September 10, 2025 • 49 mins
Join Pastor Joe Liles and the TNC Podcast team for an in-depth exploration of Romans 1:16-17, a pivotal passage in Christian theology.
In this episode, Pastor Joe shares about his 50-mile running journey and then they break down the apostle Paul's powerful declaration about the gospel's transformative power, diving into the nuanced meanings of righteousness, faith, and salvation. Learn about the early Christian experience in Rome, the challenges of interpreting ancient texts, and how these two verses connect to broader theological concepts.
The podcast offers a comprehensive look at:
- The historical background of Paul's letter to the Romans
- Greek language nuances and translation challenges
- The concept of righteousness through faith
- Practical implications of living a faith-centered life
Whether you're a biblical scholar, a church leader, or someone seeking deeper understanding of Christian theology, this episode provides rich, accessible insights into one of the most significant passages in the New Testament.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This. This is for the VISTA. So,you. Welcome to the TNC Podcast
(00:25):
coming to you live in theworship center on the
neighborhood church campus. Ooh,it sounds nice. I'm just gonna
own it from now on and just saywe're a campus and we're gonna
work forward from it. I've beenstruggling with that identity,
and now we're in. We're just in.
We have enough rentals going on.
Thanks, Roseanne, appreciatethat. I have.
I struggle with the campus thinga little bit too. Yeah, I think
(00:45):
I've been calling it a campuslonger than
you have, you have, yeah, otherpeople have been calling it a
campus. And I'm just like, it'shard because we are a small but
mighty church, and we have a lotgoing on. And so this is usually
reflected inlarger churches. And I think me,
I bet, was a little resistant,because a lot of the churches
that have, like, what they calla campus, yeah? Or, like, you
know, non denominational, youknow, non rooms, yeah? And a lot
(01:06):
of them are, like, the biggerones, and it kind of turns into,
like, a McDonald's version ofchurch. And there's been a few
I've visited and like, oh, this,this is not a church McDonald's
at all, right? It's like aMcDonald's version of church.
I'm like, This is not a churchat all. And so I've been
hesitant to call this a campus,yeah? I want to associate us
with, yeah. I get you Yeah, someof that the McDonald's church
is great benefits, uh huh. Jesusloving us, that'd be great. So
(01:31):
with that, yeah, it was prettygood, right? Thank you,
Roseanne. I appreciate that youdidn't say anything, but your
looks at it all. I appreciateyou, Roseanne, we were judged.
I love jingles, if we can.
That's why we do. You do lovejingles. I do love jingles. And,
you know, I don't know what itis, but I've seen jingles for
years. I have them all in thesame speaking of a jingle, let's
start off with our neighborhoodjingle. Ready, 479-367-2285,
(01:52):
neighborhood church, church. Andyou know who you can reach with
that jingle, Roseanne. Me,that's right. Roseanne on a
podcast host, you can reach her.
Finally, on any number, callthem all right.
479-367-2285, I think you haveto use all those to make it
work.
479-367-2321, right? Another onethat's little neighbors,
(02:17):
that's little neighbors. Andthen 479-367-2354, that that's
my line. That's your line. Butthere you go. Now you
have them all mine. Is it?
When you said, anyway, said,Any, any of those numbers? I was
like, I knew. I was like, Ithink you have to use all 10 to
like, yeah,there's everybody. Yeah. We have
a mobile seat number. We haveany way you can reach us. Is
(02:37):
what's happening? Socomplicated, yeah. So speaking
of jingles, if we can just goback for a sec, I love jingles.
What is your favorite jinglelike? If I say jingle, what's
the jingle that comes to yourmind? I got absolutely nothing.
You gotnothing on any jingle, any
jingle. It could be anything.
Right now, ReadingRainbow right now, trying to
think of that you see, like theBruce Almighty movie when he's
(02:59):
in the room with, you know, andit's just white, white, yeah,
yeah. That's my head.
That's your head, right now.
Nothing. Okay, man, this topicdied. It happened to me a lot. I
was so excited for the jingle.
Talk about, okay, Roseanne,what's your favorite jingle? I
think Red Robin. Red Robin. Yum.
That's like, that's a good one.
Yeah, I got chilis. I sangChili's for years. Chili, baby
(03:23):
mag ribs. Chili, baby man ribs,barbecue sauce. I want my baby
back ribs like it's so Ilove my head's a lot quieter
place than yours, I think. And Iworry if that's a problem or
not.
Did you just say your head is alot quieter place than mine.
Yeah, it goes on because youalways got stuff going. I do.
(03:44):
You don't have jingles todisplay through. No, I make. I
mean, I'm what is the jinglethat I did the other day during
core team that people asked meabout? Do you remember I was
trying to get the computers allto work?
It was Reading Rainbow. It wasreading right now. But I don't
remember the jingle. I rememberthat it
was reading, no, is because Iwas trying to get all it
started. Everyone was waiting,and all the things are happening
at once. And when I getoverloaded in my brain and I
(04:05):
need to tell there's some kindof a positive reinforcement,
it's like I can do anything Ican hear, right? Yeah, I knew it
was Reading Rainbow, yeah, but Iknow the tune doesn't stick in
my head.
Oh, yeah, no. So yeah, I singthat when I'm overloaded now
that I can still accomplish thetask without giving up on it.
And I was like, here we go.
Because I literally tried tolock it 10 times and it kept on.
(04:27):
It was like a loop. It was like,and, you know, Brian's looking
he's like, this is weird. AndI'm like, I know it's weird, and
I'm not gonna have to back ininto this like, 10 different
ways in order to getso our stuff has done that to
me, where I log in and it justtakes me right back to the login
screen, andthrough with you. I'm more
convinced it's user errorsquieter than mine. I needed one
bad I used to, I used to alwaysassume that, yeah, until I the
(04:54):
occasion, rare occasion I seeyou struggling. I'm like, I feel
very like, youdo feel firm. It's really say,
though, yeah. But at least evenin the last two months, you have
exponentially grown in yourability to tech.
I have grown I've come to theThe Reluctant acceptance of the
fact that I'm gonna have tolearn to use some of this.
That is the best way that youhave ever put that, because as
(05:16):
you sit down to learn it, thatis my takeaway from looking at
you, is you reluctantly oraccepting the position like I
want to be in it? Oh, fine,fine. I'm gonna do it. Yeah,
that's great. Yeah, it's a muchbetter way to jump. I won't, I
won't enjoy it, but I'll get towhere I can do it. We did come
to the final process, though,that if you're frustrated by it,
there's probably somethingwrong. Yeah, there's something.
(05:37):
If you ever get frustrated,you've gone too
far, although you mayunderestimate my tendency to get
frustrated withtech. Nope, I 100% know your
frustration with I also knowyou've
got, you've had the ability tomake some of that stuff simple
enough for me to use it. Yes,1,000% which is what I need,
1000 timesover, 1000 times over. And
yesterday, when I sat down andsaid, Hey, we can use scribe.
It's a cool AI, like you gothrough everything, you click
(05:58):
through it kind of doeseverything for you, tells you
all the steps. And he said, No,I want pen and paper, and I want
to write down every step. And Isaid, that's great. I will use
scribe for me. And I said, youcan use pen
and paper for you. I would justget frustrated with trying to
log in and find the stuff onscribe and get the logo.
I just, yeah, okay, so now we'vetalked about jingles and we've
talked about technology, but ifI lose
(06:19):
those notes, you'll have plentyof ammunition. Yeah, if
you come back to me, like, whatwas step 17, and I'm like, yep,
that's why we don't write itdown. That's why we have scrappy
notes. So this is great. Well, Ijust want to welcome you all
thanks for joining us today. Idid not preach on Sunday because
I was gone. Got way, gone way. Iwas in Kansas City, little left
to Kansas City. When I saidleft, I mean, West. Do you guys
(06:41):
do that? You guys associate leftwith West and right with East.
You don't do that. That's nothow your brain works. You've
never done that. I thoughtthat was normal, no, because
left could be north, south.
I get that. That's why I'msaying it out loud. But, I mean,
I thought it was normal peoplelike I went left, which means
West, like, I'm always facingnorth, so I go left to go west.
(07:01):
Wow. No, you know, when Ithere's a little counselor. When
I talked with my therapist theother day, I said, I need to
understand how the world thinks,because I think a lot of things
that I think are normal in myhead. The world maybe doesn't
see, but everybody does that.
Everybody assumes what's intheir own head is normal, is how
people think, and that, andthat's some of the problem when,
you know, people make choices ofstuff, oh, everybody's gonna
love this, and they're like,What? Yeah, it was just, you
(07:23):
know, just me. Okay, yeah.
So I was in Lawrence, Kansas,which is out by Clinton, like,
just west of Kansas City, about45 minutes, and I ran 50 miles
with nothing chasing you fit.
Nothing chasing me, no otherpeople doing this. Just the
thought of my past self chasingme.
That's a moment, yeah, that'spart
(07:46):
of the part of the growth onthose journeys is like, Yo, my
past selfis chasing. Past self did not
train for marathons around himanyway. Oh, I was so happy. I
trained for this. I know youleft past self. Oh, the race,
yeah.
Oh yeah. When I got to 25 milesright? Passed out. Was like,
Please, I'm out. It's like, thisis where I this, right? It's so
funny, because I think about,like, the 13.1 miles when I
(08:08):
passed out at half marathons,right? Running the pace that I
was running over the mountains,right? And now I'm running that
over mountains for 50 miles. AndI'm like, Yeah, I definitely
didn't drink because I couldhave done that 10 years ago,
yeah, that would have been awhole different story, right?
And I'm sorry, younger than Iwas, younger. Well, I was
talking to a guy who was runningwith me, who's 53 right? And
he's just trotting like, I am,right? We had two hours of
(08:29):
conversation, right? We're justrunning next to each other
trail, and he's we just putliquors. Like, why didn't we do
this when we had the energy andhad the body and had the goat to
do it, that frontal lobe thing,yeah, it just didn't happen.
Just that. So ran 50 miles. Itwas awesome. I was on my feet
running for 13 hours, which is adifference, because I finished
(08:50):
the first 25 miles in five hoursand 15 minutes. So then you can
see that the next one took meabout two hours longer, right?
So like, you just start. Yeah,that last 10 miles brutal. So it
was actually just the last 10miles. So like, the next 15 were
really good, and then the last10, I just had to power through.
When you say power their last10, the last there's like, a
(09:13):
fundamental like issue with,yeah, like, I don't like sitting
in my car for 13 hours.
Yeah, this is true. This istrue. You can't think about it,
like 13 hours. Here was thebrutal mistake that I did. Could
you not though, yeah, it was,it's brutal. Like the last it
was the last 10 miles. It wasreally 11 miles. But last 11
miles was a 4.5 mile section anda 6.5 mile section, and there's
(09:33):
an aid station right in themiddle the 4.5 mile section on
the first 25 miles was thelongest mind section. Like, I
thought I should have finishedbefore I finished. And so I kept
on running through a finish linethat wasn't there, that that's
just annoying. Like it you justthink that, like, obviously I
went somewhere wrong, or Iturned left on the trail and I
shouldn't have right, and thenyou end up there, and your
body's telling you it's, yeah,yeah. That's exactly what's
(09:55):
happening. And so, so the lastfour and a half section, the
brutal part is you think. Aboutit, and you're like, Okay, four
and a half miles. Well, I run aneight minute mile standard,
like, like, if I can just go outand run, I'll run eight minutes.
If I'm chill, I'll do a nine.
That's fine, right? I can run asfast as a six, whatever. So in
my head, I'm like, Cool. I got24 minutes of running. Like,
this is awesome. If you add inthe previous 40 miles, it's no
(10:16):
longer an eight minute mile.
You're running at 16 to 18minutes a mile over the
mountains, and your hip pointersaren't working, and your calves
are smoked, right? And so thenyou do the quick path, and you
realize that four miles is anhour and 10 minutes. And you're
like, oh, I have to run an hourjust to get to the next aid
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station. You're like, and thenthere's a 6.5 mile section,
which, the first time took youan hour now takes you two hours
and 15 minutes, right? Andyou're like, Okay, we're in it.
We are totally in it for thenext three hours. So thinking
about the length of the race isdebilitating, right? Thinking
about the next aid station iswhere you have to land. Like,
I'm just running four miles tothe next aid station. I just do
(10:57):
that 10 times over and we'regonna rock it was so fun.
I am out on so many levels,runner, yes, and I don't do that
much math. Do youenjoy nature? I enjoy nature. Do
you enjoy a walk outside withGod?
I do enjoy walk. Same thing asan ultimate as a matter of fact,
on Sunday, my sister and I, forpart of our Sabbath, went on a
(11:18):
two mile walk. Yes, that'sbeautiful. It was, it was, and
by the end of it, poor thing shewas, I mean, sweat porn, yes.
And I'm like, you want to gosome more? Yeah?
No, she's done. She's done.
That's great. So that's where myultra marathon started. It's two
miles. So now you guys are goingto get on your way to ultra
marathons? Yeah, no, which,wait, no, so, so anyways,
(11:41):
Ultra, front porch, sittingUltra, but I won't make it for
13 hours. That's right. That'sright. So gone. Tom, you led
you're up on Sunday sharing infor a new Romans message, which
is great. So, Tom, can you guideus through, really, the identity
the series was tied into lifegroups, right? And time, yeah.
Can you walk us through that?
Like, what are life groups goingthrough? Where did you lean in
on Sunday to and what isthe series that we're starting?
(12:03):
So part of it is kind of try toreclaim an emphasis of Bible
study and life groups a littlebit. And I'm trying to kind of
shift stuff towards first atleast a season. And so context
matters so much, and trying tointerpret anything you're
reading the Bible and and we'reso far disconnected from first
century Rome that I picked thebook a week in the life of Rome.
James L papandres, it's ahistorical fiction. So it is
(12:26):
historical, but it is alsofiction. So we have to kind of
draw lines, and it just kind ofgets us embedded in the personal
lives of the characters in thefirst century Rome. You know,
with, you know fictional, youknow conversation narrative, but
around known historicalcircumstances. And so as a
(12:48):
reading through that, that book,I'm putting studies up in the
Bible out for each week thathits different points for more
information, for stuff, ifpeople are word nerds in there,
like how we got our our days ofthe week come from Norse,
Germanic pagan gods inspired byRoman pagan gods. Yeah, right,
which most people are like,what? Yes, that's how we got
(13:11):
that. And so for the word nerds,stuff like that. But then also
pointing out places in the bookthat I think the authors own.
You know, he's Roman Catholic,so his own, some of the church,
just tradition that's notnecessarily rooted in biblical
reality or in, you know, extrabiblical known documentation,
and just kind of name that tolevel the field, you know, so
(13:34):
that they get a goodunderstanding of what we know,
what's tradition, what is known,what is Unknown. Like, hey, this
is all. This is your part, justfictional. No basis. Hey, this
part has basis. If you want toread it on that, read it Acts,
Acts chapter 15, yeah, whichI've already gotten feedback on,
because somebody who's read itbut not read it in the context
of thinking about it in thereality of Roman, yeah, we're
(13:54):
like, Oh, I was not aware of allthat going on, yeah. And so
that's what we're trying to dowith the life groups and so,
paralleling a sermon seriesthrough the book of Romans,
hitting just like four highthemes, because you can't do it
in four weeks, yep, sure. Andpart of the that is just to kind
of get the whole church askingquestions. Maybe the whole
church going into the Bible appstudies that the life groups are
(14:16):
doing, maybe encourage morepeople into the life groups,
hopefully. And if nothing else,you know, I asked them all to
submit questions as they'redoing the reading. If they want
to know more about send me someinformation. We'll see if
anybody does it. If you'relistening, please do that way.
When we do an in depth Biblestudy with life groups in the
spring, I can answer all thosequestions that come up. Yeah,
that's really great. And sothat's just that, that kind of
(14:36):
hope to get the wholecongregation pushing towards
that, that study in the spring,because Paul's letter to the
Romans is unique. And it's theonly letter that we have that he
wrote to some place or areligious group, a church group,
or it's not really a church waskind of group, you know, home
churches, but to a group ofChristians that he did not found
himself, yeah, correct very it'sthat's the only one. And because
(14:58):
he's trying to to give his kindof credentials and of what the
gospel really is, becauseobviously he's gotten word we
don't have, we don't have theletter that spurred him on to
write the letter, if there was aletter, or if it was word of
mouth. But we know there werethings he was addressing. And so
he really sent kind of a firstcentury systematic theology,
breakdown of theology, of whatthe gospel message actually is
(15:22):
and what it means forChristians. And so you can use
Paul's letter to the Romans tokind of interpret the rest of
Paul's writings in the NewTestament, and to really to kind
of explain a lot of what wasgoing on in the gospel. So it's
a great lens to use to try tointerpret everything else going
on in the New Testament.
Yeah, that's great. We're notJewish people.
(15:44):
Some were, some weren't. There'sa mix. Because when this was
written, we know from fromCaesarea in the wintertime
between the year 56 and 5780 andso any Senate with Phoebe to to
Rome. We're pretty confident inthat. And in 54 when you know,
(16:05):
Claudius, in in 49 had kickedthe Jews out of Rome, but in 54
he died, and they started comingback. And that is one of the
theories, and I think thestrongest one, as to why there
were issues going on in theseRoman churches. And that's
probably what spurred Paul towrite this letter to try to kind
of straighten some stuff out,you know, you obviously got
some between the Jewishtradition and the Christianity
(16:28):
and then the Gentile, theGentile,
yeah, because, and part of thatties that, that information
going out from the JerusalemCouncil, that you didn't have to
become Jewish to becomeChristian. And there's probably
still some Jews that went backthat might not have been aware
of that, you know, informationtravels slow. They didn't have
news outlets and stuff, and sojust making sure that they're
all on track with what thecouncil in Jerusalem has decided
(16:52):
and and that they're, you know,preaching a true gospel. Because
every anytime you have thebeginning of this religion, some
place in the world, there's atendency to want to cross with
the local, already ongoingcustoms. And so there's, there's
Gentiles that are used toworshiping pagan gods, and now
they're having to kind of learnhow to do this new and they've
lost all their leadership baseand all the people that would
(17:14):
have understand what, what theyhad a scripture at the time in
the Old Testament. And so it'sreally good for us to even go
through and refresh in our owncontexts, because Paul is the
the closest known writer to theGospels where we know who wrote
it. We don't always know with alot like on the Gospels, we have
(17:35):
theories, but we don't, we don'treally know, and they detail
what happened in events, butPaul's really explaining the
crux of the gospel. And the, thekind of thesis part of that, I
think, is that Romans chapterone, verses 16 and 17, Mm, hmm.
And a lot of people kind of saidthe same thing. This is the, you
know, the the heart and soul ofwhat the gospel message is that
(17:57):
Paul teaches about allthroughout the whole book. And
Paul was a convert? Yes, he wasa reluctant convert.
That reluctant word comes, yeah.
I mean, he started off trying towipe Christianity off the face
of the earth, and then he becameone of the most well known
heralds of Christianity inhistory. Great, a great place to
start if you're wanting to getinto studying the Bible. Yeah,
(18:19):
is Romans. It's a great place tostart and and get your
foundation there. And I'm kindof hoping we can kind of build
off of that, and the all theother studies that come maybe
even do, like an abbreviated,like a summer study, yeah, over
some smaller pieces, because,yeah, there's just so much
there.
Yeah, the whole the whole bookof Romans, Christian faith and
life and living, right? Thoseare different things that
(18:39):
take on. And there's so muchnuance in there with stuff that
that you have to put in theright place in history, yeah, to
interpret. Like right now,people have a lot of rub with
Paul saying, subject yourself tothe governing authorities. But
at that point in time, theChristians weren't experiencing
real persecution from theRomans. Yeah, true. And so you
got to play stuff in in context.
And so there'll be a lot ofstuff through the book of stuff
(19:01):
through the book of Romans thatwill probably challenge people's
assumptions they go into it withwhen they learn to read this
letter through an accuratehistorical context.
Yeah, I think that's theinteresting part about this
historical fiction, is the realsituations that these people are
(19:23):
in, like showing up late becausethey have sacrificed to the gods
and and they can't eat thatmeat. But then meat wasn't all
that prevalent, or, as you said,that pork was one of the cheaper
meats for the poor, lessfortunate in Rome, and so they
(19:48):
had to kind of figure all thatout,
yeah, and if that become Jewishfirst, that would have been a
big stumbling block for that,you know. So that Jerusalem.
Council really brought anotherlayer of good news that made it
easier for Christians or forGentiles to actually be part of
at the time, it wasn't calledChristianity yet that didn't
(20:09):
come around for they were wayfollowers. Yeah, I can't
remember. It didn't come aroundfor almost another 100 years.
Yeah, correct. Yeah. It was justfollowers of of the way, when
Jesus the WAY and the TRUTH andthe LIFE, and it was very
foreign, because it was okay tohave a different God in Rome, as
long as, yeah, as long as youstill worship theirs. So they
(20:30):
wouldn't have an issue withthat. Except in Christianity,
you can worship, you know, thereare no other gods. Have no other
gods before me. And that kind ofbecame, made them social
outcasts, right? And we'll seethat as it goes throughout the
book, of them being seen asdissidents and as untrustworthy
and all the problems.
Well, that's why they separatethe civil like, submit yourself
to governing authorities, right?
Versus, like, our faith life,yeah? Is because people were
indistinguishing. Like, therewas no distinction being made
(20:53):
between a governingauthority and our Yeah, our
godly authority. You had toworship them as Gods Exactly.
And so that distinction that wasmade, and this was true when
Jesus walked also, I mean, Jesuspaid respects at the same time.
And so you start to take thatlanguage forward, and you
realize, oh, that's transferableto today. Like that context that
we're seeing says, Okay, notthat we have to shy away from
it, but, matter of fact, leaninto it, right to say, like,
(21:16):
hey, now we understand that westill submit under a governing
authority, right? We're stillunder laws that are civil right
to keep our society in order,right? And that's okay, right?
That's great. But we also have afaith that is bigger than that,
but also in distinguishable fromthat. Yeah, the higher, the
higher. Exactly. It goes back toJesus, saying, you know, given
to Caesar, what is Caesar's andgiven to God? What is God's?
(21:36):
Absolutely, absolutely. So thisRomans, 116, and 17,
foundational for the book ofRomans. Yep, good place for us
to begin at to kind of breakdown Romans and break down the
message from Sunday Roseanne.
Would you mind taking us throughRomans? 116 and 17? I will read
that the power of the gospel,for I am not ashamed of the
gospel. It is the power of Godfor salvation to everyone who
(21:59):
has faith, to the Jew first, andalso to the Greek, for in it,
the righteousness of God isrevealed through faith. For
faith, as it is written, the onewho is righteous will live by
faith.
You read that so passionately. Ijust love the power in your
voice, which is great. I mean,you read it with authority,
(22:20):
which was, you know, it goesback to Nate from Bach or brick
seminary. Oh, yeah, yeah. Saidthat if you're gonna read
scripture, you read it withauthority, like you read
Scripture as if, like you ownthese words that are coming out,
yeah? Absolutely right. That'syour gospel message going it's
gonna kind of make it soundreal, yeah, yeah. Tom, what is
your takeaway? So you said theseare foundational words for
(22:41):
Romans, right? It's a big coupleverses a lot, and for two verses
in verse 16, it is one that, youknow, I spent probably an hour
thinking about verse 16, yeah,because it says it's the power
of God for salvation to otherowned house faith. So not saying
that it doesn't say it shows thepower, right? Or it tells people
of the power, but that it is, itis the power. And so, you know,
(23:03):
the we talk about the Gospels islike the gospel narratives. You
know, the Gospel according towhich is just means, like, what
so and so said about the gospel?
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, yep.
But the gospel is that goodnews, message of forgiveness of
sins and eternal life because offaith in Jesus, a faith given us
through the by the grace of God,that that, that is the power of
(23:24):
God, you know, given and shownto us and imparted on us. And
part of this, I remember, insystematic theology, we talked
about this a little bit, becausethat part, it's part of the
identity of Jesus, as, you know,we say the Son of God, which is
a good way for us to think aboutit, because it's the, you know,
the the humanity aspect of it,and understanding that. And it
(23:47):
ties to Old Testament calling,talking about the the Son of
man, yeah, God in the form of aman. But deeper than that is
Jesus is the Word of God presentin in human form, made flesh.
Yeah, right, God made flesh. Soin the beginning, when God said,
Let there be light, and therewas, that was the Word of God.
So, I mean, that's, that's Jesusin creation, yep. So Jesus
(24:12):
spoke, or God spoke things intobeing. And when God spoke things
into being, that word thatbrought things into being was
Jesus. And that's when book ofbeginning of John, In the
beginning was the Word. The Wordwas with God. The Word was God.
And so it's this ability for Godto speak reality into existence,
or speak things into existence,and the fact that that this
(24:34):
power of God, JESUS, THE POWEROF GOD personified, that has
brought this into reality forus. And it's, it's that epic
excuse that actually using atest once in elementary school,
I was going to private Catholicschool of because God said, so,
oh, which is always the rightanswer, yeah, yeah, you know.
But it's that the Gospel is thepower of God, and that's part of
(24:56):
the reason we have to read ithere. Uh, you know, as what it
is to give it, give it, it's,it's true, you know, place and
honor, and that's why it has tocontinue to be preached, because
it's continuing to echo thatthroughout history and to all,
to all the people out there. Soit's just, it's literally God
speaking something intoexistence, yeah, and we that
continues on through theScriptures, through the office
(25:18):
of preaching, and to people'sstudy of the Bible, which is why
I think, you know, we have totake these things so, you know,
treat you. Treat like the Bible.
We treat different than anyother book. It is sacred. Is
sacred because the power of Godis present in this for us, if we
will devote our time to it.
It's interesting how to overusethe word powerful. This text is
(25:39):
right, because it brings youthrough a lot of different
relationships, especially in 16,right? As you get into 17, for I
am not ashamed, right? So like,right away we have the the
person of Paul saying, I'm notashamed, right, which is also
character building, right? It'srespect building, right? It's
owning where he's come from,right? It's saying, Hey, here's
where I stand on because he'sspeaking to a people group that
(25:59):
he's not planted, right? So thisis an authority moment where he
says, Hey, here's where I putthat ashamed word in the Greek
means to not be singled out. Itmeans I have not identified
wrongly, right? So he'sbasically saying, Hey, I'm
planting on the gospel likethis. I have not identified
wrongly. I'm not ashamed of thegospel. I'm not I'm not singled
out because I I'm over heredoing the wrong thing, right?
This is where I find myself andthen, but immediately removes
(26:22):
that authority, then fromhimself, and gives power back to
God, right? So it is because ofthe power of God that brings
salvation, right? Because that'sthe part of that. One of the
issues was false teachers,correct? Yeah, and people trying
to claim that glory forthemselves, and knowing that,
you know, that's the hold theglory to God alone, you know,
given the glory to God alonesaid it's God, which is going to
the three points. It's God doingthe work, not us. We're just
(26:45):
being used in that, in thateffort.
And I love it, yeah, I mean, thethe power of God when it comes
through in the sense of exactlywhat you just talked about,
right? That there's falseteachers out there, right? He's
removing authority from thefalse teachers then too, but not
saying it specifically, right?
Yeah, well, becausethey don't know him yet, right?
Correct, yeah. And so he'strying to establish, in a way,
because he's planning on goingthere, correct? So he's kind of
(27:07):
preparing for his, like, hisresume, before he gets there, to
get started. And it also, to me,I mean, that removes some of
the, the fear responsibilityfrom us, because, like, we look
at the Great Commission, youknow, go and make disciples of
all nations. And I still arguethat that's a poor translation,
because the word for make isn'tin there, correct, yeah, but
it's God that does the work. Youknow, we have we've been given
(27:30):
assignments to do, yeah, butwe've not been assigned with
accomplishing the task, just ondoing the deed, yeah, and then
God will accomplish the taskwith that. We're doing that to
lay the groundwork, because Godhas told us to, but it's God
doing the work like none of us.
You know, I've seen sometraditions talk about, well, how
many souls have you saved? Well,I don't have the ability to save
(27:50):
souls, yeah, correct, or to makepeople be Christians. My soul
job is to care for God's peopleand to preach the gospel, yeah.
And then God, through the powerof the Holy Spirit, can save
their souls, make them believersthrough them, hearing me preach
that through them, reading thegospels, but I'm not the one
doing it. I'm justWell, I mean, that's the next
part of the statement, right? Isthat the power of God brings
(28:11):
salvation, which is then nowagainst the pagan identity,
right? So like in this oneverse, Oh yeah. Claimed
authority, removed authority,given authority to God, right?
And then removed all theauthority from other gods, and
said, Our God brings salvation,especially
since the pagan view of gods,the gods the way they portrayed
the pagan Pantheon, not goodcharacters, no like, not
(28:37):
trustworthy, like most of whatthey did was out of fear, trying
to keep them from just, I mean,look, I mean, look at the the
mythology of the background,yeah, not, not good people, not
not, you know, nothing to to,you know, endear anybody to. I
mean, it's like a, you know, atoddler wielding a sword, kind
of, I mean, yeah, it was very,very negative. And the old idea
(29:01):
that, you know, you would prayto all the gods, just in case,
you know, or just to not makethem mad. And it was just
complete 180 from what peoplewould have heard of the god of
of Abraham, yep, you know.
And then when they mess up, theyget to blame the gods. Well, the
gods were mad at me, yeah. Orthat completely absolves them of
(29:23):
responsibility for theiractions,
yeah. Or the gods are fightingwith each other, and they were
just accidental fodder, youknow, so different character of
their understanding of that.
But Paul is establishing God isGod of the universe,
and I think that's where we getinto like that. Next statement
of the righteousness of a God isrevealed through the gospel,
(29:43):
right? Like, and this, this GoodNews of Jesus Christ, and what's
and so eternity, yes, with Godeternity.
So you can get drawing it allthe way through from the
universe and creation, right?
And saying, Hey, here's thepagan identity. Now we're
distinct from that. And now he'ssaying, Okay, now here is the
righteousness of God. The rightrelationship with God if you
want to be in that for those whobelieve, very important
statement. So he's still saying,Hey, if you want to believe,
(30:05):
right, we're monotheistic. Wehave one God, which means that
if you do have a pagan identity,this is for those who believe in
our Triune God, but three inone. And so now he's removing
the pagan identity, saying youdo have to make a choice like,
live under Roman authority, butat the same time, we have a
monotheistic reality here,right? So we believe in one God,
and then that righteousnessthrough that Israel and through
(30:26):
the gospel. So he's saying, andif you want to know how to get
there, it's through JesusChrist, right? 111, verse, yeah,
it just said, Amen. And thenwalk, you know, like, That's it,
and you get assigned his letter.
And then, right? That's it.
But there's 16 chapters withlike, 30 verses, yeah? Like, oh,
we're gonna be here, we're gonnabe in it. Be here, we're gonna
be in it, yeah, yeah. And thehard part was it, you know,
(30:49):
it's, it's one thing to pick, todecide, you know, that you're
gonna pick a pagan god becauseyou It's tradition, or you like
it, or whatever, but then tocome to the point of the
realization of the true identityof the true God, yeah. But now
puts you in a position where,yeah, you can be subject to
Roman law, and then subject, youknow, subject to God's
commandments, but then whetheror not Roman law is going to
(31:12):
treat the Christian the same,yeah? And then you get into a
lot of people having to endure alot of persecution eventually
because of how they startedviewing, you know, Christians,
because they wouldn't, you know,they people fear people who are
different, and because theyweren't not worshiping the pagan
gods, then they started worryingthat they were, you know, a
threat.
(31:33):
So what do you what do you takeaway from this word, like,
righteousness, like we'regetting into, like, these deeper
root like, right? So forbreaking down a Bible study, I
mean, we have some big words inhere, right? Righteousness by
faith for those who believeright through the gospel, right?
Like, all of a sudden we'retaking these larger theological
kind of diatribes right thatexist in our faith, and we're
(31:53):
starting to break them down. AndPaul's bringing them in hot he's
just laying them all down in oneverse. So it's like, what are we
taking? So what do these mean?
And like, where should we startto think?
So? Like, righteousness is, it'slike being judged as being
correct to being correctly, orin the footnote, even in here,
it says to meet all theconditions, which is why you
can't be righteous to the law,because there's all those
(32:16):
conditions that we can't meetCorrect. Whereas the New
Covenant is, is just faith,yeah? And it's not even a faith
we're responsible for. It's afaith that we were given, and
it's like you just have to getone question, right, and we're
going to give you the answer,yeah, and we're going to do all
the work for you, and we justwant you to be grateful, yeah,
(32:37):
you know. And, and if that isindeed true, that you you
possess, that you didn't refuseit, you didn't answer wrong on
purpose, just out of spite orwhatever causes you to turn
away. Then you realize the valueof this, and that's what
inspires people into Christianliving, because he you don't get
anything out of it. You do it asa response because you've
already, you've already, you'vealready gotten it. And that was
(32:58):
so different in this society,where you that nothing was for
free. Everything had to be paidfor, you know, a bribe, a fee,
or whatever. That this idea issomething that is just given
freely, is it was just that? Wasjust absurd, you know, to the
new concept, yeah, so thatrighteousness is because you've
made all you fit all therequirements. You've, you've,
(33:20):
you've met the measure. You youknow you are judged. You know,
you know judged as sufficient.
And we can't make that standardin the law, right? Only Jesus
could fulfill that, thatrequirement, that righteousness
of the of the law.
So am I wrong with thisstatement? Righteous men.
(33:43):
Righteousness means choosingGod.
Follow God. It's, I think it'spart of it. So part of the, one
of the things that Luther wroteabout was us, alien
righteousness. Which alien?
Like Ancient Aliens. It was anepisode on that, yeah, I'm just
sure.
That, yeah, I'm just like thealiens,
(34:05):
yeah, you know, yeah, you got somany questions right now, the
title of this podcast episode isnow going to be alien, right?
So that the idea of alien justbeing different, right? Yeah,
the righteousness of another.
And so the righteousness that wehave in Christ is that we can't
meet the requirements of thelaw, but Jesus did on behalf of
us, and we get to be judged byHim. It's like cheating on the
(34:25):
most important test in all theuniverse. And Jesus did give us
the answers. He went took thetest for us, and we get the
benefit from it. So we're kindof inheriting Jesus fulfilling
the measure of the law where noother human being could, could
do that. Now we have the NewCovenant, the new expectation of
the cup of the covenant andfaith, you know, this is my my
(34:47):
blood give, you know, shed foryou the and so now the the
measurement for righteousness isjust faith, and it's something
that is flat out, even given tous. So the belief. In God is
evidence of that faith, youknow, of following God, trying
to follow God's word, followGod's commandments, and be
obedient to God is evidence ofthe of the faith we've been
(35:09):
given,but our response is living
the Christian life, yeah,and choosing that every day,
every day, even thoughwe're going to screw it up,
we're going to miss the mark. Weknow, yeah, we're going to,
we're going to miss the mark.
But it's, it's not so much thatwe achieve the righteousness,
it's that we strive for it,right? Right? Yeah, that we try
(35:31):
to go that direction the best wecan, well.
And then you start to get thethere's a distinction. So we're
talking about righteousness,faith and belief, right? And
there's a distinction, right?
And then we're going to get toverse 17, which talk about
righteousness and faith. Sorighteousness and faith. But in
verse 16, it said,righteousness, therefore all who
believe, right, which is alsopissed us, which is faith,
right? So it's a very it kind ofmuddies the waters a little bit.
But if you think through faithand belief, right, faith as an
(35:54):
action and a response, right,but also given to us, right,
belief is an identity ofunderstanding in God, right? So
knowledge to belief, right to wemove through this wisdom
narrative, right that comesthrough. So when we turn to
verse 17, it says, For inrighteousness, right? For in
right relationship with God,like that's, if you hear
righteousness, just talk aboutright relationship with God,
(36:14):
right? So, for in righteousnessof God that is revealed through
faith for faith, which is a veryinteresting paradoxical
statement, right? Through faithfor faith, right? So basically,
it's through your faith that therighteousness of God is revealed
for your faith, so you're in it,right? Yeah, and
yeah. And there's multiple waysof breaking that down, you know,
(36:36):
because the the righteousness ofGod is also showing the complete
perfectness of God, the lack oferror in God. You know, the the
righteousness of God, the theomnipotence, omnipresence,
omniscience of God. The theeverything is absolutely right,
nothing wrong about God is youknow that righteousness of God
and revealed through faith, forfaith is through, is revealed
(36:58):
through the faith of Christ,that Jesus showed and for faith,
the faith has given also. Andthere's like, three different
ways of trying to break thatdown. And none of us are really
sure, until we get to ask Paul,like, exactly, what did you mean
by Yeah, exactly. And the mostcommon one that all agree on is
that we can, we can definitelysay that that phrase for faith
(37:19):
through faith, for faith,meaning that that it's all
encompassing in faith. It beginswith faith. It ends in faith.
And it begins with the faith ofof Christ, in the righteousness
of God, which, I mean, youthink, Oh, well, that's
expected. I mean, it's, it'sthat is God, right? And then
given for us, given to us. Youknow that that faith, I
(37:42):
think there's an importantdistinction, though. I mean, if
we're breaking this down alittle bit, like I were to dig a
little bit deeper in here, likein 1717, a to 17 B, right, yeah,
because you had a shift. It'salmost there's a shift two
verses, yeah. So here's theimportant shift, right? So it
says, For in it therighteousness of God. So I like
perfectness of God, okay, sorighteousness of God, right?
Right? Relationship with God,the righteousness of God. So,
(38:03):
perfect relationship with God. Ithink there's important
distinction that you made, likethrough faith, that's the faith
of Jesus Christ. We have thistriune narrative, right, the
trinity of God, where we seefaith from Jesus, right, towards
God, even though we're three inone, right? As an example
narrative, but also as anobedience narrative, to say,
hey, here's my relationship thatI have to go modeling, that it's
a model. It's beautiful now thatthrough faith and for faith, if
(38:25):
we look at verse 16 forrighteousness with God, I love
it, because I look at it like acircle that we're just in,
right? Like through faith forfaith, through faith for faith,
great. It's through the faiththat we have, for the faith that
we have. So we're just, we'rejust in this personal
relationship with God at thispoint,
right? Yeah, because part ofhis, Jesus's faith, modeled to
the disciples, has inspired thatfaith. And because that's the
(38:46):
power of the gospel, right? Imean, they're the gospel is
their their eyewitness testimonyof what they saw in Jesus, yeah,
true, very true. And so it justkind of this,
it's, it's cyclical. So imaginethat once you find this moment,
right, you're in thisrelationship with God through
faith for faith, through faithfor faith, right? It's
beautiful. And that's a verypersonal relationship to God
because of the righteousness ofGod, because of who
(39:06):
God, it takes all theachievement out of it does like
it's just presence.
Now, there's a 17 B that happensnow, this is really cool, right?
This was, I love this. So lookat watch the switch as it is
written. So now we've beentalking about righteousness of
God through faith. For faith,very important distinction. Now
he says, Paul, the one who isrighteous will live by faith.
(39:27):
Now, the one who is righteousnow we're flipped out of that
scenario. Now the one who isrighteous will live by faith.
Well, now that's not just apersonal relationship to God
anymore. Now that's saying, Hey,your extension to the world. Now
if you want to be righteous isto live by that faith. So it
says God is who God is, becauseGod has faith and belief, right?
At the same time, God has faithfor all of us, right? We're
(39:49):
given that faith. Now, if wewant to be righteous the one who
is righteous, then we have tolive by faith. And it extends it
outside of the circle with God,and says, Hey, you can be in a
relationship with God as people,and it's just. Wisdom narrative
that I preached like two weeksago. You can come to church all
you want and study about God.
That's beautiful. It doesn'tmean you're
living as a Christian, right,because Satan believed in Jesus.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no.
And, and here says, as it'swritten, that's Habakkuk or
(40:12):
Habakkuk, two, four. But wait,hold on, Habakkuk. Habakkuk.
Habakkuk. You said this. Like,have I been saying it wrong for
all? Because, like, I usedto, I used to call it Habakkuk,
yes, that's what I until I tookHebrew, two semesters of Hebrew,
it's Habakkuk,I would agree with that, yeah,
(40:35):
like, just based on thephonetic,
but yeah, or Yeah, or in thiscase, it's Hebrew true, yeah.
But the other side is it doesn'tmatter. It doesn't who cares.
You can put the innovationissue. You can put the emphasis
on whatever syllable you want.
But the other thing about this17 B is I went through and I
broke down the Greek in this andbecause word order. And I talked
(40:59):
about this a little bit, andhave a great example. It was
kind of on the fly. I shouldhave prepped that little better
ahead of time, but word orderdoesn't matter in Greek like it
does inEnglish. Yeah, correct now. Mind
you, you spoke that really wellin your message on Sunday. Did
it come out? Okay? You wentthrough like, four different
sentences so fast, with suchclarity. I was like, I would
have muffled that all day long.
(41:21):
And you're like, because youjust switched all the work. And
I was like, and every sentencemade a little bit of sense,
right? And you weren't sure, butyou weren't sure. And I was
like, Oh, that was cleanafterwards.
I was like, Oh, that was somuddy. Oh, no sense because you
justswitched all the words. You're
like, yeah, it could havedifferent meanings this way,
switching,yeah, the words, but in this
case, it doesn't. So there's,there's split camps on this,
because all translation, and Ididn't come up with this,
(41:46):
somebody else, great scholar,came up. All translation is
interpretation, right? Unlessthe grammar is the same and it's
just word difference. Allgrammar is interpretation, which
is how we get such distinctdifferences. And the camp is
split because, just specificallyGreek grammar, when you break it
(42:06):
down, the the nominative,accusative case, the direct
object, and all those, thoseparts of the grammar, it could
be the one who is righteous willlive by faith, or the one who is
righteous by faith will livebecause of the way the grammar
is set up, that by faith couldbe either way, it could be the
one who's righteous by faith,and the reality is based on
(42:28):
verse 16, if we're going to berighteous, the only way for us
as Christians to be righteous isby faith, and then we will live
by faith, which goes back tothat salvation for everyone who
has faith. Oh, no, sorry, nextone down revealed through faith,
for faith, for for faith. And Idon't know that that duality was
(42:51):
intentional with Paul or forjust reading too much into it,
but with this, a perfectlyaccurate translation is the one
who is righteous by faith willlive because faith in Jesus is
what imparts on us the promiseof resurrection and eternal
life. And if we truly havefaith, the sim, the sign of
that, the test of that, isliving by faith, correct. Yep,
(43:14):
right. And so it's like both,and you know, at the exact same
time. So, or you could just saythe one who is righteous by
faith will live by faith. Yeah,I think that's perfectly that.
Now that's more of aninterpretation than a
translation, but that was justsomething like that. So freaking
cool.
So it boils down to a verticalrelationship with God will fill
(43:38):
you so much that you have tohave a horizontal
relationship with others. Yeah,it's like, share that
good news, the big arroweternity. Yes, what
you see is the big arrow comingdown on the top of our heads and
little arrows going out, right,right? That's right, going out
to be around. But if no littlearrows are going out, we're
(43:59):
like, No, we're good, likeputting that umbrella over our
heads, whereas, if we're ifthat's coming into our we don't
have to ask for it. We don'thave to earn it. We don't have
to make, you know, I decidedstatements there what it is.
There's a realization of what'sgoing on, and then we respond to
that realization.
All we have to do is accept,yeah. It's just, just Yeah.
Accept you as my God, mypersonal savior. And then I want
(44:24):
to share that.
And then you share and you treatpeople you know they will know
you. They will know you by yourby your works, you know, by your
actions. And trying to have adiscussion with somebody about
about this versus the Calvinistview, and back and forth. And
the best example I could give islike, if you're like, gone on a
trip, and you wake up and you'relike, Oh, this is not my room.
Where am I? Yeah, imagine, likewaking up and you're in this
(44:45):
beautiful, perfect palace, andthat's heaven, but you're not
there yet, but that's that'sfaith, right? Yeah, you wake up
and you realize you're there.
Well, you got two choices, stayor leave. Why? You would leave,
I have no idea, yeah, but that'sreally the choice we have. We
don't go walk into it. We don'tsay yes. We want to accept the
invitation. We just realize thatwe're there, yeah, but
(45:08):
unfortunately, you know, there'sa door, yeah? You know which is
one of any? There's so many. Youknow, if you want to get into
history, there's a wholeargument that that, once you've
experienced that, you can'tbelieve you would never want to,
but why would anyone want to? Idon't know why you'd want
to. That's why we don't getvisited from souls from heaven.
(45:30):
They're like, No, I'm good.
Like, if somebody came back tolife, they would come and they
were like, a Christian, they'dbe mad. Like, really, you
brought me back? Yeah, right.
Seriously. Been living my wholelife to get to this place you
ruined. You ruined mylittle death. Yeah, that's
great, yeah. I mean, for twoverses,
okay, that's what I was gonnasay. There is just, this is two
verses, and we've talked for 45minutes on two verses, right? I
(45:53):
mean, I mean after the jingletalk and after the tech, yeah?
So, I mean, really, probablyabout 35 minutes, but, yeah, but
yeah, I mean the Troy, Troytrough group, and yeah, I had
his scholar professor atWarburg, published multiple
books, published widely. I had afull semester advanced New
Testament course, just in thebook of Romans, with a lot of
translation stuff. We read theentire thing, lots of papers.
(46:15):
And he's like, Yeah, we're onlygonna be able to hit the
highlights, guys. And that was afull semester, semester, three
credit hours a week for howevermany weeks in a semester, you
know, three contact hours, plusall the stuff outside of it, and
and even then, he's like, Yeah,we can't hit all of it. Do you
remember when he led the ACTstudy here? We did it for five
churches, right? So I lovelistening to him talk about
(46:36):
acts, and I would love to bringthat back. You know why I loved
it? I didn't lead it. I mean, itwas probably, oh, I sat in and
just took in seminary professor,Bible study. That was good. He's
one of my favorite. We shouldbring that back. He was Michael,
do like a seminar ProfessorBible study, and open it up to
people, put him on the bigscreen in the worship center,
right? He's a, he's a greatteacher. Great Teacher. Yeah,
awesome, phenomenal. So that'stwo verses. Tom, tell us what's
(46:57):
next in the series. I'll bepreaching on it this Sunday.
Yeah? So, dying with Christ,yeah, yeah,
dying and dying. Me the dying.
There's multiple parts there.
Well, I was gonna leave the goodparts for you. Okay, thank you.
And rising, dying, rising withChrist. You know, I'm the hope
person right here. And I'm like,let's talk about, yeah. So we're
getting, we're jumping tochapter three, because there is
chapter two is like, the therighteous judgment of God, which
(47:19):
gives them the fact that, youknow, it's not part of pointing
out the guilt aspect. But hecovers a lot of it in chapter
three too. A lot of this you'llsee in the reading, it won't
come up as much in thepreaching, is trying to
reconcile the difference betweenJew and Gentile. Yeah. And he
gets it over and over and overso many times, if you do the the
weekly reading plan, or the forthe for the series, the reading
(47:40):
plan that's in that the Bibleapp should be in every week of
the sermon series. In the Bibleapp, you'll see that a lot, and
a lot of that, that turmoilstill exists in a lot of
churches true and there's awhole other series just you
could do just easily on that isso deep. But we're jumping ahead
to chapter three and verses, Ibelieve it's 19 through 20
(48:02):
something. I remember, yeah, waybroken. It'll somewhere in
there. Depends on which one,where you choose to to highlight
and land. But it's basicallythat, that rising and dying with
Christ, yup, which isbeautiful. It's our baptismal
identity, right? I mean, it waswe come through into this. So
we're going to continue that.
We're going to walk through allthe book of Romans, which is
great life groups had theirgreat kick off with their party,
and they're full in swing, andthey're going to which is going
(48:24):
to be great. And so, yeah, thisis gonna be a really good four
week study on Romans. I'm reallylooking forward to,
looking forward to studyingRomans, deep dive into Romans
through that lens of thishistorical fiction.
Yeah? And I thought one throughfour was the first week, yeah,
Chapter Three of somemy other message. The same thing
on Sunday. I didfive through chapters, five
(48:45):
through eight. Yeah, you justlet it go.
Chapters finally, the sameconversation you had
on Sunday. So, so you know, bySunday you need to have chapters
123, and four. Read that'sbasically in there. Be great so
that you can get into chapterfive through eight with Joe for
this coming Sunday.
This. This is for the VISTA. So,you. Welcome to the TNC Podcast
(00:25):
coming to you live in theworship center on the
neighborhood church campus. Ooh,it sounds nice. I'm just gonna
own it from now on and just saywe're a campus and we're gonna
work forward from it. I've beenstruggling with that identity,
and now we're in. We're just in.
We have enough rentals going on.
Thanks, Roseanne, appreciatethat. I have.
I struggle with the campus thinga little bit too. Yeah, I think
(00:45):
I've been calling it a campuslonger than
you have, you have, yeah, otherpeople have been calling it a
campus. And I'm just like, it'shard because we are a small but
mighty church, and we have a lotgoing on. And so this is usually
reflected inlarger churches. And I think me,
I bet, was a little resistant,because a lot of the churches
that have, like, what they calla campus, yeah? Or, like, you
know, non denominational, youknow, non rooms, yeah? And a lot
(01:06):
of them are, like, the biggerones, and it kind of turns into,
like, a McDonald's version ofchurch. And there's been a few
I've visited and like, oh, this,this is not a church McDonald's
at all, right? It's like aMcDonald's version of church.
I'm like, This is not a churchat all. And so I've been
hesitant to call this a campus,yeah? I want to associate us
with, yeah. I get you Yeah, someof that the McDonald's church
is great benefits, uh huh. Jesusloving us, that'd be great. So
(01:31):
with that, yeah, it was prettygood, right? Thank you,
Roseanne. I appreciate that youdidn't say anything, but your
looks at it all. I appreciateyou, Roseanne, we were judged.
I love jingles, if we can.
That's why we do. You do lovejingles. I do love jingles. And,
you know, I don't know what itis, but I've seen jingles for
years. I have them all in thesame speaking of a jingle, let's
start off with our neighborhoodjingle. Ready, 479-367-2285,
(01:52):
neighborhood church, church. Andyou know who you can reach with
that jingle, Roseanne. Me,that's right. Roseanne on a
podcast host, you can reach her.
Finally, on any number, callthem all right.
479-367-2285, I think you haveto use all those to make it
work.
479-367-2321, right? Another onethat's little neighbors,
(02:17):
that's little neighbors. Andthen 479-367-2354, that that's
my line. That's your line. Butthere you go. Now you
have them all mine. Is it?
When you said, anyway, said,Any, any of those numbers? I was
like, I knew. I was like, Ithink you have to use all 10 to
like, yeah,there's everybody. Yeah. We have
a mobile seat number. We haveany way you can reach us. Is
(02:37):
what's happening? Socomplicated, yeah. So speaking
of jingles, if we can just goback for a sec, I love jingles.
What is your favorite jinglelike? If I say jingle, what's
the jingle that comes to yourmind? I got absolutely nothing.
You gotnothing on any jingle, any
jingle. It could be anything.
Right now, ReadingRainbow right now, trying to
think of that you see, like theBruce Almighty movie when he's
(02:59):
in the room with, you know, andit's just white, white, yeah,
yeah. That's my head.
That's your head, right now.
Nothing. Okay, man, this topicdied. It happened to me a lot. I
was so excited for the jingle.
Talk about, okay, Roseanne,what's your favorite jingle? I
think Red Robin. Red Robin. Yum.
That's like, that's a good one.
Yeah, I got chilis. I sangChili's for years. Chili, baby
(03:23):
mag ribs. Chili, baby man ribs,barbecue sauce. I want my baby
back ribs like it's so Ilove my head's a lot quieter
place than yours, I think. And Iworry if that's a problem or
not.
Did you just say your head is alot quieter place than mine.
Yeah, it goes on because youalways got stuff going. I do.
(03:44):
You don't have jingles todisplay through. No, I make. I
mean, I'm what is the jinglethat I did the other day during
core team that people asked meabout? Do you remember I was
trying to get the computers allto work?
It was Reading Rainbow. It wasreading right now. But I don't
remember the jingle. I rememberthat it
was reading, no, is because Iwas trying to get all it
started. Everyone was waiting,and all the things are happening
at once. And when I getoverloaded in my brain and I
(04:05):
need to tell there's some kindof a positive reinforcement,
it's like I can do anything Ican hear, right? Yeah, I knew it
was Reading Rainbow, yeah, but Iknow the tune doesn't stick in
my head.
Oh, yeah, no. So yeah, I singthat when I'm overloaded now
that I can still accomplish thetask without giving up on it.
And I was like, here we go.
Because I literally tried tolock it 10 times and it kept on.
(04:27):
It was like a loop. It was like,and, you know, Brian's looking
he's like, this is weird. AndI'm like, I know it's weird, and
I'm not gonna have to back ininto this like, 10 different
ways in order to getso our stuff has done that to
me, where I log in and it justtakes me right back to the login
screen, andthrough with you. I'm more
convinced it's user errorsquieter than mine. I needed one
bad I used to, I used to alwaysassume that, yeah, until I the
(04:54):
occasion, rare occasion I seeyou struggling. I'm like, I feel
very like, youdo feel firm. It's really say,
though, yeah. But at least evenin the last two months, you have
exponentially grown in yourability to tech.
I have grown I've come to theThe Reluctant acceptance of the
fact that I'm gonna have tolearn to use some of this.
That is the best way that youhave ever put that, because as
(05:16):
you sit down to learn it, thatis my takeaway from looking at
you, is you reluctantly oraccepting the position like I
want to be in it? Oh, fine,fine. I'm gonna do it. Yeah,
that's great. Yeah, it's a muchbetter way to jump. I won't, I
won't enjoy it, but I'll get towhere I can do it. We did come
to the final process, though,that if you're frustrated by it,
there's probably somethingwrong. Yeah, there's something.
(05:37):
If you ever get frustrated,you've gone too
far, although you mayunderestimate my tendency to get
frustrated withtech. Nope, I 100% know your
frustration with I also knowyou've
got, you've had the ability tomake some of that stuff simple
enough for me to use it. Yes,1,000% which is what I need,
1000 timesover, 1000 times over. And
yesterday, when I sat down andsaid, Hey, we can use scribe.
It's a cool AI, like you gothrough everything, you click
(05:58):
through it kind of doeseverything for you, tells you
all the steps. And he said, No,I want pen and paper, and I want
to write down every step. And Isaid, that's great. I will use
scribe for me. And I said, youcan use pen
and paper for you. I would justget frustrated with trying to
log in and find the stuff onscribe and get the logo.
I just, yeah, okay, so now we'vetalked about jingles and we've
talked about technology, but ifI lose
(06:19):
those notes, you'll have plentyof ammunition. Yeah, if
you come back to me, like, whatwas step 17, and I'm like, yep,
that's why we don't write itdown. That's why we have scrappy
notes. So this is great. Well, Ijust want to welcome you all
thanks for joining us today. Idid not preach on Sunday because
I was gone. Got way, gone way. Iwas in Kansas City, little left
to Kansas City. When I saidleft, I mean, West. Do you guys
(06:41):
do that? You guys associate leftwith West and right with East.
You don't do that. That's nothow your brain works. You've
never done that. I thoughtthat was normal, no, because
left could be north, south.
I get that. That's why I'msaying it out loud. But, I mean,
I thought it was normal peoplelike I went left, which means
West, like, I'm always facingnorth, so I go left to go west.
(07:01):
Wow. No, you know, when Ithere's a little counselor. When
I talked with my therapist theother day, I said, I need to
understand how the world thinks,because I think a lot of things
that I think are normal in myhead. The world maybe doesn't
see, but everybody does that.
Everybody assumes what's intheir own head is normal, is how
people think, and that, andthat's some of the problem when,
you know, people make choices ofstuff, oh, everybody's gonna
love this, and they're like,What? Yeah, it was just, you
(07:23):
know, just me. Okay, yeah.
So I was in Lawrence, Kansas,which is out by Clinton, like,
just west of Kansas City, about45 minutes, and I ran 50 miles
with nothing chasing you fit.
Nothing chasing me, no otherpeople doing this. Just the
thought of my past self chasingme.
That's a moment, yeah, that'spart
(07:46):
of the part of the growth onthose journeys is like, Yo, my
past selfis chasing. Past self did not
train for marathons around himanyway. Oh, I was so happy. I
trained for this. I know youleft past self. Oh, the race,
yeah.
Oh yeah. When I got to 25 milesright? Passed out. Was like,
Please, I'm out. It's like, thisis where I this, right? It's so
funny, because I think about,like, the 13.1 miles when I
(08:08):
passed out at half marathons,right? Running the pace that I
was running over the mountains,right? And now I'm running that
over mountains for 50 miles. AndI'm like, Yeah, I definitely
didn't drink because I couldhave done that 10 years ago,
yeah, that would have been awhole different story, right?
And I'm sorry, younger than Iwas, younger. Well, I was
talking to a guy who was runningwith me, who's 53 right? And
he's just trotting like, I am,right? We had two hours of
(08:29):
conversation, right? We're justrunning next to each other
trail, and he's we just putliquors. Like, why didn't we do
this when we had the energy andhad the body and had the goat to
do it, that frontal lobe thing,yeah, it just didn't happen.
Just that. So ran 50 miles. Itwas awesome. I was on my feet
running for 13 hours, which is adifference, because I finished
(08:50):
the first 25 miles in five hoursand 15 minutes. So then you can
see that the next one took meabout two hours longer, right?
So like, you just start. Yeah,that last 10 miles brutal. So it
was actually just the last 10miles. So like, the next 15 were
really good, and then the last10, I just had to power through.
When you say power their last10, the last there's like, a
(09:13):
fundamental like issue with,yeah, like, I don't like sitting
in my car for 13 hours.
Yeah, this is true. This istrue. You can't think about it,
like 13 hours. Here was thebrutal mistake that I did. Could
you not though, yeah, it was,it's brutal. Like the last it
was the last 10 miles. It wasreally 11 miles. But last 11
miles was a 4.5 mile section anda 6.5 mile section, and there's
(09:33):
an aid station right in themiddle the 4.5 mile section on
the first 25 miles was thelongest mind section. Like, I
thought I should have finishedbefore I finished. And so I kept
on running through a finish linethat wasn't there, that that's
just annoying. Like it you justthink that, like, obviously I
went somewhere wrong, or Iturned left on the trail and I
shouldn't have right, and thenyou end up there, and your
body's telling you it's, yeah,yeah. That's exactly what's
(09:55):
happening. And so, so the lastfour and a half section, the
brutal part is you think. Aboutit, and you're like, Okay, four
and a half miles. Well, I run aneight minute mile standard,
like, like, if I can just go outand run, I'll run eight minutes.
If I'm chill, I'll do a nine.
That's fine, right? I can run asfast as a six, whatever. So in
my head, I'm like, Cool. I got24 minutes of running. Like,
this is awesome. If you add inthe previous 40 miles, it's no
(10:16):
longer an eight minute mile.
You're running at 16 to 18minutes a mile over the
mountains, and your hip pointersaren't working, and your calves
are smoked, right? And so thenyou do the quick path, and you
realize that four miles is anhour and 10 minutes. And you're
like, oh, I have to run an hourjust to get to the next aid
(10:37):
station. You're like, and thenthere's a 6.5 mile section,
which, the first time took youan hour now takes you two hours
and 15 minutes, right? Andyou're like, Okay, we're in it.
We are totally in it for thenext three hours. So thinking
about the length of the race isdebilitating, right? Thinking
about the next aid station iswhere you have to land. Like,
I'm just running four miles tothe next aid station. I just do
(10:57):
that 10 times over and we'regonna rock it was so fun.
I am out on so many levels,runner, yes, and I don't do that
much math. Do youenjoy nature? I enjoy nature. Do
you enjoy a walk outside withGod?
I do enjoy walk. Same thing asan ultimate as a matter of fact,
on Sunday, my sister and I, forpart of our Sabbath, went on a
(11:18):
two mile walk. Yes, that'sbeautiful. It was, it was, and
by the end of it, poor thing shewas, I mean, sweat porn, yes.
And I'm like, you want to gosome more? Yeah?
No, she's done. She's done.
That's great. So that's where myultra marathon started. It's two
miles. So now you guys are goingto get on your way to ultra
marathons? Yeah, no, which,wait, no, so, so anyways,
(11:41):
Ultra, front porch, sittingUltra, but I won't make it for
13 hours. That's right. That'sright. So gone. Tom, you led
you're up on Sunday sharing infor a new Romans message, which
is great. So, Tom, can you guideus through, really, the identity
the series was tied into lifegroups, right? And time, yeah.
Can you walk us through that?
Like, what are life groups goingthrough? Where did you lean in
on Sunday to and what isthe series that we're starting?
(12:03):
So part of it is kind of try toreclaim an emphasis of Bible
study and life groups a littlebit. And I'm trying to kind of
shift stuff towards first atleast a season. And so context
matters so much, and trying tointerpret anything you're
reading the Bible and and we'reso far disconnected from first
century Rome that I picked thebook a week in the life of Rome.
James L papandres, it's ahistorical fiction. So it is
(12:26):
historical, but it is alsofiction. So we have to kind of
draw lines, and it just kind ofgets us embedded in the personal
lives of the characters in thefirst century Rome. You know,
with, you know fictional, youknow conversation narrative, but
around known historicalcircumstances. And so as a
(12:48):
reading through that, that book,I'm putting studies up in the
Bible out for each week thathits different points for more
information, for stuff, ifpeople are word nerds in there,
like how we got our our days ofthe week come from Norse,
Germanic pagan gods inspired byRoman pagan gods. Yeah, right,
which most people are like,what? Yes, that's how we got
(13:11):
that. And so for the word nerds,stuff like that. But then also
pointing out places in the bookthat I think the authors own.
You know, he's Roman Catholic,so his own, some of the church,
just tradition that's notnecessarily rooted in biblical
reality or in, you know, extrabiblical known documentation,
and just kind of name that tolevel the field, you know, so
(13:34):
that they get a goodunderstanding of what we know,
what's tradition, what is known,what is Unknown. Like, hey, this
is all. This is your part, justfictional. No basis. Hey, this
part has basis. If you want toread it on that, read it Acts,
Acts chapter 15, yeah, whichI've already gotten feedback on,
because somebody who's read itbut not read it in the context
of thinking about it in thereality of Roman, yeah, we're
(13:54):
like, Oh, I was not aware of allthat going on, yeah. And so
that's what we're trying to dowith the life groups and so,
paralleling a sermon seriesthrough the book of Romans,
hitting just like four highthemes, because you can't do it
in four weeks, yep, sure. Andpart of the that is just to kind
of get the whole church askingquestions. Maybe the whole
church going into the Bible appstudies that the life groups are
(14:16):
doing, maybe encourage morepeople into the life groups,
hopefully. And if nothing else,you know, I asked them all to
submit questions as they'redoing the reading. If they want
to know more about send me someinformation. We'll see if
anybody does it. If you'relistening, please do that way.
When we do an in depth Biblestudy with life groups in the
spring, I can answer all thosequestions that come up. Yeah,
that's really great. And sothat's just that, that kind of
(14:36):
hope to get the wholecongregation pushing towards
that, that study in the spring,because Paul's letter to the
Romans is unique. And it's theonly letter that we have that he
wrote to some place or areligious group, a church group,
or it's not really a church waskind of group, you know, home
churches, but to a group ofChristians that he did not found
himself, yeah, correct very it'sthat's the only one. And because
(14:58):
he's trying to to give his kindof credentials and of what the
gospel really is, becauseobviously he's gotten word we
don't have, we don't have theletter that spurred him on to
write the letter, if there was aletter, or if it was word of
mouth. But we know there werethings he was addressing. And so
he really sent kind of a firstcentury systematic theology,
breakdown of theology, of whatthe gospel message actually is
(15:22):
and what it means forChristians. And so you can use
Paul's letter to the Romans tokind of interpret the rest of
Paul's writings in the NewTestament, and to really to kind
of explain a lot of what wasgoing on in the gospel. So it's
a great lens to use to try tointerpret everything else going
on in the New Testament.
Yeah, that's great. We're notJewish people.
(15:44):
Some were, some weren't. There'sa mix. Because when this was
written, we know from fromCaesarea in the wintertime
between the year 56 and 5780 andso any Senate with Phoebe to to
Rome. We're pretty confident inthat. And in 54 when you know,
(16:05):
Claudius, in in 49 had kickedthe Jews out of Rome, but in 54
he died, and they started comingback. And that is one of the
theories, and I think thestrongest one, as to why there
were issues going on in theseRoman churches. And that's
probably what spurred Paul towrite this letter to try to kind
of straighten some stuff out,you know, you obviously got
some between the Jewishtradition and the Christianity
(16:28):
and then the Gentile, theGentile,
yeah, because, and part of thatties that, that information
going out from the JerusalemCouncil, that you didn't have to
become Jewish to becomeChristian. And there's probably
still some Jews that went backthat might not have been aware
of that, you know, informationtravels slow. They didn't have
news outlets and stuff, and sojust making sure that they're
all on track with what thecouncil in Jerusalem has decided
(16:52):
and and that they're, you know,preaching a true gospel. Because
every anytime you have thebeginning of this religion, some
place in the world, there's atendency to want to cross with
the local, already ongoingcustoms. And so there's, there's
Gentiles that are used toworshiping pagan gods, and now
they're having to kind of learnhow to do this new and they've
lost all their leadership baseand all the people that would
(17:14):
have understand what, what theyhad a scripture at the time in
the Old Testament. And so it'sreally good for us to even go
through and refresh in our owncontexts, because Paul is the
the closest known writer to theGospels where we know who wrote
it. We don't always know with alot like on the Gospels, we have
(17:35):
theories, but we don't, we don'treally know, and they detail
what happened in events, butPaul's really explaining the
crux of the gospel. And the, thekind of thesis part of that, I
think, is that Romans chapterone, verses 16 and 17, Mm, hmm.
And a lot of people kind of saidthe same thing. This is the, you
know, the the heart and soul ofwhat the gospel message is that
(17:57):
Paul teaches about allthroughout the whole book. And
Paul was a convert? Yes, he wasa reluctant convert.
That reluctant word comes, yeah.
I mean, he started off trying towipe Christianity off the face
of the earth, and then he becameone of the most well known
heralds of Christianity inhistory. Great, a great place to
start if you're wanting to getinto studying the Bible. Yeah,
(18:19):
is Romans. It's a great place tostart and and get your
foundation there. And I'm kindof hoping we can kind of build
off of that, and the all theother studies that come maybe
even do, like an abbreviated,like a summer study, yeah, over
some smaller pieces, because,yeah, there's just so much
there.
Yeah, the whole the whole bookof Romans, Christian faith and
life and living, right? Thoseare different things that
(18:39):
take on. And there's so muchnuance in there with stuff that
that you have to put in theright place in history, yeah, to
interpret. Like right now,people have a lot of rub with
Paul saying, subject yourself tothe governing authorities. But
at that point in time, theChristians weren't experiencing
real persecution from theRomans. Yeah, true. And so you
got to play stuff in in context.
And so there'll be a lot ofstuff through the book of stuff
(19:01):
through the book of Romans thatwill probably challenge people's
assumptions they go into it withwhen they learn to read this
letter through an accuratehistorical context.
Yeah, I think that's theinteresting part about this
historical fiction, is the realsituations that these people are
(19:23):
in, like showing up late becausethey have sacrificed to the gods
and and they can't eat thatmeat. But then meat wasn't all
that prevalent, or, as you said,that pork was one of the cheaper
meats for the poor, lessfortunate in Rome, and so they
(19:48):
had to kind of figure all thatout,
yeah, and if that become Jewishfirst, that would have been a
big stumbling block for that,you know. So that Jerusalem.
Council really brought anotherlayer of good news that made it
easier for Christians or forGentiles to actually be part of
at the time, it wasn't calledChristianity yet that didn't
(20:09):
come around for they were wayfollowers. Yeah, I can't
remember. It didn't come aroundfor almost another 100 years.
Yeah, correct. Yeah. It was justfollowers of of the way, when
Jesus the WAY and the TRUTH andthe LIFE, and it was very
foreign, because it was okay tohave a different God in Rome, as
long as, yeah, as long as youstill worship theirs. So they
(20:30):
wouldn't have an issue withthat. Except in Christianity,
you can worship, you know, thereare no other gods. Have no other
gods before me. And that kind ofbecame, made them social
outcasts, right? And we'll seethat as it goes throughout the
book, of them being seen asdissidents and as untrustworthy
and all the problems.
Well, that's why they separatethe civil like, submit yourself
to governing authorities, right?
Versus, like, our faith life,yeah? Is because people were
indistinguishing. Like, therewas no distinction being made
(20:53):
between a governingauthority and our Yeah, our
godly authority. You had toworship them as Gods Exactly.
And so that distinction that wasmade, and this was true when
Jesus walked also, I mean, Jesuspaid respects at the same time.
And so you start to take thatlanguage forward, and you
realize, oh, that's transferableto today. Like that context that
we're seeing says, Okay, notthat we have to shy away from
it, but, matter of fact, leaninto it, right to say, like,
(21:16):
hey, now we understand that westill submit under a governing
authority, right? We're stillunder laws that are civil right
to keep our society in order,right? And that's okay, right?
That's great. But we also have afaith that is bigger than that,
but also in distinguishable fromthat. Yeah, the higher, the
higher. Exactly. It goes back toJesus, saying, you know, given
to Caesar, what is Caesar's andgiven to God? What is God's?
(21:36):
Absolutely, absolutely. So thisRomans, 116, and 17,
foundational for the book ofRomans. Yep, good place for us
to begin at to kind of breakdown Romans and break down the
message from Sunday Roseanne.
Would you mind taking us throughRomans? 116 and 17? I will read
that the power of the gospel,for I am not ashamed of the
gospel. It is the power of Godfor salvation to everyone who
(21:59):
has faith, to the Jew first, andalso to the Greek, for in it,
the righteousness of God isrevealed through faith. For
faith, as it is written, the onewho is righteous will live by
faith.
You read that so passionately. Ijust love the power in your
voice, which is great. I mean,you read it with authority,
(22:20):
which was, you know, it goesback to Nate from Bach or brick
seminary. Oh, yeah, yeah. Saidthat if you're gonna read
scripture, you read it withauthority, like you read
Scripture as if, like you ownthese words that are coming out,
yeah? Absolutely right. That'syour gospel message going it's
gonna kind of make it soundreal, yeah, yeah. Tom, what is
your takeaway? So you said theseare foundational words for
(22:41):
Romans, right? It's a big coupleverses a lot, and for two verses
in verse 16, it is one that, youknow, I spent probably an hour
thinking about verse 16, yeah,because it says it's the power
of God for salvation to otherowned house faith. So not saying
that it doesn't say it shows thepower, right? Or it tells people
of the power, but that it is, itis the power. And so, you know,
(23:03):
the we talk about the Gospels islike the gospel narratives. You
know, the Gospel according towhich is just means, like, what
so and so said about the gospel?
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, yep.
But the gospel is that goodnews, message of forgiveness of
sins and eternal life because offaith in Jesus, a faith given us
through the by the grace of God,that that, that is the power of
(23:24):
God, you know, given and shownto us and imparted on us. And
part of this, I remember, insystematic theology, we talked
about this a little bit, becausethat part, it's part of the
identity of Jesus, as, you know,we say the Son of God, which is
a good way for us to think aboutit, because it's the, you know,
the the humanity aspect of it,and understanding that. And it
(23:47):
ties to Old Testament calling,talking about the the Son of
man, yeah, God in the form of aman. But deeper than that is
Jesus is the Word of God presentin in human form, made flesh.
Yeah, right, God made flesh. Soin the beginning, when God said,
Let there be light, and therewas, that was the Word of God.
So, I mean, that's, that's Jesusin creation, yep. So Jesus
(24:12):
spoke, or God spoke things intobeing. And when God spoke things
into being, that word thatbrought things into being was
Jesus. And that's when book ofbeginning of John, In the
beginning was the Word. The Wordwas with God. The Word was God.
And so it's this ability for Godto speak reality into existence,
or speak things into existence,and the fact that that this
(24:34):
power of God, JESUS, THE POWEROF GOD personified, that has
brought this into reality forus. And it's, it's that epic
excuse that actually using atest once in elementary school,
I was going to private Catholicschool of because God said, so,
oh, which is always the rightanswer, yeah, yeah, you know.
But it's that the Gospel is thepower of God, and that's part of
(24:56):
the reason we have to read ithere. Uh, you know, as what it
is to give it, give it, it's,it's true, you know, place and
honor, and that's why it has tocontinue to be preached, because
it's continuing to echo thatthroughout history and to all,
to all the people out there. Soit's just, it's literally God
speaking something intoexistence, yeah, and we that
continues on through theScriptures, through the office
(25:18):
of preaching, and to people'sstudy of the Bible, which is why
I think, you know, we have totake these things so, you know,
treat you. Treat like the Bible.
We treat different than anyother book. It is sacred. Is
sacred because the power of Godis present in this for us, if we
will devote our time to it.
It's interesting how to overusethe word powerful. This text is
(25:39):
right, because it brings youthrough a lot of different
relationships, especially in 16,right? As you get into 17, for I
am not ashamed, right? So like,right away we have the the
person of Paul saying, I'm notashamed, right, which is also
character building, right? It'srespect building, right? It's
owning where he's come from,right? It's saying, Hey, here's
where I stand on because he'sspeaking to a people group that
(25:59):
he's not planted, right? So thisis an authority moment where he
says, Hey, here's where I putthat ashamed word in the Greek
means to not be singled out. Itmeans I have not identified
wrongly, right? So he'sbasically saying, Hey, I'm
planting on the gospel likethis. I have not identified
wrongly. I'm not ashamed of thegospel. I'm not I'm not singled
out because I I'm over heredoing the wrong thing, right?
This is where I find myself andthen, but immediately removes
(26:22):
that authority, then fromhimself, and gives power back to
God, right? So it is because ofthe power of God that brings
salvation, right? Because that'sthe part of that. One of the
issues was false teachers,correct? Yeah, and people trying
to claim that glory forthemselves, and knowing that,
you know, that's the hold theglory to God alone, you know,
given the glory to God alonesaid it's God, which is going to
the three points. It's God doingthe work, not us. We're just
(26:45):
being used in that, in thateffort.
And I love it, yeah, I mean, thethe power of God when it comes
through in the sense of exactlywhat you just talked about,
right? That there's falseteachers out there, right? He's
removing authority from thefalse teachers then too, but not
saying it specifically, right?
Yeah, well, becausethey don't know him yet, right?
Correct, yeah. And so he'strying to establish, in a way,
because he's planning on goingthere, correct? So he's kind of
(27:07):
preparing for his, like, hisresume, before he gets there, to
get started. And it also, to me,I mean, that removes some of
the, the fear responsibilityfrom us, because, like, we look
at the Great Commission, youknow, go and make disciples of
all nations. And I still arguethat that's a poor translation,
because the word for make isn'tin there, correct, yeah, but
it's God that does the work. Youknow, we have we've been given
(27:30):
assignments to do, yeah, butwe've not been assigned with
accomplishing the task, just ondoing the deed, yeah, and then
God will accomplish the taskwith that. We're doing that to
lay the groundwork, because Godhas told us to, but it's God
doing the work like none of us.
You know, I've seen sometraditions talk about, well, how
many souls have you saved? Well,I don't have the ability to save
(27:50):
souls, yeah, correct, or to makepeople be Christians. My soul
job is to care for God's peopleand to preach the gospel, yeah.
And then God, through the powerof the Holy Spirit, can save
their souls, make them believersthrough them, hearing me preach
that through them, reading thegospels, but I'm not the one
doing it. I'm justWell, I mean, that's the next
part of the statement, right? Isthat the power of God brings
(28:11):
salvation, which is then nowagainst the pagan identity,
right? So like in this oneverse, Oh yeah. Claimed
authority, removed authority,given authority to God, right?
And then removed all theauthority from other gods, and
said, Our God brings salvation,especially
since the pagan view of gods,the gods the way they portrayed
the pagan Pantheon, not goodcharacters, no like, not
(28:37):
trustworthy, like most of whatthey did was out of fear, trying
to keep them from just, I mean,look, I mean, look at the the
mythology of the background,yeah, not, not good people, not
not, you know, nothing to to,you know, endear anybody to. I
mean, it's like a, you know, atoddler wielding a sword, kind
of, I mean, yeah, it was very,very negative. And the old idea
(29:01):
that, you know, you would prayto all the gods, just in case,
you know, or just to not makethem mad. And it was just
complete 180 from what peoplewould have heard of the god of
of Abraham, yep, you know.
And then when they mess up, theyget to blame the gods. Well, the
gods were mad at me, yeah. Orthat completely absolves them of
(29:23):
responsibility for theiractions,
yeah. Or the gods are fightingwith each other, and they were
just accidental fodder, youknow, so different character of
their understanding of that.
But Paul is establishing God isGod of the universe,
and I think that's where we getinto like that. Next statement
of the righteousness of a God isrevealed through the gospel,
(29:43):
right? Like, and this, this GoodNews of Jesus Christ, and what's
and so eternity, yes, with Godeternity.
So you can get drawing it allthe way through from the
universe and creation, right?
And saying, Hey, here's thepagan identity. Now we're
distinct from that. And now he'ssaying, Okay, now here is the
righteousness of God. The rightrelationship with God if you
want to be in that for those whobelieve, very important
statement. So he's still saying,Hey, if you want to believe,
(30:05):
right, we're monotheistic. Wehave one God, which means that
if you do have a pagan identity,this is for those who believe in
our Triune God, but three inone. And so now he's removing
the pagan identity, saying youdo have to make a choice like,
live under Roman authority, butat the same time, we have a
monotheistic reality here,right? So we believe in one God,
and then that righteousnessthrough that Israel and through
(30:26):
the gospel. So he's saying, andif you want to know how to get
there, it's through JesusChrist, right? 111, verse, yeah,
it just said, Amen. And thenwalk, you know, like, That's it,
and you get assigned his letter.
And then, right? That's it.
But there's 16 chapters withlike, 30 verses, yeah? Like, oh,
we're gonna be here, we're gonnabe in it. Be here, we're gonna
be in it, yeah, yeah. And thehard part was it, you know,
(30:49):
it's, it's one thing to pick, todecide, you know, that you're
gonna pick a pagan god becauseyou It's tradition, or you like
it, or whatever, but then tocome to the point of the
realization of the true identityof the true God, yeah. But now
puts you in a position where,yeah, you can be subject to
Roman law, and then subject, youknow, subject to God's
commandments, but then whetheror not Roman law is going to
(31:12):
treat the Christian the same,yeah? And then you get into a
lot of people having to endure alot of persecution eventually
because of how they startedviewing, you know, Christians,
because they wouldn't, you know,they people fear people who are
different, and because theyweren't not worshiping the pagan
gods, then they started worryingthat they were, you know, a
threat.
(31:33):
So what do you what do you takeaway from this word, like,
righteousness, like we'regetting into, like, these deeper
root like, right? So forbreaking down a Bible study, I
mean, we have some big words inhere, right? Righteousness by
faith for those who believeright through the gospel, right?
Like, all of a sudden we'retaking these larger theological
kind of diatribes right thatexist in our faith, and we're
(31:53):
starting to break them down. AndPaul's bringing them in hot he's
just laying them all down in oneverse. So it's like, what are we
taking? So what do these mean?
And like, where should we startto think?
So? Like, righteousness is, it'slike being judged as being
correct to being correctly, orin the footnote, even in here,
it says to meet all theconditions, which is why you
can't be righteous to the law,because there's all those
(32:16):
conditions that we can't meetCorrect. Whereas the New
Covenant is, is just faith,yeah? And it's not even a faith
we're responsible for. It's afaith that we were given, and
it's like you just have to getone question, right, and we're
going to give you the answer,yeah, and we're going to do all
the work for you, and we justwant you to be grateful, yeah,
(32:37):
you know. And, and if that isindeed true, that you you
possess, that you didn't refuseit, you didn't answer wrong on
purpose, just out of spite orwhatever causes you to turn
away. Then you realize the valueof this, and that's what
inspires people into Christianliving, because he you don't get
anything out of it. You do it asa response because you've
already, you've already, you'vealready gotten it. And that was
(32:58):
so different in this society,where you that nothing was for
free. Everything had to be paidfor, you know, a bribe, a fee,
or whatever. That this idea issomething that is just given
freely, is it was just that? Wasjust absurd, you know, to the
new concept, yeah, so thatrighteousness is because you've
made all you fit all therequirements. You've, you've,
(33:20):
you've met the measure. You youknow you are judged. You know,
you know judged as sufficient.
And we can't make that standardin the law, right? Only Jesus
could fulfill that, thatrequirement, that righteousness
of the of the law.
So am I wrong with thisstatement? Righteous men.
(33:43):
Righteousness means choosingGod.
Follow God. It's, I think it'spart of it. So part of the, one
of the things that Luther wroteabout was us, alien
righteousness. Which alien?
Like Ancient Aliens. It was anepisode on that, yeah, I'm just
sure.
That, yeah, I'm just like thealiens,
(34:05):
yeah, you know, yeah, you got somany questions right now, the
title of this podcast episode isnow going to be alien, right?
So that the idea of alien justbeing different, right? Yeah,
the righteousness of another.
And so the righteousness that wehave in Christ is that we can't
meet the requirements of thelaw, but Jesus did on behalf of
us, and we get to be judged byHim. It's like cheating on the
(34:25):
most important test in all theuniverse. And Jesus did give us
the answers. He went took thetest for us, and we get the
benefit from it. So we're kindof inheriting Jesus fulfilling
the measure of the law where noother human being could, could
do that. Now we have the NewCovenant, the new expectation of
the cup of the covenant andfaith, you know, this is my my
(34:47):
blood give, you know, shed foryou the and so now the the
measurement for righteousness isjust faith, and it's something
that is flat out, even given tous. So the belief. In God is
evidence of that faith, youknow, of following God, trying
to follow God's word, followGod's commandments, and be
obedient to God is evidence ofthe of the faith we've been
(35:09):
given,but our response is living
the Christian life, yeah,and choosing that every day,
every day, even thoughwe're going to screw it up,
we're going to miss the mark. Weknow, yeah, we're going to,
we're going to miss the mark.
But it's, it's not so much thatwe achieve the righteousness,
it's that we strive for it,right? Right? Yeah, that we try
(35:31):
to go that direction the best wecan, well.
And then you start to get thethere's a distinction. So we're
talking about righteousness,faith and belief, right? And
there's a distinction, right?
And then we're going to get toverse 17, which talk about
righteousness and faith. Sorighteousness and faith. But in
verse 16, it said,righteousness, therefore all who
believe, right, which is alsopissed us, which is faith,
right? So it's a very it kind ofmuddies the waters a little bit.
But if you think through faithand belief, right, faith as an
(35:54):
action and a response, right,but also given to us, right,
belief is an identity ofunderstanding in God, right? So
knowledge to belief, right to wemove through this wisdom
narrative, right that comesthrough. So when we turn to
verse 17, it says, For inrighteousness, right? For in
right relationship with God,like that's, if you hear
righteousness, just talk aboutright relationship with God,
(36:14):
right? So, for in righteousnessof God that is revealed through
faith for faith, which is a veryinteresting paradoxical
statement, right? Through faithfor faith, right? So basically,
it's through your faith that therighteousness of God is revealed
for your faith, so you're in it,right? Yeah, and
yeah. And there's multiple waysof breaking that down, you know,
(36:36):
because the the righteousness ofGod is also showing the complete
perfectness of God, the lack oferror in God. You know, the the
righteousness of God, the theomnipotence, omnipresence,
omniscience of God. The theeverything is absolutely right,
nothing wrong about God is youknow that righteousness of God
and revealed through faith, forfaith is through, is revealed
(36:58):
through the faith of Christ,that Jesus showed and for faith,
the faith has given also. Andthere's like, three different
ways of trying to break thatdown. And none of us are really
sure, until we get to ask Paul,like, exactly, what did you mean
by Yeah, exactly. And the mostcommon one that all agree on is
that we can, we can definitelysay that that phrase for faith
(37:19):
through faith, for faith,meaning that that it's all
encompassing in faith. It beginswith faith. It ends in faith.
And it begins with the faith ofof Christ, in the righteousness
of God, which, I mean, youthink, Oh, well, that's
expected. I mean, it's, it'sthat is God, right? And then
given for us, given to us. Youknow that that faith, I
(37:42):
think there's an importantdistinction, though. I mean, if
we're breaking this down alittle bit, like I were to dig a
little bit deeper in here, likein 1717, a to 17 B, right, yeah,
because you had a shift. It'salmost there's a shift two
verses, yeah. So here's theimportant shift, right? So it
says, For in it therighteousness of God. So I like
perfectness of God, okay, sorighteousness of God, right?
Right? Relationship with God,the righteousness of God. So,
(38:03):
perfect relationship with God. Ithink there's important
distinction that you made, likethrough faith, that's the faith
of Jesus Christ. We have thistriune narrative, right, the
trinity of God, where we seefaith from Jesus, right, towards
God, even though we're three inone, right? As an example
narrative, but also as anobedience narrative, to say,
hey, here's my relationship thatI have to go modeling, that it's
a model. It's beautiful now thatthrough faith and for faith, if
(38:25):
we look at verse 16 forrighteousness with God, I love
it, because I look at it like acircle that we're just in,
right? Like through faith forfaith, through faith for faith,
great. It's through the faiththat we have, for the faith that
we have. So we're just, we'rejust in this personal
relationship with God at thispoint,
right? Yeah, because part ofhis, Jesus's faith, modeled to
the disciples, has inspired thatfaith. And because that's the
(38:46):
power of the gospel, right? Imean, they're the gospel is
their their eyewitness testimonyof what they saw in Jesus, yeah,
true, very true. And so it justkind of this,
it's, it's cyclical. So imaginethat once you find this moment,
right, you're in thisrelationship with God through
faith for faith, through faithfor faith, right? It's
beautiful. And that's a verypersonal relationship to God
because of the righteousness ofGod, because of who
(39:06):
God, it takes all theachievement out of it does like
it's just presence.
Now, there's a 17 B that happensnow, this is really cool, right?
This was, I love this. So lookat watch the switch as it is
written. So now we've beentalking about righteousness of
God through faith. For faith,very important distinction. Now
he says, Paul, the one who isrighteous will live by faith.
(39:27):
Now, the one who is righteousnow we're flipped out of that
scenario. Now the one who isrighteous will live by faith.
Well, now that's not just apersonal relationship to God
anymore. Now that's saying, Hey,your extension to the world. Now
if you want to be righteous isto live by that faith. So it
says God is who God is, becauseGod has faith and belief, right?
At the same time, God has faithfor all of us, right? We're
(39:49):
given that faith. Now, if wewant to be righteous the one who
is righteous, then we have tolive by faith. And it extends it
outside of the circle with God,and says, Hey, you can be in a
relationship with God as people,and it's just. Wisdom narrative
that I preached like two weeksago. You can come to church all
you want and study about God.
That's beautiful. It doesn'tmean you're
living as a Christian, right,because Satan believed in Jesus.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no.
And, and here says, as it'swritten, that's Habakkuk or
(40:12):
Habakkuk, two, four. But wait,hold on, Habakkuk. Habakkuk.
Habakkuk. You said this. Like,have I been saying it wrong for
all? Because, like, I usedto, I used to call it Habakkuk,
yes, that's what I until I tookHebrew, two semesters of Hebrew,
it's Habakkuk,I would agree with that, yeah,
(40:35):
like, just based on thephonetic,
but yeah, or Yeah, or in thiscase, it's Hebrew true, yeah.
But the other side is it doesn'tmatter. It doesn't who cares.
You can put the innovationissue. You can put the emphasis
on whatever syllable you want.
But the other thing about this17 B is I went through and I
broke down the Greek in this andbecause word order. And I talked
(40:59):
about this a little bit, andhave a great example. It was
kind of on the fly. I shouldhave prepped that little better
ahead of time, but word orderdoesn't matter in Greek like it
does inEnglish. Yeah, correct now. Mind
you, you spoke that really wellin your message on Sunday. Did
it come out? Okay? You wentthrough like, four different
sentences so fast, with suchclarity. I was like, I would
have muffled that all day long.
(41:21):
And you're like, because youjust switched all the work. And
I was like, and every sentencemade a little bit of sense,
right? And you weren't sure, butyou weren't sure. And I was
like, Oh, that was cleanafterwards.
I was like, Oh, that was somuddy. Oh, no sense because you
justswitched all the words. You're
like, yeah, it could havedifferent meanings this way,
switching,yeah, the words, but in this
case, it doesn't. So there's,there's split camps on this,
because all translation, and Ididn't come up with this,
(41:46):
somebody else, great scholar,came up. All translation is
interpretation, right? Unlessthe grammar is the same and it's
just word difference. Allgrammar is interpretation, which
is how we get such distinctdifferences. And the camp is
split because, just specificallyGreek grammar, when you break it
(42:06):
down, the the nominative,accusative case, the direct
object, and all those, thoseparts of the grammar, it could
be the one who is righteous willlive by faith, or the one who is
righteous by faith will livebecause of the way the grammar
is set up, that by faith couldbe either way, it could be the
one who's righteous by faith,and the reality is based on
(42:28):
verse 16, if we're going to berighteous, the only way for us
as Christians to be righteous isby faith, and then we will live
by faith, which goes back tothat salvation for everyone who
has faith. Oh, no, sorry, nextone down revealed through faith,
for faith, for for faith. And Idon't know that that duality was
(42:51):
intentional with Paul or forjust reading too much into it,
but with this, a perfectlyaccurate translation is the one
who is righteous by faith willlive because faith in Jesus is
what imparts on us the promiseof resurrection and eternal
life. And if we truly havefaith, the sim, the sign of
that, the test of that, isliving by faith, correct. Yep,
(43:14):
right. And so it's like both,and you know, at the exact same
time. So, or you could just saythe one who is righteous by
faith will live by faith. Yeah,I think that's perfectly that.
Now that's more of aninterpretation than a
translation, but that was justsomething like that. So freaking
cool.
So it boils down to a verticalrelationship with God will fill
(43:38):
you so much that you have tohave a horizontal
relationship with others. Yeah,it's like, share that
good news, the big arroweternity. Yes, what
you see is the big arrow comingdown on the top of our heads and
little arrows going out, right,right? That's right, going out
to be around. But if no littlearrows are going out, we're
(43:59):
like, No, we're good, likeputting that umbrella over our
heads, whereas, if we're ifthat's coming into our we don't
have to ask for it. We don'thave to earn it. We don't have
to make, you know, I decidedstatements there what it is.
There's a realization of what'sgoing on, and then we respond to
that realization.
All we have to do is accept,yeah. It's just, just Yeah.
Accept you as my God, mypersonal savior. And then I want
(44:24):
to share that.
And then you share and you treatpeople you know they will know
you. They will know you by yourby your works, you know, by your
actions. And trying to have adiscussion with somebody about
about this versus the Calvinistview, and back and forth. And
the best example I could give islike, if you're like, gone on a
trip, and you wake up and you'relike, Oh, this is not my room.
Where am I? Yeah, imagine, likewaking up and you're in this
(44:45):
beautiful, perfect palace, andthat's heaven, but you're not
there yet, but that's that'sfaith, right? Yeah, you wake up
and you realize you're there.
Well, you got two choices, stayor leave. Why? You would leave,
I have no idea, yeah, but that'sreally the choice we have. We
don't go walk into it. We don'tsay yes. We want to accept the
invitation. We just realize thatwe're there, yeah, but
(45:08):
unfortunately, you know, there'sa door, yeah? You know which is
one of any? There's so many. Youknow, if you want to get into
history, there's a wholeargument that that, once you've
experienced that, you can'tbelieve you would never want to,
but why would anyone want to? Idon't know why you'd want
to. That's why we don't getvisited from souls from heaven.
(45:30):
They're like, No, I'm good.
Like, if somebody came back tolife, they would come and they
were like, a Christian, they'dbe mad. Like, really, you
brought me back? Yeah, right.
Seriously. Been living my wholelife to get to this place you
ruined. You ruined mylittle death. Yeah, that's
great, yeah. I mean, for twoverses,
okay, that's what I was gonnasay. There is just, this is two
verses, and we've talked for 45minutes on two verses, right? I
(45:53):
mean, I mean after the jingletalk and after the tech, yeah?
So, I mean, really, probablyabout 35 minutes, but, yeah, but
yeah, I mean the Troy, Troytrough group, and yeah, I had
his scholar professor atWarburg, published multiple
books, published widely. I had afull semester advanced New
Testament course, just in thebook of Romans, with a lot of
translation stuff. We read theentire thing, lots of papers.
(46:15):
And he's like, Yeah, we're onlygonna be able to hit the
highlights, guys. And that was afull semester, semester, three
credit hours a week for howevermany weeks in a semester, you
know, three contact hours, plusall the stuff outside of it, and
and even then, he's like, Yeah,we can't hit all of it. Do you
remember when he led the ACTstudy here? We did it for five
churches, right? So I lovelistening to him talk about
(46:36):
acts, and I would love to bringthat back. You know why I loved
it? I didn't lead it. I mean, itwas probably, oh, I sat in and
just took in seminary professor,Bible study. That was good. He's
one of my favorite. We shouldbring that back. He was Michael,
do like a seminar ProfessorBible study, and open it up to
people, put him on the bigscreen in the worship center,
right? He's a, he's a greatteacher. Great Teacher. Yeah,
awesome, phenomenal. So that'stwo verses. Tom, tell us what's
(46:57):
next in the series. I'll bepreaching on it this Sunday.
Yeah? So, dying with Christ,yeah, yeah,
dying and dying. Me the dying.
There's multiple parts there.
Well, I was gonna leave the goodparts for you. Okay, thank you.
And rising, dying, rising withChrist. You know, I'm the hope
person right here. And I'm like,let's talk about, yeah. So we're
getting, we're jumping tochapter three, because there is
chapter two is like, the therighteous judgment of God, which
(47:19):
gives them the fact that, youknow, it's not part of pointing
out the guilt aspect. But hecovers a lot of it in chapter
three too. A lot of this you'llsee in the reading, it won't
come up as much in thepreaching, is trying to
reconcile the difference betweenJew and Gentile. Yeah. And he
gets it over and over and overso many times, if you do the the
weekly reading plan, or the forthe for the series, the reading
(47:40):
plan that's in that the Bibleapp should be in every week of
the sermon series. In the Bibleapp, you'll see that a lot, and
a lot of that, that turmoilstill exists in a lot of
churches true and there's awhole other series just you
could do just easily on that isso deep. But we're jumping ahead
to chapter three and verses, Ibelieve it's 19 through 20
(48:02):
something. I remember, yeah, waybroken. It'll somewhere in
there. Depends on which one,where you choose to to highlight
and land. But it's basicallythat, that rising and dying with
Christ, yup, which isbeautiful. It's our baptismal
identity, right? I mean, it waswe come through into this. So
we're going to continue that.
We're going to walk through allthe book of Romans, which is
great life groups had theirgreat kick off with their party,
and they're full in swing, andthey're going to which is going
(48:24):
to be great. And so, yeah, thisis gonna be a really good four
week study on Romans. I'm reallylooking forward to,
looking forward to studyingRomans, deep dive into Romans
through that lens of thishistorical fiction.
Yeah? And I thought one throughfour was the first week, yeah,
Chapter Three of somemy other message. The same thing
on Sunday. I didfive through chapters, five
(48:45):
through eight. Yeah, you justlet it go.
Chapters finally, the sameconversation you had
on Sunday. So, so you know, bySunday you need to have chapters
123, and four. Read that'sbasically in there. Be great so
that you can get into chapterfive through eight with Joe for
this coming Sunday.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!