¶ External Markers in Christianity's Significance
We might not trust in circumcision anymore , but there are certain things that we look to and point to . There are certain signs of a quote , unquote good Christian man or woman , and like if we got these bases covered , then we're good .
Welcome to the move , hey , where we're vibing with the text . We're vibing in the book , in the book , 10 minutes at a time .
Today we're closing out to Romans chapter two . It's been quite the journey . Paul's letting us have it , he's going hard and he's not letting up in this passage , so be sure to spend some time and read it . Have you read it ? I read it , you did .
Did you guys read it yet ? Please read it .
Go ahead , we'll right here . You can subscribe while we're waiting . By the way , we haven't said any of this yet , but feel free to also leave a comment below . We'd love to know . What do you think ?
about this .
Because we've been , especially in the last one we talked about some stuff that might push a few you know a little , to some uncomfortable places , and that's okay . Yeah , please interact .
We'd love to hear it . We'd love to know .
So cool , while you're doing that , let's go ahead and start that 10 minute clock and we'll go .
What do you think about this one ? You know , I was just thinking what is Justin think about this one ?
I'm thinking you know we stole some time from our viewers in last one . I feel like this one is going to be a quick one , because the message seems to be really , really , really quick , snappy , and I love it and it's a great message .
And it's like listen , paul saying you guys have been judging the Gentiles real , real harsh , not looking inward , and then he's really just he's coming at this whole hypocritical attitude .
Yeah , because this is a summary of the first part of his great argument that you know I used to be inward . He's saying I used to be for my nation . Only I had great zeal . You know Philippians , chapter three , great zeal . You can read it . He talks about his former life and Judaism . He was advancing greatly before his peers .
It's like I had great zeal but then the Lord called me . I had to leave this to go with that . I was freed from this to that .
As we've talked , he turns around from inward outward to the nations and maybe , as he's going out to the nations , he does this sort of play where he sets them up and the Jews are thinking , yeah , go tell the nations how wrong they are . Then he turns back around and looks at them .
He's like if you weren't willing to die for them , you actually haven't accomplished the goal of the law . And they're like huh . So then this is a quick conclusion . He goes if you call yourself a Jew , are you a covenant keeper ? What do you mean ? Do you keep covenant , like you who say don't commit adultery ? Are you committing adultery ?
Are you who say don't rob God and you abhorrred idols ? Do you rob temples ? So it's like this overtones of the indictment of temple worship , I mean where they were elevating the gold of the temple above what it was actually saying . So there's this indictment that I hear here , this quick , snappy indictment .
Yeah , I love that how he just puts the questions . Like you who teach others ? Like , do you not teach yourselves ? Like you spend so much time talking about all these things ? But then , like , where does it interact with your life , with your life lived ? Is there a transformation that's taking place ?
Why does it seem that , while you care so much about these things that you're just lacking in the area , oh , you're hitting close to home , because that's human nature . You're hitting close to home . We all do that , right .
Don't we see that right now ? Yeah , in the intense political environment that we live in , there's always a cry for justice or liberty . Or I was wrong , or I was victimized , or you're positioning me as this At that , using these labels , and everybody's appealing to being wronged , right , like , oh , I've been wronged .
And then there's this sense of everybody's looking for the rightness of the thing , for justice . And then if we listen to Paul , paul saying hey , while you're pointing the finger at somebody else for what they didn't do , yeah , aren't you kind of doing the same thing ?
So how do you call yourself a Jew If you're not doing the things a covenant keeping Jew would do ? And then he throws in the question what it actually means to be a covenant keeping Jew .
Which is which is crazy for them , because they they were not expecting this coming . There's this tradition , in kind of a fairsayical tradition , that says this that Abraham sits at the entrance of Gehenna or hell and permits no circumcised Israelite to descend therein , like that's how valuable circumcision was to them .
It was the thing that they banked on , like if you were male Jewish , circumcised , you were in .
So then Paul comes , completely , shakes the thing and says in verse 25 , for circumcision , indeed , is of value , and then it's conditional . That's conditional . Circumcision is of value if you obey the law , so you're rightly a Jew circumcised , and if you obey the law .
But if you break the law , this sign of circumcision , it's of no value , because what it's supposed to signify doesn't actually follow in your life .
So this thing is not the thing , no , and there's this daily reminder that this thing is not the thing . There's this daily reminder that you actually haven't kept the law . There's this sacrifice that goes on every single day . That's just like oh dang , I screwed up again .
So this again hits close to home . What confession am I making with my mouth that I'm not actually living in my body ? What sort of marks do I bear that identify me as one thing but I'm living contrary to that identification , right , like full disclosure here . I got a tattoo of my family , my maternal last name , across my shoulder Right .
Oddly enough , it actually says Salvador , which means savior . Just kinda cool , right . But it's weird sometimes because when I see it in the mirror , is there times that the mark that I carry on my body I'm not actually living it out . So what good is this mark if I'm not actually leaving my mark with my body ?
So Paul's asking this question what good is this mark that you have if you're not actually leaving a mark with the body you carry ? Can you rightly be called a Jew ?
What are some of those ways that we do that ? Because we trust in things . We might not trust in circumcision anymore , but there are certain things that we look to and point to . There are certain signs of a quote , unquote good Christian man or woman and like if we got these bases covered , then we're good .
So it's really easy for me to , given the tradition I come from , it'd be really easy to say that we were really committed to making sure that we honored something like the Sabbath of the Lord , but the Sabbath , you know , on the seventh day , that was the idea of turning off electricity at a particular time , and not watching TV , not cooking making sure you
didn't do the dishes . So it's always what you didn't do is what marked you . But I just hear Paul saying , like what is it that you do do Right ? And then in my life outside of religion it was I was marked . I had strong political affiliations before Right .
I'm marked by this thing and I can proclaim it , but the ideals of what it's actually about I might not live out to it , but I'm proclaiming it . Then I had to take a liquid day and look in the mirror and see hypocrisy .
I remember watching this news clip . Someone's being interviewed and I don't remember the full context of it , but the punchline of this video was and you can find it online If you Google the phrase she's like you know , I love Jesus , but I drink a little . I like that , and it's just like this , this .
It was very funny , I mean , it's just like God bless this woman's heart . But we like to point to things , whether it's the lack of consumption of alcohol or drugs . It's baptism Can I speak in tongues ? It's denominationalism , it's tithe paying , it's it ? I pray that I serve as a missionary , and we point to certain things as evidence of our standing with God .
Yeah , and we don't point to the only thing that actually matters .
And here's where Paul's going . I'll give the game away . He's going to that . There's a righteousness that can actually come from our body . There's a righteousness that we need that actually doesn't emerge from the marks that we bear in our body Right , and that the mark that we will bear can't come by way of circumcision of the snip snip .
It can only come by way of the spirit . Yeah , right , so you actually have to .
This is all the way back to our first 10 minutes , after the intro , that there's an obedience of faith , yes , that a righteousness apart from us , apart from what we could do , has actually come , so that then the Jew is not just somebody who's marked physically , but somebody who's marked in the inside .
Circumcision is a matter of the heart .
Yeah , so that the glory , the honor and the immortality that's been demonstrated at the cross of Christ has done something here . Yeah , and I say yes .
And we haven't used that language this far in our conversations . At least I can remember that . I can remember distinctly yeah , it's this new covenant language , this yeah , you got the law on the outside . That's cool , but the goal is to get that law on your heart so that it comes from the inside out and it infuses everything that you do .
And this is what it means when it's talking about the matter of the heart . The promise has always been , even from the Old Testament , that God is going to write that law on your heart . And the way that you do that is by being born again through that spirit . That spirit is the thing that comes . Notice this .
The circumcision is a matter of the heart , not by the letter , by the spirit .
Yeah , I had to come to this conclusion that the markings that I carried on my body , my tattoos , or the markings I carried in my confession , my Christian confession , weren't enough for me to actually meet the requirements of what God would actually want and desire . And this is what Paul's saying . It's just not enough .
You have to be removed from that whole form of slavery where you're enslaved to the mark on your shoulder . I have to be this because of , or I have to be that because of , and then when I fall short , I fall into shame , like we spoke of earlier . Now I'm disconnected , and Paul's this whole language of that's not it .
¶ The Future Improves After Adversity
No , that's not it .
He's going to continue on this line of thought in the next chapter . Things are going to get a little bit worse before they get better , but they do get better , a whole lot better , a whole lot better , and so we'll leave you guys with an extra 20 seconds .
Yeah , so press pause . We're taking some , we're giving you some time back . Thanks for kicking it with us . We'll see you in the next 10 minutes .