Archive for

Do We Stand with Him?

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

June 28,2026

Click to Join our Meeting for Worship

Click to read in Swahili

Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili

Romans 6:12–23 (ESV)

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

---

The past few weeks we have been speaking of the law, wrath, sin, and righteousness. When we read the letters of Paul, we can often have a bit of whiplash over these topics. Paul will speak of how beneficial the law is in one breath and then in the next he will speak of how the law brings condemnation and the wrath of God. When reading the letters of Paul, context is extremely important. When he condemns the law is he condemning the teachings of God found in scripture, or is he condemning the interpretation of the law provided by the religious teachers? When he speaks of the joys of not being bound by or to the law does he mean that it is best not to even regard scripture, or does he does he mean we are focused on something that is beyond?

The last time I spoke we discussed righteousness and justification. Justification is to be declared right. The declaration only means one thing, that whatever is being justified is not going to be held against the individual. In the state of Missouri, and I am not saying I agree with this, but in the state of Missouri the use of cannabis is justified. They have allowed for the licensing of individuals to sell, and for people to purchase this previous illegal substance. It is justified in Missouri, but it does not mean that it is right. If the Drug Enforcement Agency had a desire to, they could come to Missouri and prosecute anyone that was partaking of that substance.

The fact is that justification does not make something right, it only means that it will not be held against you. You have been declared right. This only goes so far. I can get a warning from the officer when I am stopped for driving too fast, this does not give me permission to drive any speed I want it just means it is not going to be held against me. What will happen if I continue to speed down the road? They will look at the record and see that I had been declared right previously, but I have continued that behavior. And if I continue this behavior I will face stricter discipline.

Being justified is similar to this. Jesus does stand with us. Jesus declares us justified before God. He stand with and for us declaring us to be righteous, but are we standing with Him? Are we participating in his life and righteousness?

This is where Paul is with today’s passage. He says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to may you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and you members to God as instruments of righteousness.”

Sin is missing the mark. The word translated here as sin, has religious and secular meanings and both are used within scripture. In the religious sense, it is a transgression of the religious ideals. In the secular sense it means weakness. Often weakness even in the religious sense fits, but in this particular passage it is a transgression. Not only is it a transgression, but it is a personified transgression. Which means we purposefully participated. What is this sin of which Paul speaks of?

We are justified as righteous. Righteousness is doing right by another. Doing right by God, as well as doing right by those around us. Paul goes as far as saying that if this is your focus, if every aspect of your being is focused on doing right by others, there is no law that can condemn you.

In this case, when Paul says let not sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Paul is speaking of how we are interacting with those around us. Are we using our body, our work, our finances to provide for our passions, or are we using all that is available to us to provide for or do right toward our neighbors.

This might be a perspective that we have not considered when we read through this passage. The sin not the action in and of itself but the intention or the reasoning is the focus. Why we are doing what we are doing. Are we using what we have available to us to encourage or discourage. Are we using what we have available to us fulfill our own passions or inspire hope to someone who has nothing?

The intention or the reasoning is where our sin resides. Paul then speaks of being instruments. The term translated as instrument is to implement, or to enact. Are we using the things available to us to enact unrighteousness or are we using these things to enact righteousness?

This is where discernment is paramount. We can justify anything in our own minds. We have justified nearly everything. I have listened to many justifications from the individuals I caught shoplifting when I worked in retail security. It seems like such a little thing when Walmart and Target are such big corporations that make millions of dollars a year. It seems justifiable because we are only stealing from the big guys, but each store makes an accounting of each item. One package of razors might not seem like much, but a store must sell twelve packages to replace the one. This all adds up, when I left my security management position I was in a store that lost five hundred thousand dollars. Each person on our bench had a justification, but those justifications prevented us from hiring sixteen people. Those justifications prevented our store from giving the current employees the raises they deserved because the store had to purchase the items individuals justified taking.

They became instruments of unrighteousness, they began to obey their own passions instead of looking at the larger picture. One store. One package of razor blades, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and eventually the store is forced to close. President Obama used to speak about food deserts during his term of office. I remember the discussions surrounding this. Those deserts exist for this reason, and it is a great concern. A store no matter how much they want to stay in business cannot remain open if they lose inventory at a rate above seven percent. What one person justifies as being right for them to do snowballs to the point entire neighborhoods struggle not only to afford food, but to get to a store that will sell it. The stores that would hire your neighbors no longer exists, and everyone suffers. We suffer because we did not do right for each other.

Instruments of righteousness or unrighteousness. When we obey our passions, we submit ourselves to unrighteousness. There are times when our passions are fine, but we need to use discernment. And often we need to ask questions that make us uncomfortable, especially if it involves what we think we deserve or something we feel someone else does not deserve. If our focus is not centered on ourselves but instead if we are focused on doing right by others in all that we do, we are instruments of hope. We beacons of the love of Christ?

Those that claim faith, those that have entrusted their lives to Christ, are not driven by sin. Those that have put on the life and lifestyle of Christ pursue to live into the justification they have received. Not because we want to earn our salvation but by God’s grace we have been declared righteous. We are righteous, because Jesus is righteous. He lived a life perfectly doing right by others. He stands up for us, and we follow his ways.

This is where things get a bit interesting. We have been declared righteous through faith in Jesus. How then should we live? Even Jesus has said all sin is forgiven even blasphemies, but one blaspheming the Holy Spirit. If all is forgiven, if everything has been declared right we are freed from those wages of sin. We are no longer held accountable for them. But one thing remains. What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit?

If you were like me growing up, this was something you were concerned about. I was concerned with committing that one unforgivable sin, I was also concerned with being left behind, but we do not have enough time to discuss all my spiritual trauma. Paul, however, gives us an understanding of what that unforgivable sin is. Paul illuminates, what it means to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?”

We are all slaves Paul says. This disturbed me as I was studying this week. In the Rome during the earliest era of the church it is said that nearly one out of two people were slaves. Half of their population were slaves. The slavery was different than what we read about in American history, there were basically two types of slavery. Either the person was conquered in battle and their enslavement was part of the spoils of war. Or people would enter slavery to pay off a debt.

I sat to think about these things in reference to this passage. Half of the Roman population were potentially enslaved. Enslaved because they were an enemy, or enslaved because they were in debt. In that culture it was justified to deny human dignity because you were stronger or had greater wealth. In that culture it was right to enslave, to shame, and to belittle someone simply because you were more privileged. Is this doing right by others?

Half the population was a slave. Half of those that listened to this letter being read in that early gathering of Christians owned slaves, and the other half was enslaved. I mention this because it seems extreme. When I read it in the Bible Dictionary I own, I nearly did not believe it. I still find it a bit high to be possible, but as I sat contemplating this I began to realize the dualistic aspect of the statements. You are either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. They lived in this dualistic culture of slave and free, yet Paul is saying to them, you are all slaves. And Paul is right, each of them was and is a slave, you are either a slave to Caesar or a slave of one of Caesar’s appointed leaders. You are all subject to some overlord that demands allegiance.

There are two masters, one that are focused on selfish passions. This master demands that you focus only on yourself, or only on those like you. This master is the master of power, privilege, and wealth. This is the master of war and injustice. They are the powers, the principalities, and the flesh. This master is sin, because it is not seeking doing right for those around them they are seeking only what they can get for themselves.

We can turn on the news and see the results of this, because this is the only thing the news reports. The masters of injustice want us to blame the immigrant, the person with student loan debt, the victims of invasion. The masters of injustice want us to continue to fuel the fires of racism, or to deny that effects of unjust racial practices still affect people today. The master unrighteousness are the rulers of this world, it is the kingdoms of men. Of which Jesus said, “the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, but that is not so among you.”

Paul says there are two masters. The first was the master of sin which leads to unrighteousness and death, but the second is of obedience, which leads to righteousness. This second master encourages us to use our gifts and abilities to do right for those around you.

“You were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” When we stand with Jesus, when we accept his justification and begin to clothe ourselves in his way of life, we no longer look for our own passions and greed. Instead we listen to his teachings and look to become instruments of good for others.

Those in Christ are not looking for blessings for themselves, they are more concerned with blessing others. They no longer look to how they can have power and influence, they instead look to how they can empower and encourage those around them. If you have wealth you are not seeking only to gain more, you are seeking opportunities to use what you have available to you to advance the kingdom or the influence of God within your community.

What does this look like? Those that live in sin, justified their actions to take what is not theirs because they wanted or needed it. The result of that theft leads to the closure of stores within a neighborhood. What would submission to righteousness look like? This could take on many forms. You could open a store in an impoverished neighborhood. There have been stores like this opened knowing full well that it is likely that they will have a great deal of theft, so they ask only that their customers pay what they can. Maybe we hand out gift cards, maybe we start food pantries. There are many ways to live in submission to righteousness. You can even open a for-profit store with the intention of giving jobs to people that need employment. It is not the action itself that is important it is only that your goal is to do right for those around you, as a way of expressing your love and thanksgiving to the grace God has provided to us through Jesus.

Those justified by Christ, have Jesus standing with and for us. He declares us righteous and those that accept that grace turn away from the master of sin, and take on a new life. We move away from the life of sin, the life of self-indulgence and greed and seek to become more like Jesus. This is what Paul calls sanctification. There are many expressions of what this is and there are many names for it. Some call it discipleship, the Eastern Orthodox call it Theosis. We in the west do not like that term because it sound like we are seeking to become God, but it means to be formed into God’s likeness, to partake in the divine nature. The idea of sanctification or perfection according to Wesley is a lifelong process where we become more like Jesus.

When we become submitted to God we acknowledge that his ways, his teaching, his law is greater than our own. We acknowledge that we do not know how to do right by others, and we need the grace and guidance that He offers. Day by day we submit and draw closer. But it requires that we submit each day. Every day we must turn back to God because it is so easy to walk away from the one that stands for us. Every day we submit, and every day Jesus declares us justified. He stands with and for us, but do we stand with him? Are we willing to submit to his lordship or are we submitting to a different master? Are we looking for the good of our neighbor or are we justifying our own actions at the expense of others? “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Where do you stand.

---

---

To Donate to Willow Creek Friends Church Click here:

To donate directly to Pastor Warner click here:

He Stands With Us

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

June 14, 2026

Click Here to Join our Meeting for Worship

Click to read in Swahili

Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili

Romans 5:1–8 (ESV)

¹ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. ⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

---

Last Sunday we spoke about the wrath of God. Most of us look at that word and our mind tends to wander to something akin to rage. The problem with that is rage is often uncontrollable, it is fraught with unanchored emotions, and is often unmeasured. When we rage as humans we have lost all control. The person has cut us off in traffic, rage enters, and now there is a story on the evening news speaking about the incident. We can go from a calm and collected citizen of the community to a monster in a manner of seconds. This is rage, and this is typically what we see when we see the word wrath.

Wrath is not rage. And that wrath of God is not God going into a fit of rage, to smite everyone. God is patient. God is merciful, and filled with grace. God’s greatest desire is not driven by vengeful emotions instead God is driven to restore creation to the order created in the beginning.

Paul continues along this line as we go into today’s passage. Last week’s passage said that the law brings wrath, but righteousness comes through faith. The law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. If wrath is not vengeful rage, what is it? Annoyance. The law brings annoyance. And when we know the law, we push as close to the law as we can until the annoyance flares.

Imagine you are on a long road trip with children. There is a rule or law in the car to keep your hands to yourself, and one of the siblings gets as close to touching without touching until their sibling begins to complain. The parent looks in the rearview mirror staring down the guilty party as they fain innocence saying, “I wasn’t touching them.” The parent asks them to stop. And all is calm, but eventually the annoyance returns. And now the response from the parent is a bit more stern. This cycle continues until the parent finally slams on the brakes and pulls to the side of the road and turns around. You know what comes next. The law was not broken, but it was pushed until an intervention was required. This would have happened with or without the law, because that is our sinful nature. We like to know just how far we can push.

Which brings us to righteousness, or right relationship. The law does not bring about the right relationship, no law can. If we think of law as legislation or as teaching. All the law can do is to provide a boundary or set up a sign post. It gives us guidelines that point us toward righteousness. The law teaches us where the lines are drawn, but we still push and challenge.

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The concept of justification comes from legal concepts. It points to the declaration of righteousness. It is a declaration. It does not mean that you are righteous, or in a right relationship, it simply means that from a legal standpoint, you are declared as such.

Who makes this declaration?

We have been justified, declared as being righteous by faith. Again faith is this process of trust, from belief to entrusting every aspect of our being to God. Just like with every broken relationship building trust is a process, we slowly become more intimate. Each step of the way we gain just a bit more trust. As that trust builds we might question why, but we know that the one we have entrusted ourselves to is trustworthy. We are declared righteous by this relationship, we are declared righteous because we have entrusted our lives to one that is trustworthy. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

As a pastor within a faith movement known for their peace testimony, you might think I would be a scholar on peace. I once thought that myself. I have struggled with peace most of my adult life. Shortly after I graduated from college our nation entered into a war that continued until a few years ago. We say we were at peace, and yet for some reason helicopters are being shot down and drones and missiles are finding targets. This word peace, if looked at from a secular perspective, designates a political and social phenomenon where the state of a nation is not at war, or the absence of conflict. While I was reading about peace in the Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, they mentioned that treaties of alliance and of peace almost always link peace and philia (brotherly love or friendship). So in the secular world, peace, requires a caseation of violent conflict and a movement toward mutual profit. According to the Hellenistic philosophers a king who is philanthropic will be interested in restoring order and guaranteeing the peace, because it is recognized that peace is better than war. This philosophy applied to the relationships between nations, and they also applied the same concepts within a nation. A nation at peace is a nation without war, and has a population that is also without discord.

These are the teaching of the Gentile philosophers speaking of peace. This same Greek word that we translate to peace, was used by the Jewish scholars that translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. They used this word for Shalom. This Hebrew word holds all the concepts that the Greek philosophers held, but there is more. The concept of Shalom is derived from a root word meaning to be well, complete, and safe. To live in shalom means that we lack nothing and have no fear. The Hebrew idea of peace is for humanity to be restored into that state of being before the fall. We as humanity should strive to live at peace, but ultimately peace is a gift from God.

To the people of Israel peace became not only a means to the end of conflict and economic stability, peace became the religious ideal. It is our goal to be well, to have safety and security, and completeness. The life of Shalom was the goal, the ultimate life.

Adam and Eve once had Shalom, but that was lost. From the fall until today humanity has not obtained shalom because we are constantly attempting to define what is good and evil through our own means and purposes. We want to define what well-being is. We want to determine our safety and security. We, as individual humans, want to decide what will make us complete.

Think about the results of this? Right away in the stories of scripture we meet the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain was a farmer and Abel tended the flocks. Each of these boys brought an offering to give to God. God was pleased with what Abel brought but was not impressed with the offering of Cain. Cain despised his brother for this. This response grabbed God’s attention, and he spoke to Cain. He told him, “If you do well will you not also be accepted?”

Cain thought he was doing well, yet he was rejected. But why was he rejected? I have heard many sermons on the topic saying that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted because it was from the flocks. And only an offering of blood was acceptable in the eyes of God. Cain only brought produce from the fields. As a former wheat farmer, I do not accept that interpretation. The grain produced in my family’s fields has great value, it provided for my life. But I find that interpretation unacceptable. I am determining what is of value from my own position. I do not fully know if it was the type of sacrifice or not, or if it was just the attitude of the one offering the sacrifice. What I can say is, Cain was not looking to God. He was looking to himself, and he was looking toward his brother. Sin was crouching at his door, and God urged Cain to resist. But Cain did not resist. He did not allow God to determine Shalom for him, he took matters into his own hands and removed the annoyance himself. And the blood of Abel cried out to God about the injustice.

When we determine the value, when we define our own peace, it tends favor ourselves. We make the determination, the justification, and at times our well-being comes at the expense of others. This injustice often leads to greater conflict instead of peace.

“Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God knows our struggle. God is aware that we have a tenancy to favor ourselves and those closest to us more than we value the well-being of those less closely associated with us. God knows, so God took it upon himself. He made himself just a little lower than the angels for a little while, and took on human flesh. Jesus lived an entire human existence from the gestation within his mother’s womb to death and burial. Through that entire life, he experienced every form of temptation we face and remained righteous. Jesus lived within a community, he taught, he worshiped, through his entire life he showed us what life with God was truly intended to be. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace.

We are justified not because of anything we have done. No, we are declared righteous because Jesus has stood in our place. We are declared righteous because Jesus stands with us.

I want to again speak about Red the bull. This massive beast loved us, but he was not a tame bull. If he felt threatened he would snort, his nose would become hot, and if you did not respond appropriately he would charge. This was if he sensed something was off. For the most part I did not have to worry, Red and I had a relationship, he knew who I was and would act like a giant dog when I was near. But that was not always the case. When I was a child I did not have that relationship. If I entered the pasture he would treat me as if I was an invader, unless my grandpa was with me. Red would come to my grandpa and love him. My grandpa would laugh with Red and tell him how good of a bull he was, and once he had Red’s attention I could join in. Red accepted me because my grandpa provided the justification. My grandpa declared to Red that I was safe, and Red remembered this.

Did this mean that I could just jump into the pasture and do whatever I wanted. No. Red was not tame. I did annoy the beast, but he knew that my grandpa was ok with me. There were times when Red did challenge my presence, and I had to learn what was and was not acceptable with Red. But as I spent more time with this animal the relationship grew, soon Red responded to me just as he responded to my grandpa.

Eventually I had to leave the farm, and someone else came in to fill my position. Someone that Red did not know. The process of introductions had to begin again. I had to justify my replacement to Red, and he had to become accustom to someone new.

God is not like Red. But God is also not tame. When I was in school my theology professor once illustrated justification as Jesus taming the Spirit. He pointed out that prior to Jesus the spirit was something to fear, like the tenth plague of Egypt. There were very few people that were said to interact with the Spirit of God. But after Christ the Spirit was tamed and dwelt within each believer. Jesus tamed the bull. The bull is still not safe, but the bull is good.

Through Jesus, we are justified. We are declared righteous. We have obtained this access by faith, we have this by entrusting our lives to Jesus, and Jesus then speaks and stand with and for us. Jesus provided this access through his life, death, and resurrection. And in this grace, we can stand and rejoice in hope of God’s glory.

We have been declared righteous. Jesus will and is standing with us, but does this mean that everything in life will be perfect? No, we must grow. We have justification, we have grace, we have a starting point, but we must learn to live in the presence of the spirit.

Paul says, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

We must grow. You all know by now that I am a bit of a nerd. I like to learn about things, and there are times when something attracts my attention and I cannot let go of it until I know everything about it. I have a crop science degree, so much of what attracted my attention in college revolved around plants. Somewhere along the line I read about the trees in the Biosphere. If you do not know what the Biosphere is, Pauly Shore has an excellent documentary. Actually, his movie is a comedy, and it is actually pretty terrible, but the idea of the Biosphere was to create a perfect ecosystem so that we could study the effects of various factors upon the environment. They made this biosphere with various plants and climates, and inside it was supposed to be completely self-sufficient. The original experiment, however, failed miserably. The reason it failed was because the trees grew tall and fast, but eventually they would just fall over.

The reason the trees fell was because in the biosphere they forgot to include a very important factor, the world has wind, where the biosphere did not. Trees need the wind, because the wind provides stresses the plant in such a way that the plant must build resistance to it. Without the wind the tree will grow straight and tall, but will eventually be unable to support itself. This is what suffering does for us.

We do not like suffering, we often think of suffering as something evil. But suffering is part of life, it is what makes us stronger. The spirit of God does not remove suffering because God knows that we need to grow, not merely tall, but in strength. As we endure the various sufferings of life we gain endurance. We begin to understand not merely the rules of God’s teaching but why those rules are there, and it gives us character, and hope as we face more struggles in the future. We struggle, we suffer, but we do not suffer alone. Jesus is there standing with us. “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” While we were weak Jesus was there. He endured with us, and he provides the strength for our own endurance.

Jesus stand with us while we were still weak. While we were without knowledge of what a godly life is. While we were immoral, sinful, vengeful, and living within the self-justification of Cain. We were weak, unable to understand what the peace of God truly was, and while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

I want us to think about that for a moment. We were weak. He is strong for us. We seek to make our own justifications, but even at our best we are often incapable to set aside our own interests for others, we even struggle to sacrifice ourselves for people we regard as good. We do sacrifice though, do not misunderstand me. We sacrifice for our children, we will sacrifice for our nation. We will be capable of doing many good things from our personal justifications, but will we sacrifice for the good of humanity?

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And if we were to continue to read in this passage Paul says later, “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.”

Jesus stands for us. He stands even when we reject. He stands even when we are weak. He stands to help as we struggle, and he declares that we are with him. Jesus tames the bull, and provides the way for the spirit to write the teachings on our hearts. Jesus stands, and we can rejoice that through him we have shalom, because he has brought us into completeness. And he has called us to stand with him as he calls out to others.

---

---

To Donate to Willow Creek Friends Church Click here:

To donate directly to Pastor Warner click here:

Wrath or Love

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

June 07, 2026

Click here to join our meeting for worship

Click to read in Swahili

Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili

Romans 4:13–25 (ESV)

¹³ For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴ For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵ For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. ¹⁶ That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, ¹⁷ as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ¹⁸ In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” ¹⁹ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰ No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹ fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²² That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” ²³ But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, ²⁴ but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, ²⁵ who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

---

The promise to Abraham and his offspring, is where Paul begins today’s passage. This is where so much of faith begins. What does it mean to be part of this community? Is it Christian, is it interfaith? Does it only apply to Israel or does it extend to all people? There is a great deal of debate around these very things. Intense debates that bring into question every aspect of life and how we interact with those around us.

This is important, because it gets to the very nature of human existence. Why are we here, and what is our purpose?

To begin we need to look at the promise given to Abraham found in Genesis 17. “Behold my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

God gave Abraham this promise after Ishmael was born, and just prior to the birth of Issac. Prior to this particular promise God had called Abram to follow him, and the benefit of following was that his offspring would be greater than the stars in heaven. There is some debate as to if this means the number of stars, which would be seen as infinite, or if the promise was that they would be greater than the stars, or the substance of the stars. In that ancient time, there was an understanding that the stars were not spheres of gas with such mass that nuclear fusion occurred to produce heat and light, instead they believed that the stars were heavenly beings, or Elohim. The stars were lesser gods, or angels that had power that could be wielded over the creatures of Earth.

The reality of the promise is that Abraham would become the father of many nations. God promised that his offspring, those that emerged from his life and his influence would become so great in power, or number that they would rule the entire world. Both interpretations are correct to various degrees.

But this promise came after a long history. It came after the fall in the garden, after the great flood, after the rise of a monolithic empire that held unitary power over all the known world. Those were the three falls of humanity that shaped early Hebrew thought. Out of those falls the children of Abraham held to the idea that the most high God divided the nations of the earth, that he scattered the nations, and from Israel he would bring them all back to himself. He chose Israel. He selected this small insignificant family to reveal his teachings and his ultimate redemption.

I want us to think about this for a moment. Does this mean that Israel is chosen forever? This is where the debates begin. I do not see this as being necessarily the case. But let me explain, it means that Israel’s God is forever. The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob will remain and through his patience and grace he will preserve a people of faith. God will preserve his teachings forever. And to preserve his teachings, he will ensure that Israel will remain as a testimony of his faithfulness.

This is what Paul is getting at in this passage. The influence, or the teachings of God through faith will remain. It will spread to the ends of the earth and that will influence the nations. But this influence does not come through direct inheritance. Biology does not spread the influence of God, nor does biology prevent the spread of God’s influence. We see this in the genealogy of David and of Jesus. Within their linage there are people that come from outside Israel. Rehab, and Ruth are examples. It is even said that Caleb, one of the faithful spies that Moses sent into the promised land, was not directly part of the tribe of Judah but was someone that became part of the tribe. He was a foreigner that chose Israel as his nation, and through him and his faith Israel became stronger.

If it is not direct biology, what then spreads the influence of God? Paul says in this passage that the promise did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. It was not the offspring, or the law but faith.

At this point we need to understand the law. In our western mind, we look at law differently than they did in region Israel developed. For us a law is legislation, and when we break a law there are certain consequences of those actions. In the ancient near east the law was less about black and white legislation, and more about teaching. I have spoken about this at length. But what I have not expanded on is how the understanding of the law changed as Israel matured.

The teachings should have encouraged a certain lifestyle. The lifestyle that it points to is a lifestyle where we love God with all that we have and all that we are. To express that love of God by treating the people around us as we would like to be treated. This is the teaching. It is the start of the conversation. As we converse many aspects can emerge. We begin to ask different questions, and we begin to seek answers to those questions. Eventually Israel could justify any sort of action within the law because they reasoned through it. These justifications began to look more like the world around them and less like original teachings. To such a degree that one could not tell the difference between Israel, Judah, or any other nation in the world. From this judgment came. The Northern kingdom of Israel was scattered like dust, and Judah was taken into captivity and lived in exile.

Upon return, they had devised a different understanding of the law. What makes us distinct? What makes us Israel? Their focus turned to the physical. Circumcision became even more important. The dietary laws became a priority. These were the things that the world could see that set them apart. As more persecution emerged they would double down on these aspects of the law. They used to marry outsiders and bring them into the faith, but in the past this led to idolatry so they outlawed marrying foreigners. They did all of this because they thought if they could just do the right things. If we could make rules and force people to comply to these rules, we could make the world righteous.

This is the interpretation of the law that Jesus and Paul both objected. The outward aberrance without true dedication. The rabbis taught that Israel went into exile because we married foreigners, so they outlawed certain marriages. They thought that they experienced judgment because we did not eat right, or perform the proper rituals. So they dedicated their lives to making sure every aspect of life was covered. Jesus described this as laying a burden on the shoulders of the people without lifting a finger to assist.

Paul then speaks of the law bringing wrath and then says where there is no law there is no transgression. I think it is important to look at this from the proper context. Law brings wrath. When we think of wrath, our mind goes to judgment. The wrath of God against Israel lead to the exile. This is not wrong, but it skews our perspective. Most of our view of wrath does not come from a Hebrew understanding of wrath, it instead comes from pagan perspectives. It is from a pagan perspective that a lightning bolt will come from the heavens to smite us if we do wrong. Why lightning? Zeus, Thor, Baal are all storm gods that control lightening. That is why Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to have the greatest God light the sacrifice, if Baal had the power of lightening it should be easy, but Baal was incapable. Our thoughts of wrath come from these pagan views, not from the character of the God of scripture. God is slow to anger and abounding in mercy.

The Hebrew understanding of wrath is not judgment, but is instead a picture. CS Lewis captured the picture in the description he provided of Aslan from the perspective of Mr. Beaver. He said that Aslan was a lion. The girls were concerned about this since they were going to meet the lion. So they asked if it was a tame lion. Mr. Beaver, scoffs and says not he is not safe, but he is good. This is the image of God’s wrath that is truly derived from scripture. The word is derived from the nose, and it sounds silly, but it is good. The wrath of God is snorts and scoffs.

It is like a bull casually standing in the sun of a pasture. Bulls are scary, but they are good. They are majestic and powerful, there is a reason that Israel used the symbolism of a bull at Sinai. But what if you go into the pasture with the bull and the bull does not want you there? That bull snorts. He gives a warning. If you are wise you would take heed, because if you continue down that path the bull will escalate, the nose becomes hot. The snort becomes deeper, the head lowers, and the air coming from the nose rises along with dust. The picture is smoke coming from the nostrils, or a hot nose. The bull is preparing to charge, but there is still a chance, we can divert the attention, or we can change course. But if we do not change course we face the horns. This is the mental picture of wrath. It is not a bolt of lightening coming from the heavens, it is instead the snorts of a bull.

The bull is scary, dangerous, but good. When I worked on the farm, the bull was my favorite of all the cattle we had. We had an enormous bull named Red. This bull would see me from across the pasture and run to greet me. I could call out his name and like a dog he would come to me and I could scratch him behind his ears. He was such a loving animal that you had to be careful because his eminence love could literally smother you. There were more than a few dents in our farm pickup with a distinct Jared shape, where Red became a bit to generous in expressing his love. But we could not take the love of Red for granted. We could not force Red to do things contrary to his own mind. When we needed to load cattle to move them to a different pasture, we could not force Red to go, we had to convince him. When we tried to force Red, he would snort, he would charge. There was one instance where Red came charging at me and I thought I was going to die, but instead of hitting me he jumped over the coral fence behind me. He cleared the fence that was seven feet tall without any trouble. That is the image of wrath.

“For law brings wrath,” Paul says, “but where there is no law there is no transgression.”

Is Paul rejecting the law? No. Paul loves the teachings of scripture. He quotes them, he tells the younger pastors that he trained that all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching and reproof. So what is Paul rejecting? Is he speaking of God, or of Man? Is he saying that anything and everything goes? No, the law brings snorts. These things annoy, they begin the process that leads to the use of the horns.

The question then is if it is God or man that is annoyed and wrathful. Paul, prior to this, speaks of righteousness. And almost exclusively the topic revolves around circumcision. This is an outward physical body modification that was used when God made his covenant with Abraham. This symbol we often associate with Israel, but they were not the only culture that used this form of body modification. The nations that surrounded Israel also practiced circumcision, but they did it differently and for a different reason. In Egypt only the priest participated in this ritualistic cutting, but they did not remove the skin only slit the skin. Among the Phoenicians, it was to ward off evil. To the people of Moab, circumcision was associated with marriage and fertility. This skin was taken and given to the wife so that she could bear his children. When Moses was going back to Egypt there is an incident where Moses’ wife is required to circumcise someone, and she calls God the bloody bridegroom. The passage is not clear as to whom she had to circumcise, if it was Moses himself or their son, but she is angry with God because God demanded the blood, and it was taken from her. Even outside the Near East there are cultural practices similar to this. Each culture has their own meaning. But what does it symbolize?

Most associate it with a marriage of sorts not between individuals but between God and humanity. The people of Israel are to do this to infants not adults, as other cultures did. And the Greek cultures saw this practice as obscene and immodest. In their perspective a circumcised individual was naked or exposed. Which philosophically provides more layers of thought. The Greeks outlawed the practice, and circumcision became a symbol of rebellion. And later after the Jewish people gained their independence from their Greek rulers during the Maccabean revolts, it became the law of the land. Every male living within Judea had to be circumcised, so that God would bless Israel. It did not matter if they were part of the religion or not. They forced compliance to this law.

This is the background of Paul’s argument. It is a mix between human mandates and the teachings of God. Some remember the brutality of the Hasmonean dynasty in this regard. They remember the teachings surrounding it. And the ritual that once held such meaning to the righteous people, became something akin to nationalistic scarification. There was no dedication other than to king and country. No faith, no repentance, no understanding, only obedience.

The law brings wrath, Paul says. This blind obedience, this adherence without knowledge and the nationalistic desires of theocratic statehood caused annoyance. It causes nostrils to flare and the nose to get hot. It annoys those that do not have belief and are being forced to follow, and it annoys those that do have belief because the ritual has lost its meaning. Eventually something will happen. There will be a revolt. There will always be a revolt because the requirement of obedience without the transfer of knowledge gives the perception of unjust control.

In other letters Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery…for you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another… Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 5 & 6)

We are not to participate in injustice. We should not be provoking others, we should not be living in envy. We should not be looking out at those around us, seeing them as sources of ire and blaming them for everything wrong within our world. This is wrath, this promotes and provokes wrath. Not only does it annoy everyone around, but it annoys God. It annoys God because the way we exhibit our love and devotion to God is in how we treat those around us.

I want to go back to Red the bull. If you were to go out into the pasture he would show you his wrath, because he does not know you. He is a giant of a beast, and yet he is good. I can walk into the pasture and call out to him. With me, he is like a pet. I know what makes him happy, I know what makes him upset. I know Red, but even I have been subject to Red’s wrath.

The same is with every relationship. Your cats only allow so much loving before they get annoyed, and you end up with claws and teeth. Your spouse can only be pushed so far before they snap. You must learn how to write an essay to for each of your teachers, because they tend to focus on different things which are listed in the syllabus. We can provoke, we can annoy and then cry that we have been subject to wrath, but are we the victim or the cause? To prevent wrath, we need communication, we need understanding, we need convincement not mere obedience. Love God with all that you have and are, and your neighbor as yourself. Against such things there is no law.

This leads us to Paul’s point. It is faith, not law, not biology, but faith. I have spoken about faith many times over the years. There are three stages of faith. The first is belief. We have looked at the lives of those around us, and we have looked at the scriptures, and we believe it to be true. The second stage is trust. We believe, then start to put what we believe into action. We trust that God will provide so we give out tithes. We trust that God will direct our path forward, so we take the risk.

Then there is the third stage, we entrust. Entrusting goes beyond trust, because the reward is not sure, and the path is not clear. Entrusting our lives to God is that place of faith where we have a clearness to our path forward, we have assurance that it is right and yet those around us may have the same perception. It is in this place that we entrust our lives to God, fully devoted to His will, be it suffering or blessing. We entrust because we know that by living for him at that moment he will bring about the necessary changes. Abraham entrusted his life to God. And it was counted to him as righteousness. It did not make sense to the world. It did not even make sense to his own family, yet he moved forward entrusting that God was worthy of that trust. When we step back from seeking our own personal gain and entrust our lives, our property, our future to God we are walking in faith. When we encourage those around us to look beyond, to dig deeper, to trust just a bit more, we are walking in faith. Seeking not to control but instead to encourage change even when it seems contrary to what society desires, we are walking in faith. But why do we do it? Why? We do it because we know the one we are entrusting ourselves to. We know that God is similar to a lion or a bull. God can be provoked to wrath, but God is also good. God is slow to anger, abounding in mercy and grace, and will bless those that trust him.

Where do we stand? Will we entrust our lives to God? Will we live into the things that there is no law? Will we become a people Loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others? Or will we be people of wrath?

---

---

To Donate to Willow Creek Friends Church Click here:

To donate directly to Pastor Warner click here: