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With me now? Good. Then you know that we left off yesterday’s discussion with the cryptic (to some) statement about the law that Jesus made in Matthew 5:17-18 when He said,

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” This is one of the most misquoted scriptures in all the Bible, but even when people do get it right, they often don’t understand it correctly”

Friends? It is absolutely vital that we understand not only exactly what Jesus was saying here, but also exactly what He was not saying.

What’s another way of putting this?

Commentator Jon Courson says the following,

“When it comes to Jesus’ statement, “I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, what He’s saying is, “I am not seeking to weaken it, but to establish it.”

The age old barrier to mankind being reconciled with God is not our only sin—another one is our inability to think of ourselves as ‘sinners.’ People think, “Well, I’m a pretty good person.” But the law says, “Oh really? Well here’s your standard.” And suddenly, as they read through the law, they realize they’re sinners in need of a savior. At least we hope they realize this. Some read through the law and are only inspired to try harder to be good—an exercise in futility if ever there was one. Many of those at Southbrook Church have heard me say this before, but it’s worth saying again.

“God’s not after our behavior, He’s after our heart!”

That’s right, it’s always been a “matter of the heart.” From Old Testament times to New Testament times to modern times—and it’s still a matter of the heart for God.

So, it’s not that the law is abolished and we can all cast off restraint and do anything and everything we want—nor is it the opposite, that by fulfilling the law Jesus meant to just add more laws. It’s neither. It’s about our motivation for doing good things and not doing bad things.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter where we live, where we go to school, what job we have, who our family is—anywhere we are and everything we do can either be “as unto the Lord,” or it can be, “as unto ourselves.”

For example, I can workout at the YMCA (and do – Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed!) and it can be an act of worship if I say, “Lord, I thank You for the fact that I can exercise. Help me to somehow reflect you even as I go through my routine workout. May this be a time where I actually encourage others around me and really be thankful to you form the heart!”

You are in the Holy of Holies at that time, even though there isn’t a worship team or pew or pulpit in sight (unless I’m doing preacher curls – sorry, that was weak). Does this mean you should never read your Bible, or pray, or tithe, or go to church? Of course not. It means, however, that our motivation for doing these things changes. Instead of feeling responsible to demonstrate your level of spirituality, you realize the work has already been done, the price paid, the victory won—and study of the Word, prayer, tithing, fasting, serving one another, and any number of other spiritual disciplines changes from one of responsibility to one of response.

I love the example theologian and pastor Jon Courson shared on this,

“When my wife gives me a Valentine, I don’t say, “I better read this. In fact, I’ll have to discipline [myself to set aside some time each day] to do it. I’ll begin carving out time tomorrow. Hope I can stay awake. Hope she’s impressed that I read it.” That’s crazy! And yet we take the Valentine of God’s Word—His love letter to us—and say, “Well I better discipline myself. Hope I can stay awake. Where should I start?” When you’re in love with someone, you want to know what she’s saying, what he’s thinking, what they’re feeling. You want to know her mind; you want to hear his heart”

Why do I study the Bible? Because I am so impressed with the Father that I want to know more about Him!

Tomorrow I will wrap this up with the main reason I started this blog series in the first place—for those who mistakenly believe that tithing is somehow ‘wrong’ because we are “not under the law, but under grace…’

You won’t want to miss it!

Years ago when reading the Old Testament I would get a little discouraged with all the law requirements—how in the world could people remember all that stuff let alone obey it?! Some of you are thinking, “Are you serious, Pastor Rob? Who can’t remember 10 simple commandments?”

First of all, there weren’t just ’10 simple commandments’ there were actually 613 laws! Second of all, recent “man on the street” surveys have been done that show that the average person living in supposedly  “Christian” America cannot name more than 2 of the 10 commandments! So it would seem most of us are not quite ready to pick the Bible category on the game show, ‘Jeopardy.’

All this makes me so thankful to have been born and called as a child of God after Christ came and paid for my sins on the cross—a time period many refer to as, “the age of grace.” The Lord’s mercy and grace toward me is the greatest gift I’ve ever received—should be for every believer.

But, sadly, grace is not always understood let alone embraced by Christ followers today. In fact, when it comes to grace, the reactions of Christians run the full gambit. Some full-on abuse it. Others take it for granted. Still others don’t see the difference between grace and law at all. Another group will embrace it at the moment of salvation but then spend their lives trying to earn it. All these responses are unbiblical responses to God’s great gift. Let’s talk about a couple of them…

First, there are those who basically spit in the face of God’s grace. I call them “The Grace Mace Crowd”. Paul talked about the grace mace group in Romans chapter 6 verses 1-2,

“¹ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Since this was said at the very beginning of chapter 6, we need to take a look at what was said about grace in the previous chapter.

“¹⁹ For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. ²⁰ Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, ²¹ so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

What this is saying is that, because of Adam’s failure, sin continually enters the world. Like babies tragically born addicted to crack/cocaine because of the sin of their mothers, we have been condemned because of Adam’s sin and continue sinning as a result. However, the apostle Paul teaches us that the grace of God is greater than our sin! This should cause us to rejoice!—to have great hope! But, sadly, it sometimes evokes a different response…

Which brings us up to speed with the beginning of chapter 6. Paul—as though anticipating the argument from the “Grace Mace” crowd–pens chapter 6 as a preemptive strike against cheap grace and easy believism.

“¹ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

He’s saying, if all we want to do is grab the “Get out of Hell Free” card from God and then live the rest of our lives for the devil—we’ve cheapened grace and spit on God’s precious gift! No one whose heart was truly transformed would ever respond that way!

All too often, Christians try to fight sin by preaching, “No, no, no.” Paul’s method was to teach, “Know, know, know!” He said, “Know you have a new identification with Jesus Christ (vs. 3-5); know you have freedom through the cross (vs. 6-15); and know some things about Jesus’ cause (vs. 16-20).

Others respond to the “age of grace” by nullifying the Old Testament usually with dead giveaway phrases like, “We’re no longer under law, but under grace now.” While technically this is true, I find it of utmost importance to get people to clarify exactly what they mean by that. It’s vitally important because this line of reasoning can very easily lead to the same approach to God that the “Grace Macers” use.

How so, Pastor Rob?

Simple really. If we carry this idea that we are ‘no longer under law’ to extremes, what comes next?

• The law was bad?
• The law can be ignored?
• I’ll obey the ones I want to and ignore the others?

Truth is, the law wasn’t bad—it had its purpose. And its purpose was very important. Once again, the apostle Paul verifies this in Romans 7:7,

“Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.”

And again writing to the Galatians in Galatians 3:19,

“ ¹⁹ Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.”

So then, if the law is good, why did Jesus come to abolish it?

Who ever said He did?

Certainly not Jesus. No, the scripture people are thinking of (and butchering, I might add) when they make this misguided statement, is Matthew 5:17-18—though they almost never know where the scripture they’re “thinking of” is located when they misquote it. It’s a lot like the following misquote of scripture,

“Money is the root of all evil.”

Ever heard that one?

Sure you have. So have I. Only problem with it is, the Bible doesn’t say this…ANYWHERE! Here is the actual verse,

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” 1 Timothy 6:10

Two things we should notice right away are the words, “the love, a, all kinds,” and evil(s)” So it’s not money itself. Money isn’t good or bad—it’s an inanimate object for goodness sake! It’s whether or not it is an idol to us that makes all the difference. Do you “love” money more than God? That’s a problem.

And what about the phrase, “all kinds?” Well, that certainly encompasses a lot, but it doesn’t encapsulate all evil. Another example of an attitude that covers quite a lot of sin territory is the sin of pride—it was this sin that preceded the downfall of Lucifer (Satan).

And finally, the word is not “evil,” but rather, “evil(s)” – plural. Again pointing to many sinful outcomes but not all. Certainly the love of money is not the only trap the evil one can use to ensnare us.

So one can easily see how tiny changes in just one verse can alter the meaning quite a bit. With this in mind, let’s take a look at what Jesus actually said in Matthew 5:17-18,

“¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” Matthew 5:17-18

What’s this? Not only did Jesus NOT say that He came to ‘abolish’ the law—He actually said the exact opposite—that He did “NOT come to abolish the law.” So how in the world do people get the notion that Jesus came to abolish the law from a scripture that says the exact opposite?

Simple, they view other scriptures that seem to say this and then forget to go back to Matthew 5:17-18 in order to reconcile (or not) what other seemingly contradictory texts seem to be saying. When it comes to Matthew 5, I find most are simply ‘vaguely aware of some passage in the Bible “somewhere” where Jesus supposedly said that He came to abolish the law.’

Do you see how dangerous this is?

So then, just how do we reconcile all this?

Simple, we keep reading. When Jesus said He did not come to abolish the law he immediately followed up with what He did come to do to the law, “; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” He came to “fulfill it.”

And how did He do that?

Well, that’s for tomorrow’s post. I’m about to Carpal Tunnel out here and this post is already making a strong bid to be the longest I’ve ever written so…

Cya then!

What are You Craving?

“¹ How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!
² My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.”

Your Bible may say that the “sons of Korah wrote this particular Psalm. However, many commentators (and I agree) believe this is another Psalm of David—written at the time he was in exile from Jerusalem because of the rebellion of his son, Absalom. If this is true, we see David longing not for the palace he had or the power he once enjoyed. Nor do we see him pining away for the popularity or position he once held. No, instead, we see him longing for the presence of the Lord!

We may not realize this, but David’s longings—the cravings of his very soul are ours as well. The great early church theologian, Augustine once said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

The problem?

Most of us haven’t got a clue what the underlying restlessness in our souls is all about! As a result, late at night we think we need noise, so we watch television. But when that doesn’t satisfy us, we go to the fridge and have a bowl of ice cream. Still, that does no good so we go online and peer into everyone else’s trivia on Facebook—still, the craving goes unmet. Finally, some of us will panic at how late it is and take some kind of medication to help force sleep upon our already weary souls only to wakeup more restless than ever because the yearning of our soul was left completely untouched.

Why?

Because it was for the Lord’s pleasure that we were created (see Revelation 4:11). Therefore, it is only when we are pleasing Him, spending time with Him that we find true satisfaction for our souls.

Imagine that you are a gymnast whose specialty is the balance beam, and right before you’re ready to take to the beam in the final phase of the competition, your coach notifies you your preliminary scores are already so far ahead of everyone else’s that even if you get “0″ in the final phase, you will win. This information would enable you to be as daring and creative as you want because you have nothing to lose.

For a lot of pastors, preaching on stewardship is their most dreaded series. It used to be that way for me as well. And I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that that was because I didn’t view God correctly myself in this area. Oh it wasn’t that I didn’t trust Him with the tithe—He already dealt with me in that area more than 16 years ago when I married my wife Michelle. You see Michelle has the spiritual gift of giving. Because of that, there’s few people I’ve ever met that can out give Michelle. Now to be fair to me (perhaps not so fair to Michelle) she didn’t notify me of this little tidbit of information until we were on our honeymoon. On our honeymoon, holding hands and walking along the shore. Michelle told me that one of her dreams was that when she got married we would as a couple raise our tithe 1% for every year that we were married. She followed that up with this question, “So let’s do it!” Before I could even think, the following words came out of my mouth, “let’s not!”

Alas, that was not one of my more shining moments. But after the walk and conversation ended that day on the beach I decided to trust this godly woman God had given me and we went ahead and did this with our tithe. Some amazing things immediately followed. She would have her best year ever in private practice as a chiropractor and the church just began to explode with growth and keep on growing therefore we never lacked. Oh there were times of unbelievable nail-biting tests, such as the time I went without three paychecks in a row because things were that tight at Southbrook church. And there was another time when we (combined with a building campaign for our church) had pledged 40 percent of our income away to God’s work and almost immediately just about freaked out with what we’ve done. Ok, I freaked out, not Michelle.

Question? What do you thin happened that year?

God came through greater than ever! So when I talk about a matter of trust with the tithe, I’m not talking about my own tithing—Michelle and I cannot cross that bridge again—we would never go back. We know that it truly is more blessed to give than to receive and we’ve seen that you truly cannot out give God. No actually when it comes to the title of this post “a matter of trust” it’s that I’ve had trouble trusting what God would do if I preached to people about money. Nevermind that Jesus talked about it more He talked about heaven and hell—combined. Never mind that he talked more about our stuff than even love or prayer! I still felt this would be a deal-breaker for many people. And you know what? It is for some. but it’s also a faith stretching transformation for most.

The reason I gave the illustration of the gymnast on the balance beam at the beginning is that all professional athletes or Olympic athletes have daring moves in their repertoire that they’re usually unwilling to do unless they have hem down cold. If the competition is real tight I doubt they’re gonna pull out those risky moves that they could very well fail on. More likely than not they’ll choose a routine that has a high enough degree of difficulty but that they know solidly and can perform in their sleep.

But what if you knew you couldn’t fail? Wouldn’t that make a whole lot of difference? Sure it would. If the same gymnast knew they had it in the bag they might try to really wow the audience and do things that they were pretty sure they can do (but not positive) perhaps a little bit nervous about. But my bet is they’d still—go for broke.

That’s what I say tithing really comes down to a matter of trust for a lot of people. God already said that if we bring the whole tithe to the storehouse (temple or church — Malachi chapter 3) that He would bless us. And Jesus talked about blessings being so full that we could shake up our baskets full of blessings press them down again and put more in, then shake it up again, press down some more, and God would still fill them to overflowing. So when we don’t trust on the tithe, what are we really saying? That God’s not good for His word? That’s exactly what we’re saying.

I haven’t met a lot of people that wouldn’t like to let go completely and trust God with everything they’ve got. I mean, most believers want to live a more vibrant Christian life than they’re currently living. But friends? You need to know that that’s impossible (even logically so)—if you don’t fully trust your savior. The fact is, you’re not likely to follow somebody you don’t trust. You don’t know where he is going to take you. You don’t know where he is going to lead you. You don’t know if he might hurt you. You’ll feel you don’t know—flat out—enough about him to follow him anywhere. You know what that sounds like? That sounds like a  stranger, not a savior! How many Christians today are no closer to the one that saved them than there are to a perfect stranger?

So you see it really does come down to a matter of trust.  Do you believe that God can and will do what He said if you’re faithful in giving back to him?

Or not?

Your move.

• Today we kicked off a 3 week series entitled, “Genome.” The gist is this…Each and every one of us was created with a unique and defining set of DNA which contains the genetic code that determines eye color, height, looks, personality tendencies, hair color and so much more. In short, it’s the stuff that makes you uniquely you. But did you know that when we are born again God gives us a whole new Spiritual Genome? The Bible puts it this way…

 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

            Isn’t that AWESOME?!

Well it should be. Think about it. With God powered DNA each son or daughter of the King has the potential to be an unstoppable force for the advancement of His Kingdom! Sadly, few ever realize that potential—thus the series, “Genome.” Beginning today and for the next 2 weeks I will be showing what it is that stands between the majority of believers living mediocre lives for Christ and the vibrant Christ follower living all out for Him! Anyone who desperately desires God’s blessing on their lives needs to be there. So come the next 2 weeks and plan on bringing a friend or 12!

• God is showing us (the staff) more and more of Himself as we desperately seek Him on the “Daniel Fast.” We’re praying that God would make us an outrageously generous church that draws the lost like a magnet! We want to go over the top in fulfilling the Great Commission Jesus charged all believers with. You can find it here.

• I let the Cat out of the Bag in regards to what the secret to god’s blessing is, so I don’t suppose it would do any harm to mention it again here. The secret is to tap into one particular gene in our new spiritual Genome given to us as believers. What’s that gene you ask? The “Generosity Gene.” And to tell you the truth, it’s not even that much of a secret—it’s actually all over the Bible from Genesis to Revelation—It’s next to impossible to miss! Yet most miss it nonetheless. But think about it. If we want to live powerful, victorious lives for Christ then it logically follows that we need to stay very close to the source of all that power—we need to stay connected to Jesus—He ain’t kidding when He says that ‘apart from Him we can do (ready for this?)…NOTHING!” Spiritually speaking that is. Oh we might appear to be making a mark on this world, but I guarantee you it won’t be for God if we are not close to Christ—no, it will be for ourselves and as such, the mark we leave won’t last. No, if you want to make a mark (leave a legacy) that will last long after you’re gone then you have to leave it like God did through Christ.

And how was that?

Glad you asked. The answer has actually been right under our noses all along (or, in the case of Tim Tebow—right under his eyes). It’s John 3:16, which says,

“For God so loved the world that He GAVE His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life!”

That’s right, our God is first and foremost a generous God. If we want to make a difference in this world we absolutely must be the same. And that’s no easy challenge when the world we live in constantly pulls in the opposite direction. But we’re dealing with all this @Southbrook Church these 3 weeks and I can tell you that even after only 1 message—it’s already rockin some people’s whole world!

• Got to do one of the things I love the most after church today—take my Chocolate lab (Bear) for a walk and a swim. My daughter, Juliana brought her little lab (Paws) as well and we had a blast. Man I love getting outdoors and playing in God’s creation!

• The following are a few more things from the weekend’s message…
• Why would God trust you with what is next if He cannot trust you with what He’s telling you to do now?
• “People say you can’t out give God…I don’t see many even trying.”
• The most important gene in our entire spiritual Genome is the generosity gene.
• When it comes to being more generous, people have one of the 3 main mindsets, The Bag Mindset, The Basket Mindset, or, The Barn Mindset. Which are you? Oh, BTW, if you have no idea what I am talking about, get the podcast. It will be out by Tuesday!