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Romans: Circumcision of the Heart - June 11, 2017 - Pastor Scott Christenson

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St. Paul's Lutheran Church Orange, CA

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so as you might imagine over the normal course of my typical work week I talked pretty regularly to pastors of other churches how we share ideas we we each other we try to work together for the good of the greater Kingdom and one of the standard questions pictures tend to ask each other when we're talking on the phone is so what are you preaching on this weekend  and this is been an especially fun week to have those conversations because once I got to tell my brother one of those brother pastors responded to me by saying when it's actually preached a sermon on circumcision for faster so just to clarify I'm actually not preaching on circumcision I'm preaching on circumcision of the heart which is something else and that's afraid do I hope you heard in our reading today from Romans 2  and even though that still sort of a weird and uncomfortable title the truth is the lesson of Romans 2 is actually vitally important for the life and faith of every single person in this room today because here's what's happening in Romans to it if you were with us as we began this journey or remember last week are we read through the end Romans 1 and in Romans 1 especially in the last like 20 versus or so what you find is just a scathing review non-believers  here's just a sampling a little reminder for you if some of the harsh words that come at the end of Romans 1 is railing in the end of Romans 1 against God haters he talks about those with depraved minds and those who are faithful I'm heartless and ruthless  at the end of Roman 20 speaking against the wicked and the god list the sexually immoral those who guilty of perversion  he is talking about people who do things he says that are indecent and unnatural and shameful so these are not good people Romans one is directed against paulters whose tension attention away from those people toward People Like Us towards the church  he's pretty how many more to pagans but to believers  not to those who ignore God and His word but to those like us who read it and what's the live it out as best we can  and Paul delivers to them and now to the most incredibly unexpected message  because basically the overarching message of Romans to is this  you people are no different  here's a small sampling of what he says in our reading says you who preach against stealing do you you say that people should not commit adultery do you commit adultery  fuel abhor Idols do you rob temp you brag about the loss do you dishonor God by breaking the law  what you have to understand his paws seeking information here with these questions right these are rhetorical questions not really asking if they steal or commit adultery or poetry or dishonor the law what he saying here is you are doing these things and you darn well know it  and here's the person that's being taught in the midst of all of this celestion is there are not two ways to respond to God foot 3  I want I mean by that I mean typically we are more likely to tend to believe that people respond to God one of two ways either you follow him and do his will for you reject God and you do whatever you want right there's the way of the believer the way of the unbeliever the Christian way and the Pagan way to ways to respond to God what what Paul is saying in Romans 2 is that there are not just two ways to respond to God but actually three and all alliterate them to help you remember them he says basically you can respond to God rightly  with rejection Roar with religion please contrasting religion with rightly  shut all the way directions to different ways to reject God not just one sometimes the very thing religion that draws people God becomes the thing that pushes them away  you can say it like this some people reject God by living very badly right they commit murder or sexual perversion or slander or they steal  these are the people he's address in Romans 1  but some people actually reject God by living very very well I need you all the sings outwardly  what their hearts are just as far from God as the people who reject him out right and these are the people who are being addressed in Romans 2 improper you see this Pastors in the opening words of AR reading let's take a look at them again Paul says if you rely on the law and boast in God if you know his will and approve of what it Superior because you are instructed by the law if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind in the dark of the foolish a teacher of little children because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and Truth you hear the tone here the theme throughout all of these verses as one of Pride and Eric a guide for the blind light for those in the dark and instructor of the foolish a teacher of little children these are not Paul opinions of them these are their opinions of themselves  what Paul is the washing here is one of the biggest challenges of spiritual life witches how to stop singing so much on the outside add without starting to send more on the inside  how to stop being an immoral unbeliever without becoming a moral foot self-righteous and arrogant believer  Siri the Lutheran witness which is the monthly publication for nomination of a had an issue where they overview invent each on various matters of faith I'm compared and contrasted to many other denominations  and this issue got a new letters to the editor mostly words of praise and thanks  people Road and said they really appreciated it and that they learned a lot from but there was one letter to the editor they received that was quite different from all the others and in fact it touched me deeply I shaved it for such a time as this  here's what it said it said I grew up in the ELCA Evangelical Lutheran Church in America nother a Lutheran denomination until the age of 40 when I move my family to the rematch that's our denomination for doctrinal reasons  the move was the right choice for our family that said she right I had an extremely negative reaction to the March 2013 issue of the Lutheran Witness pageafterpage for claims weed great we uniquely have the correct understanding of God's word and all these bad people don't aren't we great the tone of Pride condescension and self-congratulation is overwhelmed  I understand that this she will be well received by many many lifelong lcms members who are pleased to hear so clearly that they are completely right and everyone else is so Lee Roth  what a wonderful message to hear what great pride we display  if the goal was to cheerlead those City lcms fuse you probably accomplished your purpose  if the goal is to actually do God's work and reach out in our communities this is badly misguided  now it's been a long time since I read that issue I don't remember if I could silly comment if this writer is correct or not but I will say this what she's saying they're sounds a whole lot like what Paul is saying in Romans 2 and this is a danger that every Christian has to be keenly aware of  I love how Paul says that in a reading says we have to remember a man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly  like last week a person is not a Christian if he or she is only one outwardly  another words you can go to worship every Sunday can give offerings you can read and study your Bible you can pray you can sure if you can do all of the right things out relief but the question is where is your heart is your heart prideful and arrogant and self-righteous or is your heart humble and grateful  focused on the needs of others and not just promoting stop  because you seek God wants our hearts  not just our external fan for pretty to a bunch of rules and doctrines and practices and here's the greater question that you to wrestling  which is if you're convicted by all of this if you sit here and examine yourself and you say my heart is in a bad place is prideful and arrogant and condescending because you see the new jerk reaction we all have is to go home and try harder if you're prideful and arrogant condescending you need to try harder not to be that way that's what we think curly wrong I mean you're certainly not going to get any better by trying less  what is not what Paul says in Romans 2 after offering up the scathing critique of the church he doesn't say to them now y'all go home and try harder snow what he says is not that you have to do something to fix it Nelson she says God has to do something because you see what you and I really need is a circumcision of the heart and circumcision weather the original kind of The Flash or this new circumcision of the heart is not something that you do to yourself  it's something that John  Zach Paul says this out right in our reading he calls his circumcision of the Heart by the spirit it's not by you not why you're trying harder not understand with Paul is talking about you have to know the history of circumcision listen to the Jewish people circumcision I was first handed down by God and commanded by him in Genesis 17 a god you may remember calm Abraham and he makes a covenant or an agreement with him  God says she's going to build him into a great nation and he's going to leave these people to the promised land and in return for doing all these people are going to obey him  search the deal so Genesis 17:9 God says this as as for you you must keep my comment you must have it you and your descendants after you for the generations to come  Sinatra stand but everyone us to apparently God didn't just expect to be obeyed he demanded to be a bit and what would happen if they didn't know better this is where circumcision comes in because God tells them just a few verses later this any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised In the Flesh and otherwise Whoever has done what I'm telling you to do they'll be cut off from his people he has broken my Covenant  will be cut off this is are you very important because you see in those days covenants were not written down on a sheet of paper and signed like they are today have sheets of paper and pens in that so what did they do fit active them out they didn't sign them so for example you may remember there's a rather strange story in Genesis just a couple of chapters earlier we're God Appears in the form of a smoking fire pot instructs Abraham to take a bunch of animals and literally cut them in half and lay the left halves in a line over here and right have the animals in the line over there  and then the smoking fire pot God's presence passes between the ripped apart uses of the animal  what the point of all this strangeness is actually that God is acting out a covenant set up sign in sheet of paper he's doing this he's saying basically to them if I don't do what I'm promising to do may I become fuse animals  that's kind of what circumcision one it was an acting out of a car it's so the cutting off of some skin was symbolic of what God said he was going to do if they diss play  God said basically if you don't obey you're going to be cut off you're going to be off from my people now this of course is where the story gets a little strange because if you more than the chapter two of the Old Testament you know that those people obey and do we I mean none of us do really I mean none of us obey God the way that we should and show you have to ask in the light of this first why aren't we cut off and the answer comes in another kind of obscure verse in the New Testament in shins to Paul talks about circumcision again and he says these words in him meaning in Christ in him you also were in the pudding off of the sinful nature not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done Christ having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead why were you cut off when you disobeyed because Jesus was cut off for you Jesus goes to the cross and in the moment of his greatest need he looks up to the sky and he cries out my my God why have you forsaken me  which is the say I have you cut me off and God the Father did and that moment something he never did before and will never do again  he did nothing in the very moment when Jesus needed his connection to the Father the most the father cut him and why did he do that astonishingly because he loved you and he didn't want to have to cut you off  and only to the degree that that truth gets into your heart and mind will you ever be able to really change because change doesn't happen by trying really hard to it happens by taking in the Gospel of Jesus  it happens by understanding The God Who had every right to cut you off from himself cut off his beloved Son instead so that you could stay connected to him forever despite every dumb when you've ever done that's what circumcision of the heart is about and despite the tie that's not a weird and uncomfortable thing at all which actually the greatest thing that could ever happen what's power handsome

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Romans: Circumcision of the Heart - June 11, 2017 - Pastor Scott Christenson

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