this new Year and looking forward to another year podcast with you.

00;00;42;14 - 00;01;04;09
Brenton
Brennan Yeah, yeah, you sound great. So 2024 is obviously here and it's good to be back talking to you guys. Before we get started, Chris, you mentioned a few weeks ago that this last year was was one of your best years of ministry. What was one or two highlights of you for 2023?

00;01;04;12 - 00;01;41;28
Chris
Yeah, I would actually say is probably my best year of ministry and I'm just so thankful for all that God did last year. And really a lot of highlights. One of the biggest, of course, is sending out for families to church plan, and I've talked about that a lot, but I don't think we can celebrate it enough. You know, those for our home grown people and families and they're willing to sacrifice and to move different parts of the world, and particularly those who are moving across culturally to difficult parts of the world.

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Chris
To minister, you talk to any of those families, I'll tell you that it's much different where they're at than here. That doesn't mean it's bad. It just means that in many respects, life is is harder and less comfortable, maybe much less comfortable. Yeah, they're willing to do that for the sake of the gospel and God's already working and moving in.

00;02;03;17 - 00;02;30;02
Chris
We're getting reports back already about that. So that that's super exciting. I thought there was a lot of fruit bought in our church last year. I mentioned on Sunday 80 baptisms, which again is another thing we should never get over. And a lot of those baptisms, which were fantastic stories of how God's people have faith and transformed their lives, those are amazing.

00;02;30;04 - 00;02;59;24
Chris
I I'm so thankful for our staff. We've got is by by his grace put together just a fantastic staff and I'm so thankful for how he's done that and just how people are working together and just our our staff culture and what guys are doing there. And then just the so many just faithful, faithful people in our body who are serving day in and day out and God's using them in incredible ways.

00;02;59;24 - 00;03;08;07
Chris
And so I could go on and on, but there may be more than two but highlights. But yeah, those are at the top of the list.

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Brenton
Yeah, yeah, I'll second those. I remember being saying goodbye to one of our the families that went out and we had our whole group together and were praying together and it was, it was kind of a new experience for me to send someone, you know, kind of overseas and but it was, it was really cool. And we've stayed in good contact with them.

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Brenton
And so but along with that, we've we've had a lot of growth here locally in the church, too.

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Chris
So you're the Barnabas team leader, are you. Four for one of our field staff.

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Brenton
Yeah.

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Chris
Yeah. We can't talk about them too much because they're in an undisclosed location, so. But yeah.

00;03;51;10 - 00;04;19;25
Brenton
Yeah, we're excited for what's going on there. All right, let's get into some questions. So in this section of Romans, Paul tells us or tells the church to present our bodies as living sacrifices, This imagery is a reference to the old Testament sacrificial system, which which we are, you know, in practice completely unfamiliar with. And it's it's not the only reference in the New Testament spiritual sacrifice.

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Brenton
We see it in in first Peter, we see it in Hebrews, multiple references in Philippians and even later on, Paul writes about it and ruins Romans 15. Could you talk a little bit about what the first century church understanding of this would have been? Would would his audience have had any firsthand experience with fulfilling the sacrificial law?

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Chris
Sure. But you're telling me you've never sacrificed a goat like in your backyard?

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Brenton
Is that what you're saying? I did a lot of things when I was younger.

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Chris
That you won't talk about on the podcast. Sure. So the the temple the second temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. Romans was probably written in 57 A.D. And so some of the Jewish Christians in Rome probably have been in Jerusalem at some point and had experienced the sacrificial system. They were still ongoing when Romans was written.

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Chris
And so it would seem likely and obviously we don't know who exactly was in the church in Rome, but we know that there were quite a few Jewish members of that church. And I think it's undoubtedly that some of them had been to Jerusalem and had had that experience that at some point. So, you know, the the gentile believers in the church in Rome, maybe some of them have been they wouldn't have been allowed into the temple to actually participate in those sacrifices.

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Chris
But maybe they had been to Jerusalem, maybe maybe probably less less likely, much less likely. But undoubtedly there were a few people who would certainly have been familiar and been able to describe it to the rest of the world. Of course, Paul certainly would have been.

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Brenton
Yeah. So yeah, there was some people definitely in that generation that had firsthand experience with with some of it. Yeah. Okay. What what should we you know, as modern modern day current day Christians know about about this system that would be helpful to us to understand this passage.

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Chris
Yeah. I think there's a there's a lot there. You know you read Leviticus and there's there's a lot we certainly could talk about for from that. I don't know how interesting that would be, but a couple of things that might be helpful to us. There are a multitude of offerings that would take place at the temple and in temple worship, too.

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Chris
I think that could be helpful to us here. There are sin offerings in sin offering. There would be. Well, it's the sharing of blood and for the forgiveness of sins. And so, again, we can elaborate on that. But I think it's sufficient to know, you know, the animal we killed, the blood would be shed. And that was to symbolize the forgiveness of sins.

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Chris
You know, we're told in Hebrews quite clearly, almost all of Hebrews is about how Jesus is our sin offering. And so that's not what Paul has in view here in Romans chapter 12. But there were also whole burnt offerings. And so Hoboken offering was where you would take the a valuable, if not the most valuable animal from your flock, one that would be unblemished would be perfect.

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Chris
And the point here is that it was of high, high value and then you would come and offer it as a whole burnt offering completely. And what that was symbolizing is that you were consecrating yourself, dedicating yourself wholly, fully, totally God, you're putting yourself completely at his disposal. That, I believe, is what Paul has on view here in Room Search 12 is to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice where we are completely putting ourselves in God's hands at His disposal for Him to do what He wants with us, or for us to do what he wants us to do with our lives.

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Chris
And that is symbolizing in how we are we are worshiping him. That is our reasonable service or our spiritual worship.

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Brenton
Mm hmm. Yeah. And again, I think as we see all these different references to to sacrifice, even in the New Testament, I think we we still see the the continuity of God's character between between the old New Testament and his still his requirement for us to to commit to him, whether it's physically or or not so good.

00;09;13;02 - 00;09;30;21
Chris
Yeah, so we could talk more about that. But I think it refer to the context here, what we're talking about, those are the two most important sacrifice is for for us. Because I just reiterate again, we don't need to make a sin offering for the goodness of sins because Jesus did that once and for all as our sin offering.

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Chris
But now we do make in effect, whole burnt offerings in the sense that we all and they did it, you know, year after year. And and really the point, Paul, is you need to do this continually over and over again because, you know, living sacrifices have the tendency to drag themselves off the altar. It's the old joke, but it's true is that we need to continually offer ourselves day in and day out, in service.

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Chris
And yeah.

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Brenton
It's common for Christians to assume that any kind of giving of ourselves to the service of Christ is, you know, automatically received as worship by God. But over and over in the Old Testament, we see that that sacrifices there were sacrifices offered that the God despised. I mean, clearly we can see it in the in the story of Cain, but verse one describes the required worship as holy and acceptable to God.

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Brenton
What distinguishes between acceptable and unacceptable worship?

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Chris
Yeah. This is another big topic. I'm trying to be succinct here. I, I would go to two places. The first would be John, Chapter four, Jesus Talking to the woman at the well. And in the context of that conversation, he says that the hours coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit. And in truth, for the fathers seeking such people to worship him, God, the Spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

00;11;12;28 - 00;11;38;19
Chris
I believe the spirit in truth, even though it's in our in our English versions, most of them have spirit and truth in lowercase. I believe they probably should be in uppercase, with the Spirit being the Holy Spirit and the truth being Jesus. So Jesus later on in John will say, I am the way, the truth and the life also call the Spirit the spirit of truth.

00;11;38;21 - 00;12;09;22
Chris
And so the worship that God is, is looking for and this is the big picture. And then we'll get maybe down to the nitty gritty a little bit more is worship. That is is in the spirit and through Jesus Christ. And so we're worshiping through the spirit. But but in our faith, in in Jesus Christ, in our union, with Jesus Christ.

00;12;09;24 - 00;12;51;23
Chris
And so any worship that doesn't come through the Spirit and in in our relation with with Christ would be worship that would be be unacceptable. And, and, and so maybe to again, to to put a little bit more meat on the bone here I go to Psalm 5116 and 17 and it ends on 51. David is praying really is his prayer of repentance after sitting with Bathsheba and he says, verse 16 for you and I delight in sacrifice, or I would give it, You will not be pleased with a burn offering.

00;12;51;26 - 00;13;14;18
Chris
Here's the burn, offering the sacrifices of God or a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart of God you will not despise. And then we go to Isaiah 66 and one and two that says the Lord Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you have built for me? What is the place of my rest?

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Chris
All these things, my hand is made. And so all these things came to be declares Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look. He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. And I think that that last message here for Isaiah, really it's it's the nail on the head. It's worship that God accepts as his humble.

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Chris
It's a contract, which means it's a it's a it's a repentant worship. And it's a warrior worship that trembles at his word, which which means like we're going to give reverence to his word. We're going to obey his word. We're going to worship him in a way that is congruent with what he has laid out about himself. And I think tied into that is is really is obedience.

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Chris
The and a lot of times in the Old Testament, I mean, we go to Isaiah, we see this repeatedly is is like these people are they're worshiping they're going through the motions of worship. You know the parallel was a they would be they're singing they're coming to worship attendance their giving, they're offering maybe serving in some ministry. But their hearts are far like far from him.

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Chris
And it's not a heart that is again, humble, is contrite, is is obedient, is obeying his word day in, day out, moment by moment. Because it's I think it's really easy to go through the the outward motions, you know, like all of these things on Sunday for us and then then in the week to week in the way maybe we relate to our spouse or our kids or at work or and there are lots of different examples there where we're not actually being humble can trade in obedience.

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Chris
Yeah.

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Brenton
Yeah, I think you're right. The tendency, you know, of Christians is to every time we read the word worship, we kind of attribute that to corporate worship and don't necessarily I mean, that really isn't even in view of what what Paul's talking here, the corporate worship. I think that's maybe a part of it. But what you're really saying is that our worship should be not self-serving.

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Brenton
Right? Then there were to come in humility and obedience. Do you would you make any distinction between the mode of worship? I mean, and that and that is more specifically corporate worship. But is is any mode of worship okay, if your heart is is correct behind it.

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Chris
Clarify what you mean by mode.

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Brenton
Well, I mean, I think there's there's preference what we would consider preference between churches, how they how they worship, how they, you know, carry on a corporate worship. There's a reason that we do what we do here and people would disagree with it. So is there you know, is there validity ences between those if if the heart is still correct?

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Chris
Yeah. I mean, I think and here's where different churches to nominations disagree but I think where the scripture is clear about what corporate worship should should include and should should look like. And then we we need to to follow that. Yes. The mode does matter. I do think that the the New Testament gives some freedom or leeway, or at least we've got to be careful that we don't be prescriptive where the Bible is not prescriptive.

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Chris
But but I will say what our, you know, definition of corporate worship is, that it it is is about coming to, you know, to worship God for who he is and what he's done through preaching, praying, singing, giving and serving. And the reason we use those five is because we see those five in laid out in Scripture is that like when when the church gathers, this is the thing that the things the church is is to do.

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Chris
So we would hear at Harmony say that those are the things that need to be included in in corporate corporate worship gatherings. And is there room for are is there room for other things? Not sure, although I think we should also be careful about what those things are.

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Brenton
Yeah. Good. You got anything else on worship?

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Chris
Well, no, not for today. I think this is a topic that's another one of those topics we could chalk up to. Hey, we could do a whole episode or series of episodes on it, because I do think that there are churches who go long in viewing their Sunday gatherings primarily as a an evangelistic outreach. And I think that's honestly I think it's unbiblical.

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Chris
I think it's a and really the issue is not so much with worship. It's a faulty ecclesiology understanding what the church is and so we could we could talk more green time. But yeah but it is an important distinction here is where if we're talking about corporate worship, we're coming to worship the Lord. And who who can worship him Well, only those who are actually his who are his people can can worship him.

00;18;59;24 - 00;19;21;02
Chris
And that doesn't mean that we don't invite unbelievers and it doesn't mean that we don't preach the gospel, which we absolutely do. And I think, you know, we try to do that every every Sunday here. And we want to see people come to faith. But the primary purpose of the gathering of the church is to worship the Lord and to build up the saints.

00;19;21;04 - 00;19;31;08
Brenton
Absolutely. And with you, that list of things to talk about, another episodes stacking up, you, maybe we'll get to some of it.

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Chris
You may need to start another podcast to talk about the things we can't talk about on this podcast.

00;19;35;27 - 00;20;03;06
Brenton
There you go. That'll work. All right. So in verse two, Paul says, We may discern what is the will of God. And this is a topic that comes up often, You know, what is God's will for my life? Should I move? Should I take this job? Should I marry this person? First of all, what's in view? And Paul speaks of of God's will here?

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Brenton
Is it a reference to God's will in our lives?

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Chris
Personally, I think it's a reference to what God wants us to do in in any particular situation. And I think his his point is, is have your mind renewed so that then whatever you face in life, you will be able to discern how God would have you to respond, what He would have you to do or not to do.

00;20;38;12 - 00;21;26;12
Chris
And but but again, when he being renewed by the transformation of our mind, the way that the renewal happens is through the the spirit in the word, through spirit in gospel. One part of the singer the is 318 which I didn't quote on Sunday. The verse actually ends with which comes from the Lord who is the spirit, so is really into a Trinitarian verse because the Lord at the beginning of the verse is Jesus and the Lord at the end of the verses, the Spirit and but my point here is that it's this the spirit who works in us as we immerse ourselves in the Gospel, the word that our minds are renewed and as

00;21;26;12 - 00;21;54;13
Chris
our minds are renewed, then whenever whatever situation that we face in life, we're going to be able to discern God's Word and how it applies in that specific situation. I don't think it necessarily means that we're going to be we're talking about who we should marry or whether we take a job or whether we should move here. And that's what you mean by personally, I don't think that that's what's that's what's on view.

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Chris
I think it's more in lines of beat like obedience and walking in the way the Lord would have us to walk.

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Brenton
Yeah, yeah. So I agree that this it does probably have more to do what Paul's talking about here with obedience and just our our general heart toward toward God. But I guess what we're while we're on the topic, how should we discern these kind of big life decisions? What I think that we you know, Christians will often pray about these things.

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Brenton
They'll ask for prayer and they're they're kind of looking for doors to open, the doors to close or what what is what's the proper way to to approach that?

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Chris
Yeah. Do things like if this happens and I'll go this way or this happened, I'll go that way. And it's kind of like the Gideon story cast. They're casting lots and or things like that. There's a lot of.

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Brenton
Examples.

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Chris
Of that. Yeah, I don't, I don't think that Gideon's example is one, but I think it's descriptive as scripture. Not prescriptive for sure. So I think that, yeah, maybe using a couple of examples here, I shouldn't marry this person. I don't think God's will is like, there's one person out there for us to marry and if we don't marry that person, we've, you know, we've missed the boat.

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Chris
If that was the case, once one person made the wrong decision, then, you know, pretty much everybody would be or a lot of people down the line from from that. I think that, you know, when it comes to that question, I think people should be much more concerned about being the right person and looking for the right person.

00;23;50;11 - 00;24;15;09
Chris
God's God's will for our lives is more in terms of, again, our character and our obedience and and when we we walk in the way that God would have us to walk, and we're the kind of people that He would have us to be, and we value the things that he values, then we're much more likely to find the person that's going to be a good fit, a good spouse for us.

00;24;15;09 - 00;24;43;27
Chris
And like wise, when it comes to a job or a move. So I'll give an example here. One of my kids is getting ready to potentially make a pretty big move from one location to another. And part of my conversation with him is has been, you know, find a church before you before you decide where you're going to move to.

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Brenton
You know.

00;24;44;16 - 00;25;06;11
Chris
Like if you if you think the Lord's leading to here, find a church because you know, a job is a it's important. The job is a job and your career is important. But what's more important is that you have a church that you can be a part of where the gospel is preached there you can get in and serve and where you're going to be able to grow and help the body to grow.

00;25;06;13 - 00;25;32;00
Chris
And so, you know, my son's not going to he's not going to find in the Bible a passage that says, take this job and move to no place else. But he can find that you need to be a part of a of a of a body. And that's going to build you up. And it's going to have be gospel centered in all of those kind of things.

00;25;32;00 - 00;25;48;09
Chris
And that's actually I mean, this is a little bit of a hobby or something, but I find people all the time, they say, I'm going to take the job, I'm going to move. And then they only think about church once they get there. And it's sometimes it's actually has pretty devastating consequences because they end up not being I find find a good church.

00;25;48;12 - 00;26;18;09
Chris
And so I again, maybe just to be more succinct, what is guy value, What's important to him? What kind of person we're becoming. And that's when we're talking about God, God's will. These sometimes these big life decisions are actually not as big as we make them out to be. When the bigger life decision is, am I going to actually follow God's will, which He has laid out in Scripture?

00;26;18;12 - 00;26;42;02
Brenton
Yeah, Yeah. Well, I think you mentioned earlier that, you know, the Bible doesn't tell me whether I should take this job or not. And I think that, you know, that's the reason that a lot of people kind of turn to two signs or different, you know, feelings or doors closing or whatever that feel like they need to go some direction that something to affirm or deny their their plan.

00;26;42;02 - 00;27;08;01
Brenton
But I think you're totally right. Like the Bible, it's outside of the scope of the Bible to tell you where you should work right. There's there's certainly principles and things that we can we can take from it. But I think ultimately, if we actually believe in the ultimate sovereignty of of God, then we who we are, we're okay.

00;27;08;04 - 00;27;28;07
Brenton
You know, we make we make decisions based on wisdom and and counsel of godly people. But yeah, we're never outside of of the sovereign will of God. And so I think we can take we can take heart knowing that if we are obeying him, then we're doing the right thing.

00;27;28;11 - 00;28;01;07
Chris
Yeah. And I just want to reiterate what you just said there. I was actually thinking what you said about wisdom and counsel. Yeah, those two things are interrelated, but this is why Proverbs, Psalms, other, the wisdom literature, Ecclesiastes, these are so important because that's where we learn. We can learn wisdom. And then as part of wisdom, is having wise counselors and listening to the people and not making these decisions big like what we call big decisions on our own.

00;28;01;09 - 00;28;14;24
Chris
And then you're right, I mean, and I've learned this over and over again is like a god's sovereign. And even sometimes mistakes that I have made, he still has worked out for for my good.

00;28;15;02 - 00;28;45;11
Brenton
Yep, Yep. Okay. In inverse to Paul tells us to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. One commentator mentions that this reference to renewing our mind is actually a callback to Romans 128. Where were Paul talks about our natural state there Paul says And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to do what ought not to be done.

00;28;45;13 - 00;29;05;29
Brenton
So what's in view here is a call to Christians to continue to reverse what was previously our debased minds. Can you help put this idea of renewing our minds into practical terms for us? What does that actually look like? How can we seek to do that more?

00;29;06;01 - 00;29;34;28
Chris
Yeah, I mean, I think you kind of laid it out perfectly there. I didn't get the opportunity to talk about this on Sunday, but I do think that it's an interesting way that Paul lays it out. Start in Romans one is that in in our natural state, we don't acknowledge God. And so our mind ends up being under renewed.

00;29;35;01 - 00;30;05;16
Chris
And so now that we have the Holy Spirit within us, our our mind in some ways already has been renewed. There is a renewal there. Paul says if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation of all things. The best way. Behold, all things have become new. I think the idea there is are they become new, but they still need to become newer to to experience that newness, to fulfill that newness.

00;30;05;18 - 00;30;30;15
Chris
I think the renewal of our mind just means that we actually view things the way that God views things, the way that things that we view them and the way that they truly are, and that we see them for reality. That if you go back to the Romans, one is that we actually thank God when we see God, we see him in creation and we see creation, we can see we see him in creation, We have honored him.

00;30;30;15 - 00;31;01;27
Chris
We give Thanksgiving to him that we see that everything that we have is is a gift from him. And then it just flows out from that. And so as we again, immerse ourselves in the gospel day in and day out, our our, our minds become more and more renewed so that we more and more see things the way God sees them, the more the way that things truly are, and that we more and more know what the right thing to do is.

00;31;01;27 - 00;31;30;04
Chris
And then we actually do it with the benefits that come into our life. So I, I would argue that sanctification has lots of lots of practical benefits. This is what I mean. Your mind is saying like that sanctification and it has a lot of like it's good for us. It's not simply that we become more like God and we honor we honor him.

00;31;30;04 - 00;31;56;18
Chris
Yep. That's, that's this is the biggest thing, right. But but it also has is practically beneficial for us. So the, the more of my mind is renewed, the better husband I'm going to be, the better father I'm going to be, the better employer, employee employer I'm going to be. And the more just blessings that that's going to be in the day to day of a mile of my life.

00;31;56;20 - 00;32;31;18
Chris
And and so I if I can say this way, life becomes easier. And what I want to mean by easier doesn't mean that life's not still difficult, have its challenges. But the more sanctified I am, the less problems my sin causes for me. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And so just. Just practically, when I think rightly about things, I. I'm going to have a more fruitful, blessed, easy again.

00;32;31;18 - 00;32;37;27
Chris
Take that word the right way. Life. My sin is not going to cause him any problems for me.

00;32;37;29 - 00;32;59;19
Brenton
Yeah. Reminds me of Psalm one or four. David is is, you know, comparing the the way of the righteous man versus the way the wicked man was. Read a little bit of it here. Uh, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

00;32;59;21 - 00;33;17;27
Brenton
But his delight is in the law of the Lord and of his law. He meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so poor, are like chaff that the wind drives away.

00;33;18;00 - 00;33;37;02
Brenton
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. So we see it just practical example there of, you know, David is saying, you know, you you don't want to be on that on that wicked side.

00;33;37;04 - 00;33;59;18
Chris
Yeah. And I love the middle part where he's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields as fruit of the seasons leaf is that wither and all that he does it prospers. You got to remember this is in the Middle East. Okay so it's dry, hot a lot of the time. A lot of it's desert. But he's picturing here this the righteous person, the person who delights in the law, the Lord.

00;33;59;20 - 00;34;21;13
Chris
So this is what I'm talking about, immersing ourselves in the gospel. But he's like a tree that's planted by the water in the desert, which which means that even in difficult conditions is still going to produce fruit. It's going to be fruitful. It's not going to die, it's not going to wither away. And then it says and all that he does, he prospers.

00;34;21;15 - 00;34;37;15
Chris
And that doesn't mean that he's kind of everything that that he does prospers. It means that he will prosper no matter what happens. And that's what we're that's what we're talking about. And that's the benefit of a really mine. Yeah, it's a great, great place to do it.

00;34;37;18 - 00;34;50;26
Brenton
All right. Well, we'll wrap it up there. Appreciate you guys listening. And it's good to be back. Chris, thank you for sticking it out through this sickness and coming in and doing it. Preaching two weeks in a row.

00;34;50;29 - 00;34;59;20
Chris
Yeah, I'm playing hurt, but I don't think I'll be on the what's it, an NFL. The pope physically unable to perform.

00;34;59;20 - 00;35;05;28
Brenton
Was still mentally and physically helpless. All right. Well, we will talk to you guys next week.