Sorry for the lapse in studies! My wife and I have been on a belated honeymoon to Peru, but now we are back.
INTRODUCTION WEEK 7: Morality and Gospel Transformation
READ:
Romans 3:24-31, 6:1-14
DISCUSS:
1. How would you characterize life under the law or morality? What are some examples or characteristics of churches that are primarily ‘law based’?
2. If we are ‘justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus’ as v24 states, then what do we do to earn or justify God’s salvation? Does that mean we can do whatever we want?
3. For Martin Luther, John Wesley, and Karl Barth, reading Romans 3:24-31 changed their lives….and world history. Why is this message so life changing? How is the message of grace impacting your life?
4. How can we lead worship in a way that is focused on gospel transformation and not self-righteousness based on the law or morality?
REFLECT:
The other day a dear African Christian woman came to me with a troubling question. She had been worrying about this question for weeks and finally she thought she should ask a pastor. Her question was: if someone divorces, are they going to hell? A pastor from her home church in Nigeria had told her this and she was struggling because her husband had recently left her and was now filing for divorce. As we talked more about her situation and her theology I learned that she grew up hearing that if you sin, you are in danger of hell. So because divorce is a sin, she was worried that, even though she did not instigate or want the divorce, that she would be condemned to hell if the divorce went through.
Though maybe not as extreme, most of us grow up hearing similar messages, whether we’ve grown up in the church or not. They are the basic messages of morality: if you are a nice person, people will be nice to you. If you are a good person, good things will happen to you. If you follow the rules, you will be rewarded. Those are often the motivations of our morality, and we so easily fit them into our belief in God: if you do bad things, you will be condemned, if you do good things you will be blessed. The problem with this morality though, is that it doesn’t often fit with reality, as the Christian sister I described earlier experienced. So often we are good, moral people for a reason, because then we will reap the rewards. And this is not a wholly bad concept…..if there was no reason for morality there would be chaos…..but it is just not true. So often we are good and we receive bad things. We are moral and we still get cancer. We are nice to others and we still get hit by a drunk driver. We love our wives or husbands and they still leave. Morality only for the sake of morality is never enough and will only lead us to frustration and, when we apply it to religion, fear.
That is why the gospel always stands as a roadblock to the ‘law’ or all the ways we try to be moral. As Paul writes in Romans 3:21-24: “But now the righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came in Christ Jesus.” In Jesus Christ, God saves us not through our morality, but through His work on the cross. Being moral and good people are not bad things to be or strive for, but they are incomplete, because they always fall short. So God chooses a better way. Through his son Jesus Christ, God saves our past, present, and future though the cross and ressurection.
So, as we seek to be gospel centered believers and leaders, we are not so much seeking to be moral people, but to be ‘transformed by the renewing of our minds.’ (Romans 12:2) Gospel transformation begins and ends with grace, and transforms our condition from one of outsiders and aliens to adopted and accepted sons and daughters (1 Peter 2:9-10). So we are called to stop thinking and living like slaves and start living like sons and daughters, members of God’s royal family. This means that we strive for our lives to be characterized by gracious thanksgiving, passionate obedience, and humble servitude, not out of a law we must follow, but as a free response to Grace.
So often we struggle with Grace, because it does not depend on us and doesn’t even require our response for it to be effective. When I was a youth pastor, one of the top 5 questions asked by youth and college students was: if I am saved by grace, then why do I have to stop sinning? It is also a question that many of us ask at times, especially when in the midst of struggles or temptations. Paul responds to people with very similar struggles in Romans 6:1, when he asks “what shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” Yet Paul’s reason to not sin is different than ours often. He continues in Romans chapters 6 and 7 by saying that we are dead to sin, because Christ died for it once and for all on the cross. Because Christ changed our identity from being sinners constantly trying to earn our salvation through morality to being transformed into children and heirs, then we are no longer slaves to sin and shame. As Paul writes in 6:14: “For sin shall not be your master, because you are no longer under the law, but grace.”
This is a new reality for us as Christians and a new freedom that is given by God through Jesus Christ. And as we grow in this reality we will often become startlingly moral, compassionate, and self-sacrificial people, but that is only the icing of the cake, the outward sign of something far more significant happening in our spirits and in our minds. We are being transformed by grace, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, as our minds are changed about who we are and why we are here. We are no longer wanderers trying to please God, but children accepted and loved by God. We are no longer purposeless and hopeless, our purpose is to be ambassadors of our Father, and to radiate the light of His grace into dark places. For the Christian sister I met with a couple days ago, as we talked and looked through scripture, she began to see her situation in a new light. Though she is still devastated by her husband’s betrayal and abandonment, she no longer fears hell and is secure that God still loves her and has saved her by Grace.
As worship leaders we are called to be the first ones to taste the goodness of the gospel and be transformed by the Spirit as we change our minds about Christ. And then we are called to lead worship modeling this new reality in our words, and music, so that our worship service becomes a ‘thin place’ where the new reality breaks through and reminds us who God is, who we are, and why we are here.
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Jeremiah 3:6-25, Psalm 19:7-9, 1 Corinthians 15:9-10, 1 Timothy 2:1-13
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Grace In Practice, A Theology Of Everyday Life, by Paul F.M Zahl
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