Brick #17: John 14:6

Posted on by Shay Reyner

Untitled designJesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

The disciples were VERY troubled! For 3 years they have followed this Jewish Rabbi who they believed to be the Messiah. But now he was full of crazy talk. He was talking about his impending death. He was talking about betrayal among the ranks of the disciples. He was saying that where he was going the disciples could not follow. He was predicting that even Peter, his most stalwart follower, would deny Him – not just once but three times. Crazy talk as far as these guys were concerned. So their hearts were VERY troubled!

So Jesus answered their troubled hearts in two ways:

He gave them hope for the future: He told them that they couldn’t go with Him now BUT that they could go with Him later. In fact, that He was going on ahead of them to get things ready for them. Why was this comforting to them? The Jews didn’t have a real clear understanding of what the after life was going to be like. All the disciples really needed to hear though was that they were going to be with Jesus. As long as they were with Jesus then they knew it was a hope worth holding on to no matter how troubling things got until they saw Him again.

He gave them hope for the present: He wanted them to know that… “When life is troubling and you feel like you have lost your way, remember that I AM THE WAY. When you are faced with deceit and despair and discouragement, and when people tell nothing but lies about you and against you, remember that I AM THE TRUTH. When you are facing death because of your indomitable allegiance to Me and to the Kingdom, remember that I AM THE LIFE. He wanted them to know that they could handle whatever came their way as long as they knew Him. And He wanted to assure them that they were not wasting their lives like so many others who were desperately trying to win the favor of God in frivolous and futile ways. He is the way – there is no other!

I have often said that it is tough enough dealing with life’s troubles when you know the Lord. I cannot imagine trying to deal with them not knowing the Lord and having His presence to calm life’s troubled waters.

Here is something for you to ponder: Jesus has been talking about going to the Father’s house. He tells the disciples that “you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas asks Him where exactly is it that you are going. Notice that Jesus does NOT say “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one goes to the Father except through me.” Instead He says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Ponder the difference.

Why is this brick foundational?  Throughout the ages people have tried to figure out how to get to God, how to secure for themselves an RSVP to heaven. This verse makes it very clear. There is only one way. His name is Jesus.

Pondering Extras on Romans 6:8-14

Posted on by Shay Reyner

PonderingExtras

Excerpted from a sermon by Charles  Spurgeon

What is meant by sin having dominion? Look and see. There are men who live in sin and yet they do not appear to know it. Sin has dominion over them by spreading a veil over their hearts, so that their conscience is deadened. They are so enslaved as to be content in bondage. You shall not be so—you shall be enlightened and instructed so that when you sin you shall be well aware of it. Self-excuse shall be impossible for you. Many men live in gross sin and are not ashamed. They are at ease in it and all is quiet. But it shall not be so with you, in whom the life of God has been implanted. If you do wrong, you shall smart for it and your nest shall be stuffed with thorns.

God has so changed your nature by His Grace that when you sin you shall be like a fish on dry land. You shall be out of your element and long to get into a right state again. You cannot sin, for you love God! The sinner may drink sin down as the ox drinks down water, but to you it shall be as the brine of the sea. You may become so foolish as to try the pleasures of the world, but they shall be no pleasures to you—you shall cry out with Solomon, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” That marvelous man tried the world at its best and was disappointed! And you may be quite sure that where he failed, you will not succeed.

If the Lord loves you, sin will never yield you satisfaction. In worldly company you shall be all the while like a man who sits upon thorns, or walks amid vipers and cobras. And in worldly amusement you shall feel as if the house would fall upon you. An ungodly man under the dominion of sin loves sin, but that you shall never do. He wishes he could sin more, for he has upon him the thirst of intoxication! But as for you, you shall never be made happy by evil, but shall groan under it if you ever yield to its power. You shall hate yourself to think you ever consented to its solicitations! You shall be wretched and unhappy and shall find no rest till you return to your Lord. Your nature has been so changed that you cannot give a moment’s entertainment to sin without feeling like one who carries burning coals in his bosom, or
thrusts thorns into his flesh.

No, Beloved, if you are, indeed, a Believer in Christ, you must fight with sin till you die! And, what is more, you must conquer it in the name of the Lord. You are sometimes afraid that it will vanquish you, but if you are of the true seed it cannot prevail. Like Samson, you shall break all its bands. You shall rise superior to habits which now enthrall you! You shall even forget those strong impulses which now sweep you before them. Your inward Graces shall gather force, while the Holy Spirit shall help your infirmities and you shall be changed from glory to glory as by the Presence of the Lord. This assurance is confirmed by the context—“Sin shall not have dominion over you,” because you are dead to it by virtue of your union to Christ.

Pondering Romans 6:8-14

Posted on by Shay Reyner

Book-of-RomansClick HERE to read the passage.

How do we live for Christ?

We live in a culture that likes to answer questions like that with answers like this: If you do these three things then you will live for Christ. We are a “doing” culture. If we can check a few things off a list then we feel pretty good about things. In this case the list might include: 1) Go to church every week, 2) Read the Bible every day, 3) Be nice to people, 4) Give money to the church or charity…

The problem with this philosophy is that it doesn’t match up with what the Bible says. According to Scripture, if we want to live for Christ we have to understand who we are before we ever think about what we should do. To say it in a way that sounds smart,  theology dictates praxis. This passage points out two things that we need to understand about who we are and then, once we thoroughly understand this, it gives us two things that we can do. Again, theology dictates praxis!

THEOLOGY

We are dead to sin – When Christ rescued us and we through faith entered into relationship with Him we were “crucified with Christ” and sin died. . It was put to death and we were freed from the influence of sin (see v.7). And yet every day sin rears its ugly head, seemingly rising from the dead, and has its way with us. Why? Because we still have a sin nature (Paul will talk about this at length in chapter 8). Our sin nature breathes new life into sin and it is resurrected until we come to our right minds and kill it all over again. have you ever played one of those games where you have to bop a mole who raises its head out of a hole – but no matter how many times you kill it it keeps showing back up in another hole. That’s what sin is like. Everyday we need to remember that in Christ we are dead to sin. We don’t have to give it new life.

We are alive to God in Christ Jesus – Not only was sin put to death when Christ redeemed us but we were made alive. The hard part for us to understand is that spiritually speaking we were completely DEAD, but were made alive. Everyday is an opportunity for us to experience aliveness in a way that we were not able to before. And because we are alive we do not have to sin. We do not have to give into our sin nature because the Spirit of the LIVING God now dwells within us. We must never forget this. Because when we do our sin nature is crouching at the door of our hearts ready to spring into action.

PRAXIS

Verse 13 says, “DO NOT offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but DO offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.” So there are things that we can do. There are choices that we can make every day that will help us in our pursuit of living for Christ. But the “doing” comes after the “being.”

So today, reflect on who you are in Christ. You were dead, but now because of Him you are finally alive. You are dead to sin – don’t allow it to come back to life. Then think of practical things that you can do and not do  that will help you thrive in this incredible relationship that God has invited us to enjoy.

Next Week’s Passage: Romans 6:15-23
Memory Verses: Romans 8: 1-12 (again)

Brick #16: Luke 10:27

Posted on by Shay Reyner

Untitled design“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27

Jesus had been asked a question by an expert in the Law: “Teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?” As He often does, Jesus answered the question with a question: “What does the Bible say about this?” Luke 10:27 is the response He got and that He applauded. There is a lot going on here in this conversation that the text does not tell us.

1) The expert is quoting from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. The Deuteronomy passage is part of what is known as The Shema. The Shema is a series of 3 passages in the Torah (1st 5 books of the Bible) that Jews began memorizing when they were about 5 years old and that they repeated every day of their lives twice a day. For Jews it was the most important text in the Bible.

2) Why did they repeat it so often? Because it was a declaration of their allegiance to God. It was an intentional way of reminding themselves of who God was and what He expected of His people.

This expert in the Law knew the textbook answer to Jesus’ question but living the answer was another matter. The Pharisees had become so consumed with matters of the Law that they had forgotten the Law of Love. Jesus made things simple – Love God! Love people! Love God with every fiber of your being and the rest will take care of itself. A great reminder to us as well.

Why this brick is foundational: If EVERYTHING that we do is motivated by love for God and love for people then we are well on our way to being disciples of Jesus. Knowing all the textbook answers isn’t nearly as important as practicing the Law of Love!

Pondering Extras on Romans 6:1-10

Posted on by Shay Reyner

PonderingExtrasA few thoughts on this passage from John MacArthur:

Sometimes when we talk about justification, we might assume that if at some point in time we prayed a prayer and God declared us just, that’s all we need to remember. And the fact of the matter is salvation was not just a declaration, it was also a transformation. So that you are a new creation. You are not what you used to be…. I want you to understand that this is absolutely at the heart of the Christian faith. Everything we do as Christians, everything that we look at at the core of our Christian living manifests that transformation and where that transformation is not present, there is no justification.

What happened to us in this union with Christ? Sin’s power was broken. And sin’s penalty was completed. Understand that? So as a believer there are two things I know to be true about myself. One, I am not under the dominion and power of sin. Two, I will never pay the penalty for sin. It’s paid once, that settled it. How does this flesh out in my life? First of all, if I sin, who’s responsible? Do I have to sin? Must I sin? No. If I sin, who’s responsible? I am. I am. Because I have the impulses of righteousness in my new self, and because I have the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, because I have the truth of God, all of which can lead me through temptation and out the other side victoriously; if I succumb, the burden is with me, the responsibility is with me, but I need to know that sin does not have dominion over me.

And if I am struck over and over by besetting sins, the problem is with me not with my salvation. Right? It is not that something is missing unless I’m not truly saved at all and that may be the case. If I have unbroken patterns of sin as I did before whatever spiritual experience I had, there’s evidence to indicate that I was never really saved. But if my salvation is real, besetting sins don’t speak against the newness of my life, they don’t speak against the broken power of sin, they speak against my own commitment to holy things and the responsibility is mine. So I need to know that sin does not have dominion over me.

Pondering Romans 6:1-7

Posted on by Shay Reyner

Book-of-RomansClick HERE to read the passage.

“Lord would You capture my mind’s attention and my heart’s affection.”

My dad’s dad died when he was 57.

My dad died when he was 42.

I died when I was 17.

My death was very different from their deaths. Theirs were physical, mine was spiritual. Verse 2 in this passage says that when I became a follower of Jesus I died to sin. And then was promptly raised to the newness of life in Christ. And yet I continue to sin. Paul seems somewhat flabbergasted in this passage. He doesn’t understand how believers (himself included) who have died to sin seem to fall so easily back into sin.

He is making a theological point here. In the next few chapters he is going to expand on this and then get very practical about how a believer should deal with sin. It is important that we correctly understand the theology of the problem before we try to fix the problem itself. Not doing this would be like me trying to fix my car that won’t start by changing the battery when the problem is actually a blown fuse. (There’s a story in that statement.) You can’t fix the problem of sin unless you actually know how sin works.

And yet I see lots of people who try to do this. They are weighed down by the guilt of sin and try to unburden themselves by “doing better” or buying their way out of their guilt, or reading a good self-help book that makes them feel better about themselves, or even by going to church. They don’t realize that the only way to deal with sin is through death.

And that’s the point of this passage. Ponder these verses. They are great preparation for what Paul has to say next.

Next Week’s Passage: Romans 6: 8-14
Memory Verses: Romans 8: 1-12

Brick #15: 1 John 1:9

Posted on by Shay Reyner

Untitled design“If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

Our God is a relational God. Our faith is a relational faith. It is not about a bunch of do’s and don’ts. This verse highlights the fact that relationship is at the center of our faith.

Relationships are bruised and torn apart when people betray one another through deceitfulness and broken promises. This is equally true in our relationship with God. When we sin we break our relationship with God. The good news is that once we are made sons and daughters of God we will always be sons and daughters of God. But that doesn’t mean that the relationship with God isn’t hurt by sin.

God’s promise to us is this: because of his faithfulness and because He is a just God He will always forgive us when we seek reconciliation through an admission of our sin. Confession is agreeing with God that sin is sin. We have a tendency to try to sweep sin under the rug and ignore it. God cannot and will not do this. But he will forgive us when we come to Him and deal with it through confession and repentance. Saying “I’m sorry” is hard for all of us. But it is the gateway to reconciliation.

Why this brick is foundational:  God takes sin seriously. We should too. I’ve heard it said, “If you don’t feel close to God, guess who moved.” Confession of sin is the best way to start moving back to a close relationship with God.

Pondering Extras on Romans 5:12-21

Posted on by Shay Reyner

PonderingExtrasI like what Charles Swindoll had to say about the Law as a moral ledger:

Think of it this way.  A young couple comes comes home from their honeymoon, settles into an apartment, and begins life together.  He works; she works; they spend their earnings and all seems well.  Three years later, mortgage rates drop and they have a golden opportunity to buy a house.  Unfortunately, they have no money for a down payment.  In fact, they have accumulated a few thousand dollars in credit card debt.  To get their finances in order, they consult a financial expert, who helps them establish a budget.  He places their income on one side of the ledger and they list their monthly expenses on the other.  Lo and behold, they have been slowly digging a financial hole for many months and they must adjust their habits.

What changed as a result of seeing the ledger?  Certainly not their financial situation.  Only their awareness of it.  The ledger sheet brought the truth of their fiscal irresponsibility to light, which gave them an opportunity to do something about it.

The Law is a moral ledger sheet that brings to our attention the truth about our moral debt.  With or without the ledger, we remain indebted. Consequently, before the ledger of the Law was given to humanity, “death reigned from Adam until Moses.”  Even those who did not sin against an explicit command as Adam did are nevertheless guilty of sin and deserving of death.

Pondering Romans 5:12-21

Posted on by Shay Reyner

Book-of-Romans

There are 3 words in this passage that immediately caught my attention – and they are repeated two times… “how much more”. They got me thinking about how much Christ has done for me – besides just giving me life with Him eternally. So here’s a song I wrote that expresses some of my thoughts. (All I need now is someone to put the words to music.)

HOW MUCH MORE

How much more could Christ have done than what He did so long ago?
And yet today He fills my heart with a joy that overflows.

How much more could He have done than when He set this captive free?
And yet today I taste the fruit of His awesome victory.

How much more could He have done that when He rescued me from sin?
And yet today He gives me hope and helps me find my strength in Him.

How much more could He have done than save my soul eternally?
And yet I find that in this world I live with joy and power and peace.

How much more, O how much more could He do in you and I
If Christ alone became the greatest treasure in our lives.
How much more, O how much more could He really do in us
If our hearts could fully grasp the mighty power of His love. (Refrain)

How much more could He have done than break the chains of doubt and fear?
And yet today when I despair I find that He is always near.

How much more could He have done than to create new life in me?
And yet He fills my soul with songs that I cannot help but sing.

How much more could He have done than make things right with God again?
And yet today He walks with me as if I am His greatest friend.

How much more could He have done than prove His love at Calvary?
And yet today I am reminded of His faithful love for me.

How much more, O how much more could He do in you and I
If Christ alone became the greatest treasure in our lives.
How much more, O how much more could He really do in us
If our hearts could fully grasp the mighty power of His love.

May your soul be captured today by the awesomeness of Christ’s love and recognize how much more He still wants to do in your life.

Next Week’s Passage –  Romans 6:1-7
Memory Verses – Romans 8:1-11

Brick #14: Galatians 2:20

Posted on by Shay Reyner

BBBNew“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Here are the questions that this verse provokes me to keep asking and why this verse is worth a lot of intentional pondering:

  • What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?
  • Has my old sinful nature indeed been put to death (crucified)?
  • Is it evident that Christ is alive in me?
  • In what ways does my life (and my lifestyle) demonstrate that I am living by faith?
  • Do I daily treasure the fact that Christ loved me so much that He gave Himself for me?
  • Do I understand what the death of Christ has rescued me from?
  • How do I display my gratitude to Him for rescuing me?

I’ll make a few comments about the first question…

Being crucified with Christ means that we are no longer enslaved to sin. The power of sin over us has been broken. We are free NOT to sin and have been exonerated from the penalty of sin. (Romans 6:5-11)

Being crucified with Christ means that our passions and desires are no longer of a carnal nature but instead are fueled by the Spirit of God. Instead of corrupting us and leading us toward death, our passions and desires can now be used to lead others toward Life. (Galatians 5:22-24)

Being crucified with Christ means that living a successful life  has now been redefined. Instead of leading a life that promotes self and seeks worldly gain, we instead follow Jesus’ example of denying selfish ambitions and serving others for the glory of God. (Matthew 16:24-28)

Being crucified with Christ means that we are empowered to fight against sin, to fight for joy, and to persevere uncompromisingly even when life is hard and takes its toll on the faint of heart. (Hebrews 12:1-3)

John Piper has this to say about this verse:

There is a new “I”—I do still live. But look who it is. It is no longer an “I” who craves self-reliance or self-confidence or self-direction or self-exaltation. The new “I” looks away from itself and trusts in the Son of God, whose love and power was proved at Calvary. From the moment you wake in the morning till the moment you fall asleep at night, the new “I” of faith despairs of itself and looks to Christ for protection and the motivation, courage, direction, and enablement to walk in joy and peace and righteousness. What a great way to live!

May the Lord use this brick in your life to help you learn what it means to live a life of faith that is grounded in the magnanimous love of Christ displayed powerfully at the cross.