Southwood Presbyterian Church

Anonymous | October 12 2011 at 11:46 am

These words magnify the Grace of God.  They also comfort those of us who have a lifetime of guilt, thinking that God’s nature is to reject, condemn, and express displeasure toward us for all our individual sins (truckloads).  It clearly IS His nature to reject, condemn, express displeasure; and that has been done in His Son.

Anonymous | October 12 2011 at 12:01 pm

Matthew 5

Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Brock Warner | October 12 2011 at 2:40 pm

Completely agree with the Matthew 5 poster, in fact, we relax those commandments everyday when we limit them to what was written and not the expansion of them that Jesus gave us.

There is only one single way for your righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees…..faith in Christ.

So well done Matthew 5.

Anonymous | October 13 2011 at 9:23 am

I thought it would be worth seeing the larger context of that Matt 5 section on law/righteousness here (v 17-).  Jesus 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. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from The Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca’ (a term of contempt), is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

and more…

“Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”

And more, and more, until: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  And more, in chapters 6 and 7, which deal with religious hypocrisy, unforgiveness, the love of stuff, and worry.

So then, did Jesus teach that our performance, obedience, asceticism, seeking, non-hypocrisy, and “wise living” are the source of True Life, and God’s pleasure / acceptance of us; and thus expect that a small number of the hearers would do this, and “enter the narrow gate” this way?  OR was his intention to leave people amazed, wondering how they could live up to all this, and ultimately have some ask/seek His Grace?  Any other ideas?

Anonymous | October 13 2011 at 10:58 am

Pastor Jean,

In your detailed response, you stated (bottom of page 12), “[God] lovingly disciplines His beloved children when they sin. His heart is indeed grieved by their behavior, but not kindled to wrath.”

What then of Moses? Hebrews 11:23-29 has him believing for most of his adult life, and yet Exodus 4 has God’s anger and wrath kindled against Moses, a believer, for questioning His judgment (v. 14) and for not circumcising his son (v. 24):

“And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses,... and the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.” (Exodus 4:14,24).

You wrote, “Is that discipline a small act of judgment, wrath or condemnation? Absolutely NOT,” but 1 Cor 11:32 says it is a judgment (and possibly wrath) lest we be condemned. You continued, “Does He do it because He has been angered? Absolutely NOT.” Exodus 4 says otherwise. You then summarized, “He does it BECAUSE He loves us and it is often with a tear in His eye.”

But the Scriptures do not bear this out. You have concluded that God’s love rules out anger and judgment, but the Scriptures, at least to this reader, appear to say that God loves us even when He is angry and judging us. Thus Paul’s assertion, “we are judged … that we should not be condemned with the world,” (1 Cor 11:32) makes more sense to me than your paper. In other words, His judgment is because He loves us, whom He has purchased.

Maybe this is a mist/fog sort of thing. ‘Preciate your thoughts.

Sharla Grable | October 13 2011 at 1:19 pm

Hello Bloggers,
I rarely blog because I don’t have time and I didn’t read Jean’s paper, but for some annoying reason persistent thoughts have been popping into my head the past few days and especially last night and today urging me to write down some stuff that I really don’t personally care that much about. But hopefully these ideas will stop taking up space in my consciousness after today now that I’m blogging about it! Lol!

1 Corinthians 11-32 in the NIV Bible reads like this, “When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.”

Last night I wrote the following down:

You can change you, by following the law, the commandments, etc., but only Christ can save you. Ever hear of early childhood development? Well what about late childhood development or early adulthood development or even late adulthood development? Who says we stop growing after age 21? But beyond that marker (age 21) we become candidates for what psychology likes to call a “personality disorder.” They say we are no longer looked upon as growing and developing; there is something wrong with us if we continue to engage in sin, mess up, and so on.  And instead of trying to help each other, we punish and condemn each other. 

God knows we are sinners; he’s made that perfectly clear in scripture. But what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. And what happens in the flesh stays in the flesh, through Christ Jesus. I agree, He is not pleased with our flesh, but like the blogger this morning suggested, he loves us anyway, in our best moments and in our worst. We are always in early childhood development in His eyes. We know our God to be an unconditionally loving God. And who did Jesus say He came for? Not the righteous, but the sinners. 

Is being liked by God what motivates us to do good? I think His pleasure in us should not be the reason that motivates us to keep the law and do good works in the first place. The unquenchable desire to love one another and keep God’s law and do good works comes from stepping aside and letting the Holy Spirit rule your every decision. And then you do all these good things because you feel you can’t betray the longing in your own heart. And it becomes irrelevant whether or not anyone on earth is pleased with you; do their opinions outweigh God’s? But it also becomes ridiculous to think that God’s reason for being pleased with you is based on what you do, instead of why you are doing it. He is raising us. He’s already saved us, but He knows we still need to be raised like any child. So He disciplines us, in the flesh; for what chance would he have to do so when we are in Heaven? He will be pleased and displeased with us at any given time while we are still in the flesh, not because of how many good or bad things we’ve done, but because of why we have done it. It’s the decisions that take place in our hearts before the actions that are lead either by the Holy Spirit or by Satan /our wayward hearts that He is concerned with.

So take peace when you falter and know that He who began a great work in you will see it through to completion. We are all works in process, and needn’t be concerned with what of our actions please or displease God; He’s a big boy, He can handle it. It’s our blessing that (1) Christ paid our debts, and (2) that our Father doesn’t throw us a parade when we do good works, nor does He shake His head at us when we do bad things.  And again, our reason to keep the law ideally should not be not motivated by His response in my opinion, but by our hearts desire to be in accordance with His law; a law rooted in tough love.

Branham Daniels | October 14 2011 at 7:24 am

Brock can you help me out here?

Some of these passages above seem to state that there’s something we must do to be good enough for heaven. In my mind, there’s nothing we can do but believe that God loves us and forgave us a long time ago for everything we will do yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So which is it? Sometimes it does feel like the Grace of God is an “easy way out” for some people and when you explain it to them they look at it like I’m saying I’m simply doing that, taking an easy way out approach. But if the easy way out was being flogged until my back was ripped open and nailed to a cross with thorns pressed down into my scalp until every part of me is bleeding, umm I want no part of that. THANK YOU JESUS!!!

Sharla Grable | October 16 2011 at 10:06 am

In Christ we inherited royalty forever. Unfortunately through Christ we did not inherit divine judgment/wisdom, will power, and the spiritual maturity of the Lord. That all must be learned, here, in the flesh. Think of our God as our Father, life counselor, school teacher, doctor, and coach all in one. We are His students, His children, and His patients all in one. Our works are just that; works. It is through our homework assignments, our studying, our “AA meetings and 12 step programs” that we learn to develop our spirituality. Then once our hearts begin to be transformed as a result of His teaching, guidance and love, and via our practicing, He rejoices with pleasure in us because He can see that we are changing, growing, and starting to prefer His way (law) over any other. He’s the football coach on the side lines jumping for joy when we make the touchdown, and also the parent in the stand taking pictures shouting, “that’s my son!” And also the teacher grading papers late at night saying to herself, YYYeeeesss! And the doctor weeping for joy at favorable test results that show cancer cell level is diminishing. When we have a relapse, or start to forget again and make the same bad choices again, He disciplines us to remind us of our potential to be the son or daughter He has in mind for us to be. He may be frustrated at us at these times, and angry, like any parent or teacher, coach or counselor. But, He is still more concerned with the process of our spiritual development, knowing it will never be perfect, of course. But we never gain his favor over each other. There’s a scripture somewhere in the Bible I can’t find right now that points out that no one can boast (in our good deeds/works) because we are not saved through our works but by Christ Jesus. So to do good deeds is to serve another purpose of His; they transform us and aid in our growth and glorify Him all the more as a Father, teacher, counselor…Almighty God. They are not buying us any goody points.

Sharla Grable | October 16 2011 at 12:07 pm

1 Peter 2:1-3 NIV

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may GROW UP in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

I don’t mean to disregard the use of the Law under the old covenant in my previous post. It served it’s purpose well then. But when Jesus came and fulfilled the Law it took on a new purpose. I believe, based on scripture, that the new purpose for the Law is to do what I expressed above - to transform our hearts, aid in our spiritual growth and maturity.

Natalie Thomasmeyer | October 19 2011 at 3:57 pm

My husband and i have this discussion often about Growth of believers.  Growth is always an option.  Ultimately, i pray that when we as a body of believers always choose growth, our society needs thinking and loving reflectors of Jesus.  i pray as we fall before His throne in worship and communion, that we will have many crowns to lay before His feet.

They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God,
  to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
  and by your will they were created
  and have their being.”  Rev 9:9-11

Dear God, let me not come empty handed.  I know this equates to the paper flower my child cut out for me today, but thankful for his gesture and his heart moved to love. Thankful HE calls us beloved, even when our flesh calls us to be weak.

John Morley | October 26 2011 at 1:27 am

To “ANONYMOUS | OCTOBER 13 2011 AT 10:58 AM”:

Regarding your question about Exodus 4, try reading the paper again, but this time substituting Exodus 4 in place of Isaiah 64 on pages 6 through 9.

The more I think about this whole “is God angry at me” question, quite honestly, the more absurd it becomes. Yes, there is scripture that clearly shows God’s anger towards sin and the sinner, and that needs to be reconciled with the rest of scripture of course, but for me to be able to picture God as regularly getting angry at me would require an incredibly shallow view of my own sin.

What I mean by that is, sure, if I caught myself sinning every week or so, and I pictured God getting angry at me for that sin, then it makes sense. He loves me always, he delights in me most of the time, but when I mess up, boy does he get angry for a little while. But then I confess and everything gets back to normal, and he delights in me for another solid week until I mess up again.

But the problem is, I don’t catch myself sinning every week. I catch myself sinning every hour. And when I’m actually paying attention, I notice it far more often than that. And if I could actually see myself with complete transparency, then I would finally actually understand Genesis 6:5, which tells me that EVERY inclination of the thoughts of my heart are ONLY evil ALL the time.

So if I really believed that every inclination of my heart was only evil all the time, and I also believed that God looked down on me in anger every single time I sinned, then there would be absolutely no room for me to ever picture God as actually delighting in me. Zephaniah 3:17 would not make any sense at all. The whole concept of God loving and delighting in me would seem like utter nonsense.

Some questions for you. These would normally be rhetorical (or at least private) questions, but since you are anonymous, hopefully you’ll feel comfortable answering them here…

How do you picture God’s disposition towards you while you’re in sin?

How do you picture God’s disposition towards you right after you’ve repented of that sin?

How often are you catching yourself in sin?

Do you catch yourself in sin more or less often than you did one year ago?