My New Year’s Eve was so uneventful I went from repeatedly checking
into the Shorewood website starting around 9 (only to never find a live service)
to flipping between Food Network’s “Chopped” show and Fox News’ coverage of the
holiday.
In a repeat of an earlier show on Fox, “The Five,” the hosts
went around the table giving their New Year’s resolutions.
When it came to panel member Eric Bolling, he said something
like, “I fast every Tuesday, I don’t eat meat and I go to 7 a.m. Mass every
week day at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I don’t know that there’s much more . . . ”
He gave a smug, sort of “I’m pretty satisfied with myself” look.
*****
The Apostle Paul says in Romans 12:1, “I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service.”
Jordan explained that the word “reasonable” simply means “what’s
logical; what only makes sense,” given our positions in Christ as “those alive
from the dead” (Romans 6:13). I admit, I had long thought it had to do with the
amount of time, effort and devotion given to doing the Lord’s work.
Indeed, Jordan said about the term, “It’s almost always pulled completely out of its context and used as an encouragement for you to
dedicate yourself to doing better. Try harder and do better so if you try hard
enough, and do good enough, and work at it consistently enough, and you’re
dedicated and rededicated enough, and you’re consecrated enough, and you quit
smoking, drinking, cussing and carousing and whatever else low-life thing you
might be doing . . .
“The preacher doesn’t ever talk about the real things that
you have problems with. You know, an angry spirit and an evil disposition--that’s
something you can’t just pack up or roll up and throw out the window. The
malice and wrath and clamor and evil speaking. The real sins that we carry
around with us.
“This passage (in Romans 12) has been one preachers have used
for time immemorial to try to put Christians on a treadmill of service: ‘You
need to be consecrated, you need to be separated, you need to be dedicated, you
need to be surrendered,’ and yet they actually make a works program out of
surrendering, which is giving up.
“When you surrender, you say, ‘I give up! The fight’s over!
I won’t DO anymore!’ I’ll sit here; here’s my weapons.’ But they take the whole
thing and make it out into a religious system.
“If they’d just read the first words in verse 1. ‘I beseech
you.’ Now when you beseech somebody, you’re not commanding them to do it!
You’re asking them to do it. ‘I’m appealing to you. I’m requesting that you
would do it. I’m not bossing you. I’m telling you there’s something that ought
to make you want to do this because you want to.’
“If you get past that word ‘therefore,’ very quickly you’ll
fail to get what’s in this passage because the ‘therefore’ points you back to
all the things that were there before you got to this verse.
“You don’t hit that issue about service until Romans 12. You
are never told to serve until you get here. Think about that. A preacher told
me one time, ‘You need to win ’em, wet ’em, work ’em, watch ’em and whip ’em.
You got to get them in, put them in the system, and get them to WORK. And when
they run down, you go crank them up.’
“For most ministry, it’s just running from one run-down guy,
and cranking him back up. to the next and keeping them all going. In Paul’s
mind, you had to go through 11 chapters of information before he ever said,
‘Okay, get on with it.’ That ought to tell you something!”
*****
Here’s a little New Year’s advice I collected some years ago
from a Sunday morning service by Jordan:
“Paul writes in Philippians 1, ‘And this I pray, that your
love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may
approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence
till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which
are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.’
“When I think about looking at the new year, that verse
tells you exactly what we ought to make our new year’s resolution be; to live
like that!
“Down in verse 3:17 he says, “Brethren, be followers
together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For
many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that
they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose
God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly
things.) For our conversation is in
heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
“You know, there are a lot of markers in the Christian life.
In Romans 16, Paul says to ‘mark them which walk contrary to the doctrine which
you’ve received and avoid them,’ but here he’s talking about people walking the
way Paul walks.
“You’re not to mark them to get rid of them; you’re to mark
them so you know who to hang out with! It’s the opposite kind of thing. We
ought to know and identify the people who follow Paul’s ministry and identify
with them and work with them. Notice in verse 18 and 19 are parentheses. Verse
18 starts with and verse 19 ends with a parenthesis.
*****
“The Bible sets up its standard of definitions for terms and
it’s always important to define terms the way the Bible defines them. The word ‘conversation,’
we usually use that to say sitting around talking with people, but it’s much
more than that.
“Now, don’t get me wrong, you learn a lot about people by
talking to them and having a conversation with them. A conversation, in the
(Bible) sense, though, is you have an exchange in ideas and thoughts. You’re
really exchanging your life with someone.
“Have you ever noticed you can talk to somebody and not have
a conversation? It’s where you simply don’t connect; you don’t relate.
“But when you have a conversation, as the Bible uses the
word, you sit down and you’re really able to share your thinking and partake of
their thinking. There’s a real connection between you. We use it just for the
verbal part of it, but the word itself is describing more than just talk; it’s
describing getting in touch with somebody and connecting with them on a deeper
level than just talking. It’s talking about entering into their life.
“Peter writes in I Peter 3, ‘Likewise, ye wives, be in
subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may
without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold
your chaste conversation coupled with fear.’
“That unsaved husband is going to watch his wife’s conversation.
It’s not just talk; it’s something you can observe. What’s he seeing? Isn’t he
watching her lifestyle? Her behavior? But he’s watching more than just the way
she behaves; he’s watching the way she values and esteems something. The way
she reacts to it. What she holds dear. In other words, he’s looking into her
and seeing what’s really inside of her.
*****
“It’s easy with external things to fool people. I mean,
heavens to murgatory, if you look at the stuff in the last month in the
political realm, the governmental realm and the economic realm—how they fool
people.
“You know this dude in New York with the Ponzi scheme who
milked 50 billion dollars out of smart people. Made me feel better. You know,
smart people get hooked too. But what did he do? They were getting statements
that said they made this money. It was all just a lie. A sham.
“So it’s about observation of conduct, looking into
someone’s life and seeing that the words match what’s inside and that what’s
inside lives out through the person.
“Paul says in Philippians 4:9, ‘Those things, which ye have
both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace
shall be with you.’
*****
“You want to know how to have peace in your life? I read
that verse in Timothy where Paul says, ‘You’ve known my manner of life, my
doctrine, my faith,’ and so forth. And I think, ‘Wow, I have the privilege
myself of teaching and leading men to preach.’
“Paul didn’t just says, ‘You’ve known the doctrine that I
preach.’ He told Timothy that first thing, ‘You’ve known my manner of life.’ He
says in 4:9 those ‘things which ye have both learned and received and heard and
seen in me.’ You didn’t just learn it and hear it and believe it, but you saw
it working in me. That’s what you do. And when you do that, the God of peace
shall be with you.
“If you want peace about something, you don’t pray for it. Praying
for peace doesn’t get you peace. You do what that verse says—you embrace and
put into practice what God through Paul tells you, and that allows you to rest
in the security of God’s love and grace to you in Christ Jesus.
*****
“Repentance toward God is changing your mind about who God
is and who you are how you’re not going to be God anymore. You lived a lie in
thinking worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator was the way
to go.
“You followed your own will and now you say, ‘No, I’m not
God; He is,’ and you turn to God from idols—from worshipping and serving the
creature. You see when you get saved you make a radical change in your life and
it starts in your thinking process. It starts in your heart. Nobody ever
believes on the Lord Jesus Christ that first doesn’t get lost. You got to get
lost before you get saved and when you talk to people, most of the time you
find out they don’t think they’re lost.
“You go up to somebody and ask them—just stop them in the
mall . . . Ask them, ‘Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen
something?’ They’ll say yes. Then ask them, ‘Well, what does that make you?’ They’ll
say, ‘Human. Normal
“It’s easier to condemn the other person than it is
yourself. For lost people, condemning others is easy. Condemning themselves is
the problem. To get saved, you have to understand you’re condemned. When you
get lost, you change your mind about God’s authority, and then you can trust Jesus
Christ. There’s a purpose in salvation.
“Paul says in Philippians, ‘I’m living sincerely and without
offense. I’m the genuine article now.’ ”
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