H2O Church Blog

Free Will & Salvation

2006-10-27T07:03:00.000-05:00

One thing which might help in this discussion is that there are at least 3 different definitions that people use-Moral Freedom, which is the ability to do good. Because of the fall, we lost moral freedom, the ability to choose God, because of our fallen nature. Thus, salvation restores moral freedom.

The second kind of freedom is called Liberterian Freedom and is what most people mean when they say free will; it is having genuine choice with no one making us decide one way the other. In this thinking, God needs to leave me alone and let me decide for myself. This person who says, "God must give me free will" is, however, insisting that God give us a universe that is hopeless. God moving upon our wills is actually our only hope of coming to Him.

There is a third kind of free will which is called Compatibilist Freedom, where our choices and God's will are compatible. Humanity is not left alone, with God up in the heavens watching. Neither is God making people do everything that happens, like puppets. God lovingly exercises His sovereignty in running the universe, yet He does so in a way that is compatible (thus, the name) with our choices out of respect for us as free agents. In other words, God is control and can interrupt us and move upon us whenever He wants; He is, after all, God. Yet we do actually choose, either good or evil. When people do evil, God is still in control, and could stop it, but He respects their choice, though hating it. In salvation, then, we still are choosing according to our nature, however, He moves upon our will, changing our nature, so that we do freely come to believe. In this way, the Christian can say, "God saved me; I did not save myself," "Yes, I did choose Christ, but He chose me first."

The beauty of the gospel is that it is not an "offer" which we decide for out of our liberterian freedom, for none would believe. The beauty of the gospel is that it is indued with power (Romans 1:16) to change our very natures, enabling us to believe, and "freely" choose Christ.

Predestination Reaction

2006-10-24T07:33:00.000-05:00

Before I get going with writing more on the "deep labyrinth" of predestination, what was your reaction to what was shared Sunday? What are you feeling right now? What thoughts are rolling around in your head? More to come, but I wanted to see where everyone is at first.

Blog Respite

2006-10-09T09:25:00.000-05:00

Hey dudes and dudettes, I won't be making any blog posts till after next Sunday since this past week, we had no teaching. This will give you a chance to catch up if you need to. Thanks. We'll be kicking in this next Sunday.

Prayer in the Now and Not Yet (8:18-27)

2006-10-05T19:30:00.000-05:00

We have a mission. And embracing our mission leads to passion.

I want you to notice something in this section;

Creation groans for the kingdom to fully come (8:22).

Christ followers, if suffering for others, groan as well (8:23).

The Holy Spirit also groans in praying for us (8:26).

I hope that totally freaked you out. I walked in on a friend, one time, while he was praying. It disturbed me. He was weeping as he prayed for lost people that he knew. I want you to imagine for a few minutes what it would feel like to walk in on the Holy Spirit as He was praying for you. (Now, if you just can’t go there, imagine walking in on Christ praying for you; He’s “interceding” for you as well; see 8:34). How do you think it would affect you to hear God the Spirit speaking to God the Father about you? Do you think you could ever be the same again?

If you are living for this world, you will likely not be groaning for the next, nor weeping for the un-churched and de-churched, nor asking God to do much through you.

The Spirit of God within you GROANS with LONGING as He intercedes FOR YOU, based on His searching out the depths of God (8:27; 1 Corinthians 2:10), and so, He knows God’s will, God’s heart, God’s passion, and He desires it for you.

Just as knowing that we are in “the now and not yet” gives us a profound mission, it also can create within us passionate desire. Knowing someone is interceding for you, praying for you, groaning for you is profoundly humbling…and tremendously motivating.

It awakens desire.

The Now and the Not Yet (8:16-25)

2006-10-04T05:29:00.000-05:00

This section gives us a powerful image of a fallen world, cursed in the garden (Genesis 3:17-19), groaning and longing to be set free from its slavery to corruption “into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (8:21). The whole cosmos was corrupted by Adam’s fall, not just humanity. Like a woman in childbirth, creation longs to see the new world born, the kingdom of God to come, and the sons of God to be revealed. Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come” because in one sense, the kingdom of God has come, yet in another sense, not completely. We live in what is called “the now and the not yet,” where the kingdom of God has been initiated on earth yet not in its fullness.

We don’t live as if in the times of the Old Testament, as if the Holy Spirit hasn’t been given, as if we have no power, as if the kingdom hasn’t come at all. Nor are we to live without passion, without purpose, as if the kingdom of God has fully come and our battle is over, as if we have no mission.

How, then, do we live in “the now and not yet?”

We suffer.

We are invited, due to the “now and not yet” in which we live, to suffer with Christ for people…to genuinely love them...to pray for them...to serve them…to do all things for their salvation…desiring for them to know Christ and be forgiven.

Here is the challenging aspect of this: to what degree do our lives reveal that we are aware of the age in which we live? Or to put it another way, if we aren’t involved with suffering for people, desiring and pursuing their salvation, do we understand reality? Does not lack of passion reveal that we believe ourselves to be back in the Old Testament or forward in the kingdom fully come?

We have a mission.

Holy War (8:10-16)

2006-10-03T08:15:00.000-05:00

“I didn’t think the Christian life was supposed to be such a struggle.”

Where in the world does this thinking come from? The scriptures describe our spiritual journey in very intense terms-as an Olympic event (1 Corinthians 9:24-26), as a wrestling match (Ephesians 6:10-17), as a holy war (1 Peter 2:11). Each of these metaphors is an image of intense effort and struggle, of victory and defeat. We are in a holy war, but it is not our war to win alone.

Our spiritual resurrection from the dead, the transformation of our hearts, is accomplished by God alone. From that point on, each step of our walk is a cooperative effort; warring against our flesh’s lust and selfishness and whatever we struggle with by the Spirit…By the Spirit…Not by our self-reliance and hard work, but in cooperation with Him. It is intense, but we are not alone. Our part is to put our minds on the Spirit (8:5), not on the things of this world, and to subject ourselves to God (8:7), obeying His word. His part is to create new life in us as we walk in obedience to Him.

However, note that we are under a holy obligation, according to 8:12. In fact, it seems that as Christ followers, we are under the strongest obligation possible; we are commanded to PUT TO DEATH the deeds of the body…Hard to imagine stronger words than that.

Yet, this is by the Spirit. What that means is that I don't need to make myself holy, by myself; I just need to respond to the Spirit as He leads me. The Spirit moves on our conscience. It is the Holy Spirit that cautions us against proceeding in some sin. The Holy Spirit is the one who energizes our lives as we obey. He does not do the work for us, but the Spirit is works in, by, with, over and under my will, but never without it.

To survive and win our holy war, we must cooperate with the Holy Spirit.

We must treat the Holy Spirit as God because the Holy Spirit is God.

The Freedom of the New World (8:1-9)

2006-10-02T07:46:00.000-05:00

Here in Romans 8, Paul is attempting to help believers grapple with what it means to no longer be under the Law’s influence, but to now live under the Holy Spirit’s influence. Essentially, Paul is announcing our standing in a New World; Christians have entered a new sphere, a new reality-we are no longer “in the flesh” but “in the Spirit” (8:9). On our good days, we are in the Spirit; on our bad days, we are in the Spirit. There is permanence to being in the Spirit because it is a new reality, independent of how we do.

It is as if the cross of Christ is a passageway into a new realm; as we pass through the cross (by believing) God’s condemnation of our past sins is removed (8:1), we are set free from the domination of sin’s power over us (8:2), we are set free from the Law’s “wretched” effect (7:23-24) of making us prisoners to its demands (8:2), and we are given the Holy Spirit making a life of loving God and neighbor actually possible (thus, fulfilling the Law-8:4).

Our experience of the “Old World,” life “in the flesh,” before we passed through the cross, was miserable. Many of us felt guilty because, in reality, we were guilty. Most of us felt a sense of shame, as if we didn’t measure up…because we didn’t measure up. Paul described himself under the Law as having a “body of death,” totally being unresponsive and unable to meet the Law’s standards. But we have been set free!

It is like emigrating from a country in which we were slaves to a country in which there was no slavery, only a loving Ruler who desires relationship with His servants. We stand in the New World, right now, in the forgiveness (8:1), the freedom (8:2), the life & peace (8:6), the acceptance (8:9), and resurrection power (8:11) of God. For me, adjusting to the New World hasn’t been easy. I am blinded by its light, and though I believe what my new King tells me, I still hear the voice of my previous ruler; I still feel the chains as if they are still there. And so, I have wrestled with many questions…

How do I live like a free man, yet in reverence and holiness toward my great King?

How can knowing that I am always “in the Spirit” help me?

What do I do with the feelings of “the Old World,” which scream of guilt and shame and duty?

Spiritual Schizophrenia (7:14-8:4)

2006-09-29T07:42:00.000-05:00

Romans 7:14-25 is one of the most confusing and widely debated sections of the New Testament. I have no interest in debating various opinions on this as much as simply communicating my take on it, which may or may not be right.

I believe this section continues to answer the question of how a God-follower and the Law relate. I believe Paul is speaking as a believer, and describing the spiritual schizophrenia that believers experience. Again, the Law is not the problem; it is “spiritual,” but I am “fleshly” (7:14). Apart from God, I do not have the inherent goodness and power to be what I want to be, or anything close to what God would desire. My attempt to follow Christ is frustrating when I try to live in my own power, in striving, and rule-keeping. I have desire, but not ability. As a redeemed believer, I desire to do good, but indwelling sin creates my schizophrenia where I “practice the very evil I do not want” (7:20). Honest words about the real life struggle of a believer.

Paul continues and describes this inner turmoil between the Law of God in the heart and sin residing in us. The spiritually mature Apostle describes his battle as leading him to be “captured,” making him feel “wretched,” and desperately desiring freedom from “this body of death” (7:23-24).

What is the solution? How can God take people who don’t have the power to do good, who respond to the Law by sinning more, not less, and make them truly spiritual? The struggle with the Law of Romans 7 is answered by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of Romans 8.

By invading them with His very Spirit.

If you are genuinely a believer, you have the Spirit of God. How, then, shall we live?

A Good Ending to a Bad Marriage (7:1-13)

2006-09-29T06:38:00.000-05:00

Sit down and read this section of Romans before trying to make sense of my thoughts below; this is tough material.

In this chapter, Paul attempts to navigate a difficult question with a metaphor to help us understand it. The question is “How does a God follower relate to the Law now that they have believed?” The metaphor he gives us is that of marriage. His point is this: just like a woman is freed to re-marry once her husband dies, so God-followers are freed from their previous “spouse,” the Law, and can now “marry” another, namely, Christ (7:4).

This was a tremendously confusing question especially for Jewish Christians of the 1^st century who had been brought up under the Law. In this metaphor, we are both the ones who die (in Christ, on the cross), thus setting us free from our marriage to the Law, and we are the ones who come alive again and are able to re-marry. This is pretty deep theology, but there is some really powerful images in the metaphor, once we get it.

The marriage to the Law was a bad marriage. It wasn’t working out so hot; instead of the marriage being one of passionate romance out of genuine love, our “spouse” (the Law) aroused us, inducing “sinful passions” in us (7:5), and through the marriage, we gave birth (“bearing fruit),” not to healthy children, but, instead, we were led to “bear fruit for death,” to commit sin. Married to the Law, our relationship was not one of genuine love from our heart, but instead, was one of obligation, “serving in the oldness of the letter,” that is, fulfilling the requirements of the Law because we had to. This was not a healthy marriage.

The problem was not the Law. The problem was us.

We are so screwed up, there is so much resistance in us to anything “holy and righteous and good” (7:12) that the Law aroused our sin, not our righteousness. You know you’re messed up when something so good can have such a bad effect on you.

So, the point is this: the Law can never be the way of salvation because it arouses sin; it does not diminish sin in our lives. It is a mirror to us, showing us how sinful we are, but it does not have the power to save and cleanse us. My goodness, if the Law, which is good, actually arouses sin in us, what hope is there? How can we possibly ever attain to the spirituality that God desires for us?

The good ending to this bad marriage is that God is the one who ends it and releases us, making us die "in Christ," on the cross. He says, in a sense, “I want genuine relationship with you, so I will kill you (ending the first marriage), then raise you from the dead, so I can marry you.”

Our New Master (6:11-23)

2006-09-28T08:18:00.000-05:00

“Sanctification” (6:22) is the life-long process of becoming more like Jesus; it is an incredible journey of cooperating with God for increasing holiness in our lives. To me, part of the greatness of the gospel is that it can influence every arena of our lives; in other words, my great need is not just forgiveness but for actual goodness in everything I do. Through belief in the gospel message, God imparts that goodness to us; the Holy Spirit re-creates a new heart within us.

In this section, Paul gives us practical steps about sanctification, how to live from that new heart that we now have: we are to KNOW the truth of what Christ did for us (6:3), CONSIDER ourselves as now being “ dead to sin” (6:11), and PRESENT our bodies to God for His purposes (6:13). As a believer, I never outgrow these steps. I return to them again and again;

Am I believing truth?
Am I thinking that way?
Am I living that way?

But, there is a principle that lies beneath the practical steps this is worth getting into also. The principle is this: belief is an acknowledgement of who your “master” is; it is a form of worship. Before I believed, I thought I was my own master, worshipping self, only to find out I was in bondage to sin. When I believed in Jesus, I gained a new Master; in fact, I wanted a new Master. My primary motivation in believing was thinking He could actually run my life better than me! I was freed from my old master, “sin,” and joined to a new Master, Jesus Christ. Another way of putting it is that faith is inherently a self-surrender.

Self-surrender to something is an acknowledgement of its mastery over you, it is acknowledging its authority and power over you. We all live in self-surrender to something or someone, whether popularity, success, wealth, image, pleasure, power or Jesus.

Some believers get kinda crazy at this point. Maybe they are not aware that Christ is their Master or Lord. Maybe they have never thought of faith as self-surrender. Perhaps they have thought of grace only as God’s unconditional favor toward them, but not as something that actually creates desires to live a godly life (see Titus 2:11-12). Perhaps they are not aware that obedience is what expresses our faith-either in Christ or in sin (6:17-19).

This is a great paradox: the Bible speaks of both our freedom from sin and our slavery to Christ as incredible benefits to our lives because no other form of slavery actually frees. Author Rebecca Manly Pippert described Christ’s mastery of our lives this way: “Jesus will not control us in the wrong way. Nor will He control us in the easy way, by making every decision for us. He controls us in the right way: by being who He is and by calling us to become all that we are meant to be.” Salvation sets us free from our sin nature, and Christ being our Master can liberate us from our selfishness, our blindness, our small thinking, our addictions and a hundred other things. But if Christ is not Lord of our lives, something else, or someone else will be.

Christ is the only Master who brings freedom.

Slavery to Christ is what sets us free.

Our Resurrection in the Resurrection of Christ (6:4-11)

2006-09-27T07:08:00.000-05:00

God’s perspective on our spirituality is not that it is ignorant and in need of enlightenment, or that it is sick and needs to become healthy; it is simply dead. When the Bible says, “the wages of sin is death” (6:23), it is speaking in the strongest language possible to describe the absolute helplessness of our spiritual condition. We are a rotting, decaying corpse before the eyes of God. We cannot hear God, move toward God or commune with Him. What we need is for someone to perform a miracle on our spiritually dead souls and bring us back to life.

That is precisely what God accomplishes through the resurrection of Christ-the resurrection of our spiritually dead lives. Just as the killing of our old self was accomplished through the cross, though we had not yet been born, the resurrection of a new self was accomplished through the resurrection.

“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

Baptism is the outward expression of what has taken place inwardly when a person believes. It signifies our resurrection to living a new life. It is the Biblical response of anyone who believes. It is a way of saying, “I believe; I have been forgiven; Christ is now my Savior and Lord.”

So, what is reality today for me as a believer, someone who has been spiritually “raised from the dead?”

Reality is that my new self, re-created in the likeness of God, (Ephesians 4:24) is good and righteous and I can now say, as the Psalmist said, “I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8). Reality is that my life is now the temple of God and my heart is the “holy of holies,” the sacred dwelling place of God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). Reality is that I am “holy and beloved” (Colossians 3:12).

Today, I choose to live as someone raised from the dead, not in the lusts and selfishness of the old way, but as someone alive to God, responsive to Him.

Our Death in the Death of Christ (6:1-7)

2006-09-26T17:02:00.000-05:00

Commit yourself to God’s standards of holiness. Be open about your sin; confess it, and turn away from it. Get “accountability” with other believers. Get into the Word; read it, memorize it, think about it. Avoid areas where you might fall into temptation. Pray more. Join a small group. Become a member. Get serious.

Time out…Though what I just said might be helpful in the right context, the last thing most of us need is a list of things we need to do to become holy. Personally, it isn’t very encouraging for me to feel that there are 7 steps I need to take in order to grow in holiness; instead, it’s overwhelming.

Now that I think about it, believing that I MYSELF can wash myself off, and become holy by just trying harder…well, it just seems silly to me. I guess I am just too skeptical of my abilities to grow in moral excellence.

A couple hundred years ago, John Wesley formed “the Holy Club” which met every night from 6-9 for Bible study, fasted twice a week, had a searching system of 22 self-examination questions to consider daily, began a prison ministry, made visitations to the sick, began an urban ministry, and gave away all they had each year after providing for their own necessities. The end result of this painstaking effort…was frustration.

Because…the first and crucial step on the long journey toward holiness is not ours to take; it is what God Himself has done to make us holy.

“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” –Romans 6:6

What Paul is saying is that somehow, mysteriously, God took the sin nature that indwells each of us and crucified it in Christ as He suffered on the cross, so that when we trusted the gospel message, our old nature truly, not metaphorically, died. It’s as if God said, “You guys are so screwed up, all I can do to make you holy is kill you and start over.”

You may think that’s weird, but if you’re a Christian, you’ve already bought into the idea that your sins were somehow paid for, 2000 years ago, though you weren’t born yet nor had you committed any sins. And I think that’s pretty weird.

Not all Christ-followers understand this. They berate themselves, quoting Jeremiah 17:9 (go ahead; look it up) about how wicked they are, too ashamed of their struggle in holiness to talk openly about it. Poor creatures, believers in a partial salvation- forgiven for sin, but totally ignorant that their “wicked heart” has been “done away with” (6:6). The good news is not just that we have been forgiven in Christ…but that in Christ, we have been killed.

So sit down for a minute; don’t try to figure this all out; just let this truth wash over you; our death in the death of Christ is the first step to holiness, and God accomplished that for us.

Our Fall in Adam’s Fall (5:12-21)

2006-09-25T16:48:00.000-05:00

Theologians have debated the doctrine of “original sin” for centuries. Is humanity born guilty before God? Are people sinful from the beginning? How can God be just and hold us responsible for Adam’s sin? How can I be fallen due to Adam’s fall? This doctrine ticks off those who don’t believe and is sometimes regarded as unfair by those who do believe. As if, everything is supposed to be fair.

I’m 5’7”-what I could’ve done on the ball-court if only I was 6’3!” But I am who I am, at least physically, largely due to genetics. I have blue eyes, brown hair and a tongue that unconsciously comes out of my mouth whenever I am making a really sweet move on the hoops court. (All right, that last one may not be genetics, but my 8 year old’s tongue does the same thing, and I don’t think it’s from copying me!)

Here in Romans 5, Paul does not answer these philosophical questions about original sin. He merely assumes it to be true. But the point of Paul’s logic here is often lost in the heat of the argument. What I believe Paul is saying is this; just as I inherited physically from my parents (Dad-5’6”, Mom-5’0”), I inherited spiritually from my ancestor, Adam. I can complain about it, but it makes sense…and besides, it still leaves me 5’7,” complaining or no complaining. But what Paul is really after here in this section is not our inherited sin nature, but our inherited righteousness. The teaching on original sin is merely to make the point that, in the same manner, we have inherited a righteous nature in Christ. Has that truth ever crossed your mind?

The “spiritual DNA” that we inherit from Adam is fallen; the “spiritual DNA” that we inherit from Christ is righteous and holy (see also Ephesians 4:24). Death reigned (5:14) until the age of grace came. Now, that a new age is here, due to the resurrection of Christ, grace reigns (5:17). Just as Adam brought about a fallen humanity, Christ, through His death and resurrection, is creating a new humanity.

We are not the same.

The time will come when we realize more deeply than today what it means to be a new creation in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). I don't know about anyone else, but this truth is to profound for me to rush past. I need to just sit in this for a while.

Assurance ( 5:1-11)

2006-09-24T16:49:00.000-05:00

I have to admit there is an aspect of “assurance” that I do not like. In my experience, I have heard pastors preach on and on, asking “But do you have assurance,” hoping to get someone to raise their hand or walk down the aisle, indicating they had just found faith. And sometimes, it really does happen that way. My concern is that it doesn’t end there; “making a decision for Christ” is only the beginning point of a long journey of faith...And my faith, and the faith of most people I know gets rattled at times. We fail in some way, or have a bad emotional season, or face a monstrous difficulty and find ourselves cowering in fear and uncertainty. And that is what I love about this section of Romans.

To me, it is incredibly comforting to know that He loves me on my bad days, sees the depths of my heart and He isn’t going anywhere.

Paul’s logic goes like this: before I was spiritually renewed, He loved me deeply and authentically and sacrificially-when I had done nothing to earn that love…nothing. When I was His enemy, Christ died for me, and I was saved. How much more, now that we have been redeemed will we be saved by Christ’s resurrection!

Assurance is the certainty that this journey started with Him loving me, not me loving Him. It is the clarity of knowing He did not begin to love me due to my behavior, so when I am failing, He will not love me less.

To view comments and contribute to the discussion, hit the comments link below. If you'd like to send me a personal question or comment directly, email me at “jhever@bellsouth.net.”

Tent Theology (4:1-25)

2006-09-22T17:56:00.000-05:00

The problem with works is that works don’t work, whether works of the Law or works of the conscience (4:2, 4); works would produce pride, not humility, & works would place God into the position of being obligated to give us eternal life, a situation which a holy God will never allow. God justifying us by faith should humble us even further, when we recognize He was not obligated to do so.

God worked in Abraham’s heart to implant faith within him. Abraham was promised a son with his wife, Sarah, being well past the age of bearing children. Considering her 90 year old body and the impotence of his own body, Abraham believed (Genesis 15:1-7), but only after God took him outside the tent…

In the tent, Abraham could only see his weaknesses, his failures, his circumstances.

But God took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens and count the stars if you able to count them.” It was in looking at the beauty, power, and glory of God that faith was formed in the heart of Abraham. The principle of faith is this: faith is not a giant work that we need to produce, but the abandonment of self, of striving, of dependence on our own ability. It is the admission of our own spiritual impotence.

Righteousness can never, ever be earned, but is only imputed when we look to God; then it is the trust in God’s work, not ours. It is when we reach the limit of our abilities, of our wisdom, that our faith is ignited and matured and cleansed of self-reliance.

What is your belief system? Is it based on your ability, what makes sense to you, what you have experienced so far in life…in other words, do you have a tent theology? May God take us outside of these limiting things, that our faith would be based on His ability, not ours.

(Special thanks to Doug Brown, pastor in Kansas City, for giving this illustration years ago; it still moves me!)

The Law & the Gospel (3:27-31, 7:7-12, Galatians 3:21-25, 5:14)

2006-09-21T05:48:00.000-05:00

If only there were a set of laws by which my self-righteous nature could establish itself as “meeting the standard,” so I could judge everyone else. Alas, all the law did for me was to reveal to me how depraved I am without Christ. Thus, the Law is the servant of the gospel; it brings a guilty soul to the judgment seat of God, where, much to our surprise, the righteous Judge justifies us rather than condemns us. Obviously, now that I have believed, the law serves no purpose whatsoever…

Or, does it?

To be very clear, we are not saved by works, by our keeping the Law of Moses or any other standard, whether it is some church’s membership requirements or the standards of our conscience. Stick around for a while; you’ll break just about any standard you try to live by.

But Jesus said He did NOT come to abolish the Law (Matthew 5:17).

And Paul still refers to the Law as “holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12).

And the fulfillment of the Law is still God’s desire (note Galatians 5:14 on this point!)

So, here is how I look at this; the Law reveals to us that we are sinners, thus, leading us to the cross. Coming to the cross and believing does not abolish the Law’s purpose for it is still God’s expression of real spirituality. We are no longer “under” the Law, trying to measure up to some standard, but it does paint a picture of what true religion, if I can use that word, actually looks like. We are not saved by works (Ephesians 2:9), but we are saved for works (Ephesians 2:10).

The Holy Spirit of God has invaded the life of believers in order for us to actually live the life we were intended for, a life of good works. The works that we are saved for are not merely dutiful obligatory emotion-less spiritual acts; they are the spontaneous, organic acts of love that the Holy Spirit produces in us, which fulfills the Law…love fulfills the Law.

The Power of Sin (3:9-30)

2006-09-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

Note the universality of sin as described by Paul. All of humanity stands guilty before God, not wanting Him, seeking Him, obeying Him, or doing good. That description includes me too. This is tough to swallow for the proud. Note the effect of this universal condition of sin (3:9)-“Are we better than they? Not at all.” Our sin has created an equal playing field, where I can never righteously judge someone else’s sin. If anything, I can more likely relate to it. The arrogance and self-righteousness that is often found in believer’s attitudes toward those “sinners” who have not yet believed is not easy for me to explain. I wonder, “Do they not sense their own brokenness?” Awareness of the universality of sense checks my self-righteousness and causes me to feel compassion on other sinners like me.

Note that we are all under “sin” not “sins.” In other words, scripture describes sin as a living, active, powerful force, not merely an individual action. It is like a tyrant that rules us internally before we come to believe. Being under Sin’s reign, we commit sins. This tyrant, Sin, starts with the suppression of God in order to establish its own will as the autonomous ruler of our lives. Our self-will dominates us and our truly sinful nature then proceeds from inside out; it takes on a life of its own and gains in power, leading to shameful things and addiction.

This sounds rather depressing. In reality, however, the study of the nature of sin has really helped me as a Christ-follower, as I consider the power of the gospel to root out our sinful nature, God performing a heart surgery upon us when we believe. Consider each of these words in thinking about sin’s nature;

Alluring

Deceiving

Tranquilizing

Hardening

Defiant

Infectious

De-humanizing

Polluting

Familial

Parasitic

Subtle

Addictive

We were deceived...hardened…numb…rebellious…infected…spiritually sick…
de-humanized…defiled…dead.

It is in that state that God moved toward us to surgically operate on our hearts and make them whole again. A good understanding of Sin’s power & universality creates something frequently and sadly lacking in believer’s lives…a humble faith.

Our pride is crushed under the weight of the cross.

Spiritual Circumcision (Romans 2:1-29)

2006-09-17T14:12:00.000-05:00

God’s judgment is inescapable, universal, revealing, righteous and impartial; and something that I honestly do not want to even think about! Strange as it may seem, however, I feel oddly dignified by the prospect of giving an account of my life to God. If my understanding of the gospel is correct, my past sins will not be brought into God’s holy light, but I will give an account for what I have done as a Christian “whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10-11). I tremble with the realization of God’s holiness, yet am comforted by the depth of His love. I am tempted with shame, but it is beaten back with the knowledge that “each man’s praise will come to him from God (1 Corinthians 4:5).

A healthy perspective re-humanizes us. It tells us that our lives have immense significance…that our thoughts matter…that the smallest of deeds has incredible weight in God’s eyes. I know the power of denial, the insane attempt to escape feeling judged by God by denying what I have done or what I am. Yet, God has placed a moral judge inside of each of us, in the conscience. Though God gave us His Law, written on tablets on stone (the 10 commandments), he has also placed a less complete, yet still powerful, awareness of His law by inscribing them onto the conscience of humanity. But our sin hardens our hearts and the voice of conscience is silenced by the choice to not listen…what are we to do?

Circumcision is a weird thing, if you ask me. Of all the things God could choose to represent the Jewish people of the Old Testament as His people…why circumcision?! Why not a special flag or a secret handshake? Instead, in the time before Christ, God chose physical circumcision to represent the cutting away of evil from our hearts. Now, in the times of the New Testament, when we believe in Christ, the evil is cut out of our hearts, through the work of the Holy Spirit- “circumcision of the heart” (2:29). The Holy Spirit, re-creating the human heart, this "spiritual circumcision," is what makes our hearts soft to God and enables what we desire as believers.

Now, we actually can walk with a clean conscience.

Now, we actually can live without the internal Judge bringing only condemnation.

Now, our hearts can remain soft and responsive toward God who loves us.

If anything, Christianity is a religion of the heart.

Not the Way it’s Supposed to be (Romans 1:24-32 again)

2006-09-15T07:47:00.000-05:00

When humanity rebelled against God, “Pandora’s box” was opened and a host of evils entered our world. Humanity essentially said, “We don’t want you as God in our world,” and God said, “O.K.” The moral evil that fills our world is due to the choice to be autonomous from God. Every look at the world we live in is a reminder of that choice & the tragic story we are in.

Note that three times Romans 1 says, “God gave them over” (1:24, 26, 28); God’s giving them over is in response to humanity’s abandonment of Him, not the other way around. The fallen-ness of our world is due to our choice and consequently, God’s allowance. This does not mean God is not sovereign, but rather how sovereignty works. I believe God is simply not getting everything He wants in order to respond in genuine relationship to humanity. God has "willed," against His will (desire), to "give them over," in order to give people the world that they wanted, in order that they might somehow turn back to Him. A world of famine, a world of natural disasters, a world of war, a world of violence is not the world that God wanted, nor is it the world where God’s will is always done.

This is confusing to many believers who have a high view of the sovereignty of God. Since God is “in control,” they reason, God’s will is always done. Good must always result from everything that happens, so they figure. Unfortunately, this thinking leads to passivity, apathy, and inappropriately quoting Romans 8:28 to people who have just suffered enormous loss. God is in control, and God will ultimately triumph over evil, but for now, we should be perpetually reminded that this world is not the way it is supposed to be!!!

A definition of sovereignty that says, “God’s will is always being done” dulls the pain of human suffering; it anesthetizes us to the heartache of God; it blurs the vision of the world God created and wanted; it diminishes our longing for heaven; instead of praying with longing, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” and living as “aliens,” spiritual pilgrims in this world, we forget the destination we were created for, despise the difficulties of the journey and set up camp in this world, calling it home. This world is not the way it’s supposed to be, so let us feel the pain and tragedy of this world, while clinging to hope for the world to come, witnessing God's redemptive hand, and loving people fiercely.

A Helpless and Hopeless Humanity (Romans 1:18-32)

2006-09-14T08:04:00.000-05:00

However unpopular the wrath of God may be, if you don’t have an angry God, you don’t have the Biblical God.

God is an angry God (1:18), His wrath is nothing to be ashamed of (1:16), and if I am reading Paul correctly, God’s anger is what makes His love so incomprehensible. It is a God who wrath who remarkably moves toward us in love.

This may be pushing the envelope, but I consider God’s wrath a beautiful thing, in some ways, because it means He is a God who feels; He is a God who actually does give a rip about the horrors of this world and about the injustices that have happened to you. One of the most slanderous allegations against God is the question we all wrestle with: “how can God allow suffering?” This question posits that God lacks compassion. The Bible reveals that God’s emotional reaction to our world and to my sin is infinite, it is immeasurable; He grieves (Genesis 6:6) and is indignant about humanity’s rebellion against Him. The beauty of God’s wrath is that it reveals that God feels, that God cares, and it reveals the extent that God loves, for despite His wrath toward us, He poured out His wrath on His Son, out of love for us.

If we don’t see His wrath clearly, we will never see humanity as helpless and hopeless. If we don’t see our world as helpless and hopeless, God’s incomprehensible love will be reduced to “that which God is supposed to do,” and we will be without awe. Read through 1:18-32 carefully. Paul teaches that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven, not that it will be some time in the future. How is God’s wrath revealed? I believe what Paul is expressing is that it is revealed…through human depravity. In other words, as we walk through this world, every act of corruption, lust, violence and apathy is meant to say to us- “this isn’t what God wanted.” The state of the world is what reveals how grieved and displeased God must be.

Humanity, in its corruption, stands helpless and hopeless before a holy God in a world that we asked for, that incurs God’s wrath.

Theology of the Cross (Romans 1:15-17)

2006-09-14T07:52:00.000-05:00

Each of us is a theologian, whether we want to be or not; we all have some sort of belief system that we have developed, whether from our spiritual background, our culture, our logic or scripture.

From my perspective, Paul had a radically different approach to understanding God than most theologians or most people for that matter. Personally, I believe Paul regarded the cross as the ultimate revelation of God, at least as the beginning point of most of Paul’s theology. It seems that the cross is what most revealed God to Paul, what he looked through, to think deeply about the value of humanity, about ethics, about himself. The cross left Paul's pride crushed, leaving him broken and in awe.

Here, in this section, Paul alludes back to Habakkuk 2:4 in order to establish the principle that being right with God has always been by faith. The shift from Old Testament to New Testament is not as radical as it appears to many believers on this point. Faith has always been what has pleased the heart of God. From the point we first believe to our dying breath, the Christian journey is a walk of faith. Faith, even today, right now, is our salvation from whatever attempts we have to manage life without God; it rescues us from self-reliance and independence to trust in the One who does have the love, wisdom and resources to manage our lives. Faith, therefore, is inherently self-deprecating; it exalts the object of the faith, not the possessor of it. Faith shows off God. From Genesis to Revelation, God honors faith, not human effort. Faith is my journey and the cross is my lens.

In order to follow Paul's example, we have the opportunity to consider everything-ourselves, our friends, a lost world, our families, our vocations, our calling-everything-through the cross of Christ.

The Gospel & Relationships with Seekers (Romans 1:14)

2006-09-13T07:39:00.000-05:00

The age-old question, “Am I my brother’s keeper,” (Genesis 4:9) is answered with a powerful “yes” by the Apostle Paul. In Romans 1:14, Paul reveals a paradigm that is amazing- “I am under obligation to both Jews (the churched) and to Gentiles (the un-churched); I am indebted to the world!” Certainly part of that obligation was due to his unique vision and call from Christ, something that other believers have not experienced. Christ has not appeared to me personally and told me to go reach the lost. Yet, in another sense, He has done precisely that for all believers through His commandments (Matthew 28:18-20).

Do I feel indebted to my neighbor? Do I feel anything toward my neighbor?

One thing I love about Paul is his heart motivations. Remember, we are not just studying the Bible, but a man. Paul reveals more of his reasoning out the gospel in relation to seekers in 1 Corinthians 9:16-19. I think his gospel logic goes this way: “the world is perishing and I have found the cure (or rather, the Cure found me). I have an obligation to tell people they can be cured too. I can either do this against my will, in which I would only be doing the minimum that I am indebted to do anyway, or I can do this with all my heart- actually regarding myself as a slave to lost people in order to live out the gospel and save some of them!”

Think about the radical description of Jesus and Paul in relationship to lost people. Jesus was “the friend of sinners,” and Paul was their “slave.”

We have been given gifts, abilities, talents, and opportunities. We can approach lost people from the perspective of duty, treat them as “projects,” (or NOT approach lost people at all like much of Christendom) or…we can love them like Christ loved them, like Paul loved them, and eagerly lay down our lives with all our hearts for them.

How do I look at the lost? How do I feel about them? And how do they feel about me? How many lost people would call me their “friend?” Am I my brother’s keeper?

The Gospel and us (Romans 1:5-7, 15)

2006-09-11T16:32:00.000-05:00

So the gospel powerfully captured Paul’s heart, mind, and passion; but how does the gospel relate to us?

Most Christ-followers I have met are simply not that in awe of the gospel…or they have forgotten…or they feel too guilty…or they just don’t feel. As Paul wrote “Romans,” he not only revealed his heart for the gospel but grounded these young believers in it as well.

We need to think mythically to really get this-we need to see ourselves, like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, as being caught up in a drama of cosmic proportions. As Christ followers, we need to see that the story of our lives has been written into a much, much larger drama; the gospel has been promised, the Savior has risen, and we now we are the “called,” the “beloved,” the “saints” or holy ones (1:6-7). Humble hobbits we may be, but we’ve been written into the great story of the kingdom of God advancing on this earth.

Notice how Paul describes the radical response of people who believe the gospel message- “the obedience of faith…for His name’s sake” (1:5). In a day when it is hard to tell the difference between genuine believers and those who are merely curious seekers, Paul describes believing as producing obedience, a quest for godliness.

And for his Name’s sake, that is, a spontaneous, un-coerced, organic overflow of doing what God desires out of gratitude for what He has done and awe for Who He is. But as believers, we need to have our minds washed with the truth of what we have been called to; this is why Paul was eager to preach the gospel to the church at Rome (1:15). It was the believers who needed to hear the gospel, believe in the grace God that had given and live as people called to be saints. Preach the gospel to yourself everyday.

The Gospel of God (Romans 1:1-4)

2006-09-10T19:36:00.000-05:00

The study of Romans is not just the study of a book, but of a person-the Apostle Paul. Deeply impassioned for “the un-churched,” he is the example we are to follow (1 Corinthians 4:16, 11:1). And as we study Romans, we’ll see how the gospel was lived out by Paul in everything he did. The gospel gave him a new calling and passion in life; Paul was “set apart for the gospel of God” (1:1).

Paul’s wording of this phrase, “the gospel of God,” is packed with significance. This phrase, first of all, points to the divine nature of the gospel message; it is not an idea we could’ve dreamed up if we tried. More so, it points to the divine origin of the gospel. In other words, the gospel did not come about during the time that Jesus was on earth, but rather, it had been promised long before. The gospel, which means “good news,” had been promised 700 years earlier “through His prophets in the holy scriptures” (Isaiah 52:7, for example). However, its origin was not in the mind of the prophets either. Rather, the author of the gospel is the eternal God and its origin is from before history began.

Read Romans 16:25-27. Here, Paul describes the gospel as “the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past.” It is the main event, the unfolding of the greatest mystery, the climax of the great drama of history. The entire world, even creation itself, has been waiting to see how a fallen race, a lost cosmos, could be restored. This is how Paul understood the gospel.

For Paul, the gospel is not just truth of the Bible, but the pinnacle of the story of God, something that has so gripped him in the core of his being that he calls it “my gospel.” The gospel gave him a new calling in life, a new passion, and a new identity- as “a bond-servant of Christ Jesus.” In that time and culture, slaves frequently earned their freedom through years of good service. A bond-servant was someone who had earned his freedom, but out of love for his master, had voluntarily returned to serve for the rest of his life. This became Paul’s living metaphor, his identity as a Christ follower; out of his love for Christ, he was ready to serve anyone and everyone.

The extent that we live as bond-servants to others is the extent that we comprehend the vastness and the power of the gospel.

directions to h2o

2006-09-09T20:22:00.000-05:00

The H2O church building is at 100 W. Livingston Street in Downtown Orlando.

From I-4 and Rt 50 (Colonial), take Hughey Ave southbound. Turn left at the second light on Livingston. Cross under I-4 and turn right into our parking lot. It's directly across the street from the bus terminal.

Google map directions

Introduction to Romans

2006-09-08T08:59:00.000-05:00

“Romans” was written by Paul from the city of Corinth around 57 A.D. to the church in Rome. Paul writes this powerful exposition of the gospel to the church at Rome which was also likely intended to be used by the other churches as well.

Rome was the capitol and most important city in the Roman Empire, having a population of over 1 million in Paul’s time. It became one of the earliest centers in Christianity. It is possible that the gospel was brought there when certain Jews returned to Rome from attending a festival in Jerusalem and, following the preaching of Peter, came to believe in Christ.

This church became a very powerful church. By the 7th decade the number of believers in the metropolis had attracted the attention of the Emperor Nero, and Tacitus (Annals 15:44) refers to them as a “huge multitude” who had suffered persecution.

When Paul writes this epistle, he has no personal acquaintance with the Roman church (1:8-15, 15:14-33). By the time he writes, the church has become very strong; their faith is being reported throughout the world (1:8).

Click on the 'Post and comments' link just below this text to read comments from H2O members and to post your own comments.

this week @ h2o

2006-09-07T12:29:00.000-05:00

Hope you enjoyed the special worship time last Sunday! Seemed like God was truly with us in a wonderful way. This Sunday John will start a new series called UNASHAMED, which will cover the book of Romans and run for 8 weeks.

You'll want to mark two events on your calendar:

Salsa dance Saturday, September 23 from 7:00pm to about 9:30pm. Come on time if you want instructions or a dance refresher course.
Sunday, October 8th is Pastor Appreciation Day with a potluck lunch after the service.

The H2O Vision

2006-09-04T10:40:00.000-05:00

WHO ARE WE?
We are you. You, in the definition of collective differences. People searching for a higher meaning or calling. People hurting, busy, isolated, lost or alone. People from different places, with varied opinions about life. Some of us are extroverts, some introverts, some with intellectual prowess, some not so much, some skeptics, some cynics and even a few optimists.

One thing we do have in common is our desire for spirituality. We come from very different backgrounds: some of us grew up in the church, others of us had no church background at all. Many of us were alienated and offended by what we experienced and as a result had completely given up on church. However, our desire for spirituality still survived. Much like trying to keep a beach ball under water - our intense hunger for God kept rising to the surface.

As we engage with our peers one thing we hear over and over is that church [and God gets lumped in with church] is boring and irrelevant. This is extremely unfortunate because we've found God to be the complete opposite. So we've done something about that. We've helped to create an environment that fosters spirituality without all the trappings and pomp that so often turn us off or clouds the message.

That being said, we also acknowledge that God has done incredible things throughout the ages through all different types of churches... SO... our hope is to affirm what is beautiful from our past and allow God to lead us to new things as we stumble towards Him and each other.

THE REAL THING
On top of that, we long for a church where authentic biblical community is lived out - not just talked about... and THAT takes a TON of work - where believers experience the kind of strongly interwoven relationships that we are called to in Scripture. We long to experience deep committed friendships where it's safe to be open about the current reality of our lives. In short, we desire to reclaim loving community - something that is so often missing from contemporary church life. Our goal is to leave casual, inch-deep relationships and isolation behind... we want to live counter to our culture... and this isn't easy either... that's why we need each other so desperately to live this out.

Due to our unique backgrounds and philosophy, we don't have too many presuppositions on HOW to do church. We don't think there's any one 'Right Way' to do church, we just want to be FAITHFUL to Scripture. In fact, we get suspicious when others say 'this is THE way to do it' whether it be cell church, mega church, liturgical church, whatever. Our heart is to humbly learn from all of these expressions of the Body and become who God desires us to be.

We're convinced God cares about our hearts not our appearance. So you don't have to dress up and play the game. We also talk about issues that sadly the church is afraid to discuss publicly. So you can expect to hear RAW, RELEVANT sermons that relate to the real stuff of life - the ISSUES you are struggling with - sex, relationships, meaninglessness, depression, anxiety - you name it, we're not afraid to talk about it. We've found that the Bible really does speak to these modern-day issues. And we've found that it gives us a whole new way to live that makes some of our issues non-issues. In fact, when it's really broken down we think you'll be surprised at how REVOLUTIONARY and PROGRESSIVE and LIBERATING God's Word is.

FOOD FOR THE SOUL...
Music is incredibly important to our generation, as it has been to others. At H2O, you'll hear our musicians using their CREATIVITY and GIFTING to illuminate who God is. Many of us feel that music is incredibly powerful and we feel that God does something PROFOUND with it... He did it in Scripture and He continues to today... and our lives are transformed by it. During one of our gatherings you might hear a Chevelle tune at 117 decibels, you might hear a classical hymn sung by a lyric soprano, you might hear reggae... it all depends on what God is up to...

A DIFFERENT GENERATION
As a generation we prefer a number of different modes for LEARNING and processing information and experiences. That's why we communicate Christ's message through a variety of means that incorporate all of our SENSES - multi-media, video, drama and music that you can literally feel in your chest, etc, are just a few of the ways that we've broken the mold and are looking to connect with our generation. The EXPERIENTIAL and PARTICIPATORY nature of our gatherings help to drive home the spiritual truths that we discuss. Our goal is for church to have a highly INTERACTIVE feel to it. Basically, we're willing to take risks so that God can speak to us and change us.

this week @ h2o

2006-08-30T17:39:00.000-05:00

Note: Please be prompt this week. Something interesting is happening at the beginning of the service, and you won't want to miss it!

After this Sunday we'll start a new series called UNASHAMED, which will cover the book of Romans and run for 8 weeks.

Want to learn how to manage your money wisely, in a way that pleases God? Andrew Lattof is leading a Crown Ministries workshop which will run for 10 weeks, starting on September 17th. It will be from 1-3pm in the Upper Room. The cost is $45 per person or $55 per couple, for the materials. Sign up soon as the workshop class will be limited to the first 10 people. Please contact Andrew Lattof (acey@usa.net) for more info or to signup.