Digging in Deeper: Romans 8:28

249 Comments

“We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purposes.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

A common cliche we like to use when something happens unexpectedly or unfolds in a way we didn’t plan is that God works in mysterious ways. The idea is that God can accomplish things in ways and by means that go well beyond our ability to explain them. Followers of Jesus call this miraculous. Secular folks just call it chance or good luck. Either way, our powers of prediction are generally pretty bad. A recent series on AppleTV got me thinking about all of this as I watched the story take twists and turns the characters could not have imagined at the outset. God actually played a role in the story, but it was an interesting one. Let’s talk for a bit today about Lessons in Chemistry and how things all work out according to plan.

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 20:7

Leave a comment

“Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone punished who misuses his name.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I’ve never been a big fan of nicknames that weren’t mere terms of endearment. On the last day of a spring break trip in college, after playing on the beach for several hours with lots of sunscreen everywhere but on the top of my feet, I burnt them to a crisp. They were bright red and I couldn’t wear shoes for days. It was a good thing most people were used to my going barefoot around campus. Some friends tried to give me the nickname “Chief Red Foot” as a joke. I gently, but sincerely spoiled their fun. As a credit to their own character, they accepted that I really didn’t want a nickname and stopped their efforts immediately. I like my name. I’m proud of it. I didn’t want to be known by any other appellation. God feels the same way, but even more passionately. He’s so passionate about it that He made getting it right part of His foundational commands to Israel.e Let’s talk about what He means here and why this mattered so much.

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 20:4-6

Leave a comment

“Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do no serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The theme of a jealous spouse is a fairly common one in our stories, and it is a uniformly negative picture. That is, the jealous spouse is always the villain. Here in the second of the foundational commands God gives the people for what it looks like to live in a covenant relationship with Him, though, we find God describing Himself as jealous. He wants us all to Himself, and doesn’t want us putting anyone or anything ahead of Him. Let’s talk about why this is, what idolatry is, and why it’s a good thing that God is jealous for us.

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 20:3

Leave a comment

“Do not have other gods besides me.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When the apostle Paul was talking about marriage with the Ephesian church, he described it as being a reflection of the relationship we have with Jesus. The thing about being in a marriage is that as much as our culture today would like to pretend otherwise, it is a definitionally exclusive relationship. When you are married to someone, you are married to just them and no one else. If you try to expand beyond that, you may have something else, but you don’t have a marriage anymore. Trying to continue calling whatever else you have now marriage will just dilute the definition and ultimately cause issues for you and the people who are in your direct sphere of influence. There’s a reason, then, the first commandment of God’s big ten puts a major limitation on Israel’s ability to relate to other gods. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…

Redemption Is the Goal

Leave a comment

As we come to the third part of our series, Leverage, this week and next we are going to explore a couple of very specific examples from Jesus on what leveraging our resources for the sake of those around us can look like. This first one takes the form of a passage that is used to talk about a whole bunch of other things including church discipline. But the often-missed heart of the passage falls right in line with what we have been talking about this entire time. Let’s talk about sin, relationships, and God’s preference for redemption.

Redemption Is the Goal

I grew up as the older sibling. When you are the older sibling, sometimes you might occasionally do something to cause injury to your younger siblings. Of course, the whole thing is totally their fault, and they have it coming. But the injury occurs nonetheless. The trouble with injuring younger siblings is that your parents don’t always see the absolute justification you had in your actions. Or, they can’t understand that it was totally an accident. You didn’t plan for him to run into your fist at the precise moment you swung it forward, it just happened that way. It could have happened to anybody. The universe acts in strange ways sometimes. It was an honest mistake. 

Read the rest…