Weekly Teachings

Romans 7:14-18 The Law is spiritual and good, but we are “of the flesh, sold under sin.” Because the Law came from God, it is good. Paul knows this and wants to keep it, but something is holding him back: his flesh. His desire is to do what is right, but he can’t seem to carry it out. Romans 7:19-20 He keeps doing evil, even when he knows it is wrong. He says, “It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” Does this mean that Paul isn’t responsible for disobeying God since it’s not really him doing it, but some kind of sin force? Douglass Moo nicely explains what’s going on here: “At first sight, Paul would appear to be saying something unlikely and, indeed, dangerous: that he is not responsible for his actions. But this is not what he means. His point is that his failure to put into action what he wills to do shows that there is something besides himself involved in the situation...another factor that interferes with his performance of what he wants to do. This other factor is indwelling sin. sin is not a power that operates outside of people, making them do its bidding; sin is something resident in the very being, “dwelling” within people, ruling over them like a master over a slave.” Romans 7:2-24 Paul cries out, “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me?” He feels so conflicted, so trapped, so helpless that cries out for help. In fact, this moment of surrender is precisely the key that unlocks the door of deliverance. Romans 7:25-8.4 If you are “in Christ Jesus” there’s a new factor: the spirit of life. You’ve got your own will, sin dwelling in you, and now you’ve got the spirit of life that can set you free in Christ Jesus! This means you can overcome. You can have victory over sin. Because of what God has done in Christ, you can be delivered! If this is the case, does that mean genuine Christians no longer have to deal with the flesh and the pull of sin? Romans 6:9-14; 13:13-14; Galatians 5:17, 24-26 Even as a Christians we have to consider ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God.” This takes continual effort to bring areas of our lives to God and seek deliverance. We cannot make provision for our flesh to gratify its desires. Even if the flesh remains within us, we also have the spirit to aid us. What’s important is that each and every day we wake up and crucify “the flesh with its passions and desires.” 1 Douglass Moo, The Letter to the Romans, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2018), p. 481.

Judges 2:11-19 The book of Judges repeats a cyclical theme throughout. First, the people forget and forsake God for idols. Then, God withdraws His protection, and oppressors take advantage. Amidst great suffering, the people cry out for deliverance. So, God raises up a judge to rescue the people. While that leader lives, the people remain faithful, but then they once again forget and forsake God. Around and around we go with generation after generation repeating the same pattern. Judges 3:15 God raised up Ehud to deliver the people from King Eglon of Moab. (On his left-handedness, see Judges 20:15-16; 1 Chronicles 12:2.) Judges 3:19-21 Ehud courageously used his left-handedness to assassinate the king and bring relief to God’s people. Judges 3:31 Shamgar was a farmer with an ox goad, but God worked through him to save Israel from the Philistines. Judges 4:4-9 Deborah was a judge and a prophetess who brought a word of the LORD to Barak to attack Jabin, king of Canaan. Judges 4:13-15 Barak fought against Jabin’s commander, Sisera, and his 900 iron chariots and routed them. Sisera escaped on foot, but met his demise at the hands of a woman, Jael, who lulled him to sleep and hammered a tent peg through his skull. Judges 6:1-6 Once again, Israel turned away from God and faced the consequences. The Midianites scraped Israel clean of food, making the people hide their food in caves. Judges 6:12-16 God finds a scared farmer named Gideon and sends an angel with the words, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” After working with him extensively to build his faith, God brought a huge victory through Gideon, defeating 135,000 Midianites with 300 Israelites. Psalm 18:2-6 The LORD is our rock, fortress, and deliverer! Let us call upon Him and cry out for deliverance in our own time. Let us put our trust in Him. Judges 9:52-54 Gideon’s son, Abimelech, was a power-hungry, fratricidal tyrant. He attacked other Israelites that didn’t accept his legitimacy until an unnamed woman dropped part of her bread maker on his head. (See also 2 Samuel 11:20-21.) 2 Chronicles 16:9 Likewise, Jephthah and Samson were outcasts through whom God brought sensational deliverance for His people. His eyes are running to and fro, looking for people to work with-those whose hearts are blameless toward Him. Is your heart blameless toward Him? God delights to use unqualified people in the hardest times to accomplish His greatest work. He is our deliverer. Let us look to Him for our deliverance now.

Deuteronomy 24:17-22 God made provision for the vulnerable in ancient Israel. This included the sojourner, the orphan, the widow, and the poor. He put safeguards in place to ensure these people would have what they needed. Psalm 82:3-4 The rulers of God’s people were supposed to enact justice for the weak and fatherless as well as rescue the weak and needy. Leviticus 19:18 Beyond those in positions of power, God commanded regular Israelites to love their neighbors as themselves. Jesus, himself, echoed this great commandment (Mark 12:31). 1 John 4:16-21 Perfect love casts out fear. God calls us to act from love and not fear. Those who act out of fear are self-focused and driven by self-preservation, but those who act out of love are other-focused and driven by genuine concern for others. We can learn a great deal from the example of our Lord as well as his followers through the ages, especially in times when plagues broke out. 2 Timothy 1:7 God gave us a spirit of power, love, and self-control rather than fear. This equips us to ground our security in God’s hands while acting in conformity to Christ’s example of self-sacrificial love on the cross. The darker our times, the brighter the light shines.

Self-control (enkrateia): restraint of one’s emotions, impulses, or desires; self-control 2 Samuel 11:1-5 David provides us with an excellent example of the disastrous consequences that unravel when we lack self-control. In this case, a single impulse that he could have easily overcome led to increasingly more difficult circumstances. Self-control is telling yourself “no” when you’re tempted to do something wrong and “yes” when you don’t feel like doing something right. Mark 14:53-63 Jesus provides a sterling counterexample to David. Instead of allowing his own desires or others to push him around, he stays true to God even in the most stressful moments. He knew the prophecy and conformed his behavior to it, even though it was excruciatingly difficult (Isaiah 53:7). Even when he hung on the cross, he continued to resist sin, deceit, returning insults, or uttering threats (1 Peter 2:21-23). Mark 2:14-20 Self-control can become a vice if we overdo it. The Pharisees so trained themselves to control the minutiae of their lives that they devolved into legalism and self-righteousness. They even looked down their noses and accused the only perfect man of not living up to their standards! Although the Pharisees are famous for going to the maximum with self-control, there was a group of Christians who made the Pharisees look free-spirited. In the sparse reports we have about them, we have the name Ecratites, which translated literally means something like “Self-Controllers.” This group didn’t believe in eating meat, drinking anything but water, or sexual intercourse even within marriage. Even so, Scripture warns us not to fall into such extremes (1 Timothy 4:1-5).

Our God is faithful (Deut 7:9; 1 Cor 10:13), so we too should be faithful (Eph 5:1). Luke 12:35-48 This is a double parable with the first focusing on a servant faithfully keeping watch for his master’s return home after a late-night wedding feast. The second is about a household manager whom his manager put in charge of faithfully taking care of matters while he is gone. Both of these have much to teach us about remaining vigilant and faithfully serving day after day, year after year, and decade after decade. If Jesus should come back in your lifetime, what do you want him to find you doing? Whatever that is, do more of that. Luke 16:1-15 This is one of the more colorful parables in Scripture since it features a dishonest employee who gets fired. However, Jesus is not telling this story to endorse cheating the boss by giving discounts out for favors. No, his point is that we need to be wise and generous with our money. Then Jesus appends a conclusion about the importance for his followers to be faithful in the little issues of life. Luke 19:11-28 Our last parable is about a king who entrusted 1 mina (100 days wages) each to ten of his servants before leaving for a long trip. Upon his return, he calls them to account and is eager to discover how they have improved his estate while he was gone. To those servants who multiplied what he entrusted to them, he said, “You have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten (or five) cities.” Are you faithfully serving God? Are you faithfully taking care of the little matters of this life? If not, you can confess this to God since He’s faithful to forgive and cleanse (1 John 5:9).

2 Peter 3:9 Our God is a God of patience. He is patiently waiting for more to reach repentance before he brings about the end. Luke 8:15; Romans 2:6-7 It’s important for us to be patient with ourselves as we seek to produce godly fruit in our lives. We can’t allow ourselves to get frustrated by slow progress. We need to endure steadfastly. Romans 8:24-25; Hebrews 6:11-15; Psalm 37:7-9 We can get worn down by the world while waiting for the hope. Even so, we must patiently endure in faith, knowing that what God has promised will come to pass. 2 Timothy 4:2 It’s also important for us to be patient with each other. How much patience has God showed you to get where you are today? Sometimes people have breakthroughs and make huge progress, and other times they become stagnant or backslide. God calls us to be steady-to have complete patience as we seek to help others. James 5:10 The great Hebrew prophets have much to teach us about patience. Think of the patience of Abraham and Sarah who waited twenty-five years to have their child. What about Elijah whom the government hunted for over three years while drought dried out the land of Israel. Galatians 5:22-23 We have such an advantage today over those who came before us. We have the full canon of Scripture, the powerful redemptive work of Christ, the aiding help of the holy spirit, and a clear vision of the hope.

Galatians 5:22-23 These are the nine fruit of the spirit. We’ll be spending the next weeks focusing on each one to gain a greater understanding so that we can live these out. In fact, these nine fruit are to be our normal behavior because God’s spirit is living in us. Galatians 5:16-17 We have a war going on within us. On the one hand, our flesh inspires selfish desires opposed to God; on the other, God’s spirit motivates godly behavior. Galatians 5:18 The law can cause our flesh to rebel, but God’s spirit sets us free from that trap. Galatians 5:19-23 If you want to slay the dragon of strife, you need kindness; if you want to defeat anger, you need gentleness; if you want to conquer divisiveness, you need faithfulness; if you want to overcome sexual sin, you need genuine godly love; if you fall prey to drunkenness, you need self-control. The fruits of the spirit squeeze out the works of the flesh. Galatians 5:13-16 Today, our focus is on love. This is such an important mindset and behavior for us to cultivate in our lives. In fact, Jesus taught that loving God and others is the most important commandment in the whole Bible (Mark 12:29-31; Deuteronomy 6:4-5). 1 Corinthians 13 contains a love poem that tells us “love never ends” (v8). Even though prophecy will pass away, tongues will cease, and miraculous insight will stop, love is forever. It’s better than faith and hope. “The greatest of these is love” (v13). Love is a big deal! Galatians 2:20 The chief way Paul grounds his understanding of love is God’s extravagant expression of love in giving His only Son to set us free. This is home base. Galatians 5:13-16 The emphasis here is on loving one another rather than treating each other harshly. How are you doing on this? Do you love your neighbor as yourself?

Exodus 34:6-7 Compassion/mercy is the first of God’s attributes that He listed out when He revealed His glory to Moses. Exodus 22:21-27 God cares about the sojourners, widows, and orphans. He hears their prayers and takes up their cause because He is compassionate. Deuteronomy 24:10-22 God wanted His people never to forget that they were once slaves in Egypt. The benefit of that corporate memory was that they would have compassion on others in need like the poor, the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow. Deuteronomy 25:5-10 God installed an automatic system to ensure that widows would have the chance to get remarried quickly. Deuteronomy 26:12-13 The people’s tithes went to provide for the Levites, sojourners, orphans, and widows. It was important to God that His people not forget these categories of people. Psalm 68:4-5 4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the LORD; exult before him! 5 Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. Zechariah 7:9-14 Sadly, God’s people did not act in compassion to the vulnerable members of their society. They took advantage of the weak and closed their ears to hear their cry. Other than idolatry, their lack of compassion was the chief reason God exiled them from their land. Luke 6:30-36 Our Lord taught us that we too should be merciful just as God is. We too should be generous to the poor and kind to the undeserving.

Exodus 34:6-7 Compassion/mercy is the first of God’s attributes that He listed out when He revealed His glory to Moses. Exodus 22:21-27 God cares about the sojourners, widows, and orphans. He hears their prayers and takes up their cause because He is compassionate. Deuteronomy 24:10-22 God wanted His people never to forget that they were once slaves in Egypt. The benefit of that corporate memory was that they would have compassion on others in need like the poor, the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow. Deuteronomy 25:5-10 God installed an automatic system to ensure that widows would have the chance to get remarried quickly. Deuteronomy 26:12-13 The people’s tithes went to provide for the Levites, sojourners, orphans, and widows. It was important to God that His people not forget these categories of people. Psalm 68:4-5 4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the LORD; exult before him! 5 Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. Zechariah 7:9-14 Sadly, God’s people did not act in compassion to the vulnerable members of their society. They took advantage of the weak and closed their ears to hear their cry. Other than idolatry, their lack of compassion was the chief reason God exiled them from their land. Luke 6:30-36 Our Lord taught us that we too should be merciful just as God is. We too should be generous to the poor and kind to the undeserving.

Leviticus 1:1-9 God explained precisely how He wanted His people to perform their sacrifices. Although this scene is foreign and perhaps repulsive to us, to them it would have been both obvious and accepted. Also, in their agrarian world, killing animals was completely commonplace. Since many more people raised livestock, they did not have our modern separation between packaged meat and living animals. Furthermore, their wealth was often tied up in their physical assets rather than currency, so offering a sheep or a bull was akin to a financial sacrifice. Even so, they had to be sure to choose an animal without blemish (22:21). Leviticus 6:1-7 Although some of the sacrifices were to show gratitude, others were to atone for sinful behavior. For example, a thief had to pay back what he stole plus twenty percent as well as offer a ram for a guilt offering to God. Leviticus 11:1-3, 12, 20-21, 44-45 Cleanness was an important concept that extended to several areas of life, including what kinds of animals were permitted for food. God never explained His reasoning for these particular prohibitions, but many probably had to do with health. Leviticus 15:31 Further reasons for uncleanness included giving birth (12), having a rash (13), touching certain dead animals (11:31-32), touching a corpse (21:1-3), discharging certain bodily fluids (15). Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18 God was also interested in moral holiness including sexual behavior (18), honoring parents (19:3), keeping Sabbaths (19:3), abstaining from idolatry (19:4), providing for the poor (19:9-10; 25:35-55), honesty (19:11-12), employment equity (19:13), fair treatment of the disabled (19:14), just courts (19:15), kind treatment of neighbors (19:16-18), child sacrifice (20:1-5), talking to the dead (20:6), harming others (24:17-22), keeping vows (27:1-13), and much more (19:19-37). Leviticus 20:22-26; 22:31-33 God wanted His people to be different than the nations. They were to be holy to Him--His special people. He gave them special weekly, monthly, and annual times for rest and feasting (23). Additionally, He set aside one day each year for national repentance, fasting, and forgiveness (16). God wanted to dwell among His people. This is why they needed to be holy (26:11-13). Leviticus 21:6 God instated stricter rules for priests because they came closest to the holy place, including no burying the dead except for close relatives, mourning limitations, marriage limitations, harsher penalties for children, no loose hair, and no tearing clothes. Furthermore, if a priest had any physical blemish or disability, he could not draw near and enter the tent (21:16-24).