5 For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. 6 But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
Last week we spoke about how from the beginning God counted humanity as the elect over creation. This might have caused some of you to think I had committed some sort of blasphemy, but I think it is important to remember. Israel was elect, yes, but election does not mean salvation. Election does not necessarily mean exclusively chosen. It does mean chosen but chosen for a purpose. Israel was the one nation, out of all the nations, to be the one through whom God would reveal His kingdom to the world.
This sometimes causes us to wonder what that might mean. There are some that believe that elect means chosen for all time. Others might think that is ridiculous. I want us to consider what elect really means. Honor and purpose.
Paul speaks about many things throughout his letters. He speaks about gifts in several. Gifts of healing, prophecy, teaching, hospitality, and discernment to name a few. This is by no means all the gifts that God’s Spirit gives as in the Old Testament we are told that some were given the gifts of craftsmanship in order to fashion the instruments and fabrics found within the tabernacle. These artistic gifts are not mentioned in the list of gifts Paul made, does this mean it is not a real gift? Not necessarily Paul said that these gifts are given for a purpose. It is not given to make you, or I look like amazing superheros, although that does sometimes happen. They are given to encourage the church. We are given gifts, we are given opportunities, and placed into situations where God will gift us with an ability to use at that moment to bring a greater influence to His kingdom.
Do these gifts remain with us forever? Not necessarily. They are given freely to those God chooses, to those God elects, for his purposes. We do not dictate to God who is gifted and who is not. We cannot choose which gifts we are given, but Paul encourages us to strive for the great gifts. This means that we should be so focused on God’s Kingdom purposes that we are where God needs us to be at the time we are needed. And we are willing to be obedient to his call.
But these things are not ours to control. We cannot wield the will of God like magic. We cannot command God to bend to our will. We cannot demand that God give us favor. Jesus himself said that there would be many that would come before the Father and proclaim all the good they had done, even miraculous things and yet God will say to them, “I never knew you.”
This is the backdrop, or the context, we need to consider today. We have these ideas of whom the elect are. We have ideas of what righteousness is. We have concepts of how followers of Jesus should look and act. All of these are in some ways correct, but in other ways they are lacking. They are lacking because of one thing. Where is Jesus?
“Moses writes about righteousness that is based on the law,” Paul says, “that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven? (That is, to bring Christ down), or Who will descend into the abyss? (That is, to bring Christ up from the dead)/ But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”
I want us to consider that part of the passage for a moment. We have in these words an image of ascension and descent. The rising and lowering. One might even think of it as waves upon the sea. A frequency of sound, or a rhythm.
In the late 1600’s there was a physicist that noticed that when you hang two pendulum clocks on the same wooden beam the arms will eventually swing the same direction. It was weird, and because it was weird they began to notice it in other places. We still study this, if you place several metronomes together on a platform and start them at different times, eventually they will synchronize, they were able to determine how long this will take and defined it as the Kuramoto model. They even noticed that this model shows up within our bodies. When people are around each other long enough they begin to anticipate what the other will do or say. We see this on an assembly line as people work together or on a sports team a player will know exactly where their teammate will be without even looking. And the no look pass is cool no matter what level of play it is. It goes even deeper though, our enzyme production can synchronize as well. Meaning we get hungry when the people around us are hungry among other things.
It is fascinating when you think about it. It all revolves around what they call the coupler and the frequency. When the coupler is weak, things remain in disorder, but when that coupler is strong seemingly out of nowhere everything snaps into sync. There are several things that go into this formula, the distance between the objects and their current frequency as well as how many objects are involved. These all play a role within the process, but eventually, if no other forces added to this system, the objects will synchronize.
I will not claim that I understand the science or math behind all this. But I have watched it happen, and each time I see it I am just as amazed at the first time I saw it.
There are ups and downs. Rises and falls. Waves or frequencies that we measure in nature, in one moment they seem to be in disorder, but then eventually they unite. This is what I see when I read these words that Paul wrote. Well that is one thing I see, the other thing I see is a graphic that my theology professor always used in class depicting the vicarious humanity of Christ. Jesus came down from heaven to mankind, and then he lifts mankind up to heaven. Jesus became humanity so that humanity can be restored back to God.
Even this image of the vicarious humanity of Christ offers something like the Kuramoto model. What exactly happens when Jesus became incarnate?
Let us go to the beginning. God said on the sixth day of Creation, “Let us create man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; mail and female he created them.” At that moment creation was in sync. CS Lewis in his Chronicles of Narnia depicted creation in the book Magicians Nephew. In that book Aslan created Narnia through singing. And out of the song various things began to emerge, depending on the resonance of his voice.
I have always loved the imagery Lewis creates with his words. And in the story as long as the echo of creations song remained creation continued. But there was a force of disorder that entered Lewis’s imaginary world. Discord, or disharmony. When Aslan was present the world sang with him, but where the White Witch was creation stopped. This eventually lead to Narnia being trapped where it was always winter but never Christmas.
God created humanity in a harmonious state. We were created to go out into the world to have dominion over it. We often look at dominion as being almost negative, we dominate bring it into submission. But dominion can mean lead, tread, have charge over, or authority. Everything points to something domineering, but we are looking at it from a place where disharmony rules.
When God created the earth, humanity and God were in sync. We were to go into the world and live within it while reflecting God to everything else. That is Godly dominion, it is synchronized and in harmony. But soon there was another force, that convinced our first parent that God was not being honest. This serpent convinced us that we should have the knowledge of good and evil. Prior to that moment we only knew good, we only existed in harmony. But the deception caused us to wonder if there was more. We began to resonate with evil.
Evil introduced a different frequency. Soon as humans moved closer to one another, they began reflecting what each tribe, or nation determined to be good. And another nation did the same. Each was disconnected and disordered for the other. And we began to build cities and empires to protect what we thought is best for us. Excluding those that were different. Eventually evil took hold, and we began killing those that threatened what we saw as good in our own eyes. We sought after knowledge that would give us power over the others. We conspired, lied, cheated. Even sought forbidden things that directly opposed God.
We made our own rhythms, we sang our own songs. We created waves that crashed into other waves and the entire world was worked up into a storm that threatened the existence of life. So to protect what God had created, God saved a remnant. Allowing the rest of the world to be overcome by its own sinfulness. Then God restarted the rhythm, he restored the frequency.
Again, humanity sought the things that opposed God. Again they wanted to make a name for themselves. They wanted to become like God on their own terms. But we cannot become what we do not know. And God confused the languages. God did not give up, instead he chose one nation to work with, Israel.
Did he save this one nation? Yes, he chose them out of every other nation to be the one nation in the world to teach. They were set apart from every other nation to learn the rhythm of God. They were chosen to be reflect God to all nations.
Moses writes about it, Paul says. Moses said that it rises and descends, and that we can know it. That the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. Are we listening? Are we moving closer to the proper resonance so that we can become coupled with it?
Israel was given the sheet music so to speak. They practiced it, but eventually they got tired, and they wanted to improvise. When I was in college I took a class called music appreciation and in that class we listened to a lot of music. I even began to appreciate some of it. But there was one form of music that was fascinating, jazz. It was this free form of music that you could recognize, but each performance was different. I began to love Jazz. Then I went to a jazz concert on campus. I did not like jazz that much after that. We love the idea of improvisation. We like the idea that there are no boundaries and I can just do what I want. But unless we know the music, we are not playing a song. A good jazz artist knows the song, they know the cord progressions and what notes go with each other. They can fill the space with something completely new, and yet they do this within the rhythm and key originally set. Israel was given the key and the original rhythm. It began with them, but even they did not learn the song, even though the word was near, they wanted to go their own way.
God let the band break up. He let ten of its member so off to form their own band, he even let the remaining two members go off on their own journey. Yet God continued to keep the bass line going. And some living in exile began listening and playing once again. They relearned the music, the returned the instruments. Some even came back to the original stage and went on a reunion tour.
Tensions rose again. Discord entered the music, and the rhythm was once again lost. But God still kept the bass line going, but humanity was not quite getting the melody. So God sent his son, into the world. God came down from the throne in heaven to become Israel himself. God lived with us. He taught us the rhythm of life. First, He made it his custom to worship with the community. Second, he often withdrew to isolated places to pray. And third he ministered to those in need within his community.
Worship, prayer, and service. Loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. That is the rhythm of God. Draw close, feel it in our bones, and respond.
Jesus, God incarnate, came to show us this rhythm of life. He showed us the power and hope within it. And then he sent his disciples out to continue the ministry. There is a going out, and a coming in again. Another cycle, another wave. While we listen to the rhythm of the Spirit.
God became man, so that man can return to God. Jesus lived the rhythm, so that we could learn the rhythm. And God through Jesus provided the way to return through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God took on the very things that cause disharmony, and he restores them to life once again. That word is near you, in your mouth, and beating in your heart. The very name of God can be heard in every breath that we take. Yet, we cannot join until we return to him. We cannot be saved unless we synchronize to his life and lifestyle. We need to be coupled to the giver of life. Paul says that this is not only for Jews, they had the music, but the music was not only for them. The music belongs to God and was to be played throughout the whole world. To him there is no distinction between Jew or Greek. Paul also says there is no distinction between slave or free, or male or female. This means we are of the same substance. We are human, and God created man in his image, male and female he created them.
But Paul says, “how will they call on Him, in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’”
This goes back to where we began today. Who are the elect, and who are chosen? Who has a gift, and how are they to use it?
Each of us are here today because someone somewhere did something that caught our attention. We heard the music so to speak. It might have been your grandparents, or maybe someone you worked with. Maybe it was someone in your class at school, or even your parents. Someone somewhere along your journey in life, was inspired by God to come alongside you, and while they walked that journey they reflected the life of Jesus to you. You began to hear the spirit’s whispers, and you desired more. Eventually you asked a question, and they provided an answer. You thought it was weird at first because it did not make sense, because it did not seem to sync with the life you had known. But they continued to live, and how they responded to the challenges of life caused you to question if your ways were really good.
Eventually, you were faced with a choice. Will you continue to walk your own path or will you synchronize your steps with those of Christ. It does not matter who you were or where you are at this time. God loves you, and no one can separate you from that love. But you cannot live in that love until you repent and return to God. You cannot return to God unless you confess that you have been living in sin and choose to submit to His life and lifestyle. And when we draw closer to him, that submission becomes easier because the Kuramoto model is at play. Our rhythm become his rhythm. And just as it was his custom to worship, withdraw to pray, and to minister to the surrounding needs. We begin to do the same.
Humanity was chosen to bear God’s image, and only humanity. We were the ones selected out of all the creatures of the earth to bring everything else under the rule and rhythm of God. Each of us must listen to the music and respond. Each of us must live the love of Christ where we are, so that everyone around us can hear of the love God has for them. Will we join in to that rhythm? Or will we remain instruments of dissonance?
Matthew 6:31–34 (ESV) 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and…
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church July 19, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Romans 8:12–25 (ESV) So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you…
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church July 5, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Hebrews 12:1–3, 12-17 (ESV) 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings…
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About jwquaker
I’m sure everyone wants to know who I am…well if you are viewing this page you do. I’m Jared Warner and I am a pastor or minister recorded in the Evangelical Friends Church Mid America Yearly Meeting. To give a short introduction to the EFC-MA, it is a group of evangelical minded Friends in the Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Colorado. We are also a part of the larger group called Evangelical Friends International, which as the name implies is an international group of Evangelical Friends.
For many outside of the Friends or Quaker traditions you may ask what a recorded minister is: the short answer is that I have demistrated gifts of ministry that our Yearly Meeting has recorded in their minutes. To translate this into other terms I am an ordained pastor, but as Friends we believe that God ordaines and mankind can only record what God has already done.
More about myself: I have a degree in crop science from Fort Hays State University, and a masters degree in Christian ministry from Friends University. Both of these universities are in Kansas. I lived most of my life in Kansas on a farm in the north central area, some may say the north west. I currently live and minister in the Kansas City, MO area and am a pastor in a programed Friends Meeting called Willow Creek Friends Church.
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