Sermon Notes & Videos
2023-11-10 | Romans 2:17-29 | Circumcision Reimagined
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Those who have been instructed from the Torah, traditionally the Jews, by inference practice what is, “the excellent and superior way of life,” and by extension say, “they know God’s will.” Someday in the millennial kingdom, Christians will rule and reign as overseers with Christ within God’s governmental system, which naturally uses His laws as the framework for a well-functioning and healthy society. So, it must stand to reason that being well-versed in the grace-empowered administration of God’s commands is necessary.
Presently, many who come to Y’shua from the Jewish faith should have an advantage, having been raised in a biblical law based culture. The opportunity to become teachers and mentors to others, who have come to faith in Christ, but from a pagan world, is vast. Faithful Jews simply have the upbringing, background, and previous knowledge to do it well. Wouldn’t it be prudent to develop a duplicatable system that institutes God’s laws in a fresh new way? It must be inspired and empowered by God’s grace, not the same system that, in many ways, blinded Jews from recognizing Y’shua.
However, if you claim to represent God, while living in habitual disobedience, your hypocrisy can damage new converts, either by teaching them that authenticity and integrity are unnecessary, or by misrepresenting the intention and application of God’s commands, causing those weaker in the faith to stumble. What is most critical to recognize, however, is that obedience to the Law is a matter of the heart. Your motivation, intention, inspiration, and what empowers your obedience is what is most important. That does not discount the value of actually obeying God’s commands; it just emphasizes that how and why you obey matters more.
Paul is not teaching anything that is not completely consistent with the writings of Moses. Your discipleship training is really rulership training for God’s kingdom, and leadership training for your personal development. You are supposed to learn how to apply the power of God’s grace toward His divine instructions: spiritual practices, lifestyle laws, and even the physical laws of the universe. To do so you should practice implementing grace-empowered obedience right now, here on earth, during this life. That is what will insert the government of heaven into everything you do; that is what will bring the kingdom of heaven to earth.
2023-11-03 | Romans 2:1-16 | Vernacular
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It can all be very confusing and that is why words matter. A common language is critical because without it nothing we express has any chance to offer shared meaning. Words matter and so does vernacular. How does the ordinary person speak? What does the everyday man believe a word means? And when we look back and study or even translate the words of a people or culture not our own, what terminology were they using when they engaged with the subject matter in which we now have interest? And if you are the one responsible for transmitting meaning across time and cultures, you must be careful to consider what the words meant to those for whom you’ve taken the authority to represent.
“The cat got my tongue” may mean something very specific to you, but if you preach to another people from a different culture who speak a different language, it’s not safe to assume a direct translation of “cat” and “tongue” will get the job done, if you suddenly find yourself short on words. Ah, there’s another one, “short on words!” Maybe, “the thief stole my voice” is what they would understand to mean the same as “the cat got my tongue.” And that is precisely the point: thief replaces cat; stole replaces got; and voice replaces tongue—same meaning, completely different vernacular.
Can you imagine how often that happens in Bible translations? Just listen to this. “For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified.” How does that sit with your current understanding of the path to eternal redemption according to good Christian doctrine? “For by grace you have been saved through faith; …it is the gift of God, not of works.” Both of these phrases are credited to the same author, Paul. Yet, moments later in the same letter where he claimed “the doers of the law shall be justified,” he wrote: “Therefore by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” And in the same letter he wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; …it is the gift of God, not of works,” he continued with, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”
Don’t you think it would be a good idea to understand a Jewish man’s vernacular in the first century when we contrast, in the English language, “doers of the law and works of the law?” One paves the way to eternal redemption; one doesn’t. “The cat got your tongue?” Well, on a topic this important, words and vernacular are the difference between life and death!
2023-10-27 | Romans 1:18-32 | In the Image of God
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Set-apart from all other creation, God uniquely created mankind to truly know Him. For that to happen, He created us “in His Image.” First He created Adam, who had within him, both male and female DNA. All men do! And even before Adam had a companion in the garden, God called Adam “them” and said, “This is My image,” and told him/them to multiply and fill the earth. For that to be possible, hidden within Adam, this visible male, was both a woman and child. Even while he was standing alone in the garden, they were inside him already, just not visible. But, they could not remain invisible if mankind was meant to know God, to understand what it means to be created in God’s image. His invisible attributes had to become clear for everyone to see He is the only real God. After that, no one could offer ignorance as an excuse.
So, God took some female DNA from Adam and fashioned a woman. In a very real sense He “extracted” the woman from the man to make her visible. Now we could see the man and the woman separately with all their distinct characteristics. “This is His image.” And He commanded that they marry and be fruitful and multiply, thus completing the family—the perfect image of the Creator Himself. God is a Divine Family, the Father, Spirit and Son, thus His expressed image needed to be represented by all the same separate and distinct family members. As such, the human family was created in God’s image, the man—a husband and father; the woman—a wife and mother; and the children as the fruit of their marriage. Do you see it: Father, Spirit and Son?
When you contemplate the existential crisis of our day, you can simplify it into two opposing beliefs. One position believes men and women are distinct and definitive, marriage is a holy union between them, and children are the blessed fruit of that union. The other position believes any or all of the following: gender is not determined by genetics; it is a social construct and there has never been a distinction between a man and a woman, nor is gender limited to male or female, or even the idea that you must pick only one. Marriage is unnecessary, or if desired, may take place between any genders or no genders at all. And of course, the unborn child is the fruit of nothing. It is not even human or alive, and has no rights to live, other than what the person carrying that clump of tissue permits. By the way, the person incubating that amorphous cluster of cells can be a woman or a man or neither, just to clarify.
One side believes in the family, as God presents it to us, as His visible image. The other has rejected any or all aspects of the family, and by inference has rejected the image of God Himself. In other words, there is no God! Could opposing beliefs be any more contrary? The destruction of the family is the enemy’s chief strategy and thus the restoration of the family to the image of our Creator is the most important work on earth today. The wrath of God is coming against all who oppose this reality.
2023-10-20 | Romans 1:1-17 | From Faith to Faith
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It’s a mouthful, but if you can’t string these words together and understand what they mean—grace-empowered-faith-based-obedience to God—then it will be impossible for you to understand the Book of Romans, and more importantly, how those words unpack, “The just shall live by faith.” It’s a life of famous faith; that’s what it will take, faith imparted and faith practiced. You can’t practice the faith necessary to save you; that brand comes gift-wrapped from heaven. And you can’t bury that gift in the sand and believe your life will be pleasing to God. Your faith must be practiced—demonstrated by obedience.
From faith to faith explains what those ancient words mean; “The just live by faith.” That is how the righteousness of God becomes evident to others. By God’s grace, through faith, you received a free invitation into His family. But, you must be aware that the gift also confers upon you a responsibility; you are justified by free faith to then live by faith—you must practice your faith. And you practice your faith by purposely accessing God’s grace. That is how your faith-filled-grace-empowered life reveals God’s righteousness to the world—from faith to faith. It’s the life of grace-empowered-faith-based-obedience to God.
2023-10-13 | Introduction to Romans | Paul’s Magnum Opus
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Over the years, I have learned that using questions is a powerful way to engage with people on a deeper level. When I was younger, I thought arguing was an effective form of communication. I was very wrong. But, as I’ve grown older, and my hair has become dusted with silver, I’ve come to realize there’s a much better way.
Asking questions is significantly more effective if your desire is to advance a conversation, discern someone’s position, determine current understanding, impart knowledge, influence thought, and challenge disagreement. And the quality of your questions and how you present them not only determines their effectiveness, but also directly influences the quality of your relationships.
Paul asked many questions, as any good teacher should, and his questions have stirred the imagination of Christians for two thousand years. Look at a few examples extracted from just one chapter in one of Paul’s letters (I Corinthians 9):
• Would you ever go to war at your own expense?
• Would you plant a vineyard and not eat of its fruit?
• Do you believe when I speak that I’m teaching as a mere man?
• Does not the law say the same as what I am presenting?
A quick review of Romans, Paul’s greatest “theological treatise,” and you will discover that 92 times he asks a question (depending on your preferred translation). Here are a mouthful of them to chew on:
• “What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way!
• “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.”
• “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”
• “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!”
• “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not!”
• “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God Jesus Christ our Lord did!”
Thinking about questions reminded me of two things. The first was that asking questions is what I’ve done for many years as I’ve helped disciple many young people in the faith. It has been quite effective. And the the second was a poem that my wife Andrea wrote (added below), at the request of my son Cyrus, to be included in one of his poetry books. Its title speaks of one of the most powerful questions we could ever ask, “Why?” It poses the question, “Why don’t we seek answers from all the grey-haired wisdom keepers who are still alive today, instead of always asking Siri, Google and ChatGPT?”
In his letter to Romans, Paul often asked why…
• “Why do you judge and show contempt for your brother?”
• “For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?”
• “Why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?
• “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?”
• “Why does God still find fault?
• “Why have you made me like this?”
As we venture into Paul’s letter to the Romans, let’s all answer and ask: who, what, when, where, how & why?
2023-10-06 | Leviticus 23:36-39 | Wedding Day
It was a betrothal and today we have all but lost the dense significance of such customs. Once the image was diluted it did not take long before the tradition was replaced by something much less meaningful. Marriage today is most often preceded by engagement, an offer of marriage and loose promise between two people, if accepted, to get married one day. And why would that event be anything significant when all the benefits of marriage are readily available outside of marriage and shared already—including sexual intimacy and cohabitation. Gone are the binding commitments and isn’t that most obvious by how often marriages end, as if they are disposable inconveniences that have run their useful course. Why own when you can rent? Why buy when you can use someone else’s property for a while and just walk away when something breaks or upkeep becomes too much work?
Betrothal is different, but in order to even begin to grasp why, you must learn to see marriage differently. Marriage was the one institution, the only institution, designed by God to indicate mankind was created in His image. Adam was created and even before Eve was pulled from his bones, Adam already had within him everything that represented God—man, woman, and child. But we could not see the woman and child, so God extracted the woman and presented her to Adam, really to all of us. That is when we recognized the family that was inside of him all along—God’s image. And then came marriage. God instructed, “Let Me assure you that even though I took her from you, she is still one with you.” Marriage is simply, but profoundly, God’s way of telling us, we are one with Him, created in His image, forevermore.
When you consider this idea, does it not make so much more sense now when we read in the Scriptures that marriage is about Christ’s oneness with His bride, the church? Yes, His bride but yet to have arrived at the altar of marriage. His bride, but presently His betrothed, bound in a covenant as strong as marriage, but not married. All the permanence minus two things, sexual intimacy and cohabitation. Think back when Joseph thought that Mary had been unfaithful, having been found with child. Did he not consider divorce, even though they were only betrothed? That is the binding nature of betrothal. Do you see how much more powerful this is than the idea of engagement? And do you see how harmful it is to engage in the things reserved ONLY for marriage, OUTSIDE of marriage? It cheapens marriage, weakens it. It has diluted the meaning of marriage so badly that we’ve arrived at a cultural crossroads; marriage is unnecessary. Marriage is an outdated institution, and by extension, so is the family. In other words, seeing the human family as the expressed image of God has become obsolete; it’s a relic best designated to the museum reserved for all things no longer needed.
And all of this is to bring us to one point. The Eighth Day of the Feast of Tabernacles, the Last Great Day, has been the rehearsal dinner for the marriage supper of the Lamb for thousands of years. The bride, that’s you, must make herself ready by putting on her pure white wedding garment because the wedding day is approaching and the Groom is on His way. It will be a holy convocation, a sacred assembly. It’s a day designated “The Joy of the Law.” Maybe that’s because when the Groom arrives and after He takes care of some much needed business, we will be legally transitioned from His betrothed to His wife. Could there be anything more joyful than that?