Systemic Inspections

    

Read Romans 7:7

Deuteronomy 10

 

What do we do with the law?

The law is good and given to us for our own good. Let’s go to Deuteronomy 10.

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?

Let’s try this in the dynamic language of The Message.

So now Israel, what do you think God expects from you? Just this: Live in his presence in holy reverence, follow the road he sets out for you, love him, serve God, your God, with everything you have in you, obey the commandments and regulations of God that I’m commanding you today—live a good life.

What do we do with the law?

God is good.

The law is good and given to us for our own good.

The law does not bring us to salvation but to life.

Christ alone brings salvation. The law can’t do that part, but it is excellent to bring life to our salvation.

How?

Let me introduce you to systemic inspections.  We have all been a part of inspections. I’m not talking just military inspections. You may have seen the memes about not understanding buying socks and underwear never to ever use them or even intend to use them. Those who have done a Junk on the Bunk know this.

Businesses and education undergo inspections from which they derive metrics that sometimes influence decision-makers' decisions, whoever they may be.

Football teams watch tape and grade individual performance. Sometimes this performance review impacts who starts next Saturday or Sunday.

I remember the days of vehicle inspections. You not only needed a license and registration to drive. Your vehicle had to be certified as drivable, according to the standards of the state.

During my time in the Corps, I did one major systemic inspection. It might have been the first one the Marine Corps had done. It was on the transition assistance program—the processes we use to transition a Marine from his time on active duty to civilian life.

We missed the mark big time here. The reason—the root cause is that we were and are so fixated on accomplishing the mission that making sure Marines have a good transition out of the Corps got lost in the take the hill mentality so necessary to the Corps.

Marines only saw they were losing a Marine, not that this young man or woman might be the best recruiter ever if we treated these Marines well when they left. A well done good and faithful servant goes a long ways even in this life.

Understand that to do a systemic inspection, you first must have compliance standards. You must do this. Do not do that.  That’s a compliance standard.

Only then can you inspect systems. Not only what works and doesn’t work, but why. Why doesn’t it work?

That’s when you get to root cause analysis for those things that don’t work or in which the person or organization is noncompliant. Root cause analysis is simple once you know the compliance standard.

If someone—a person or group—is noncompliant, the why normally resides in one of three areas.

·       Don’t know

·       Can’t comply

·       Won’t comply

Under don’t know we find three main reasons for noncompliance:

·       Never knew

·       Forgot

·       Tasks implied

Under Can’t comply we find three main reasons for noncompliance:

·       Scarce resources

·       Don’t know how

·       Impossibility

Finally, under the category of won’t comply, we find these three:

·       No reward

·       No penalty

·       Disagree

Some may be thinking, “Thanks, Tom, for the trip down memory lane experiences as Inspector General and Private Consultant, but where’s the biblical lesson?”

To answer that, I must take you to Merida, Mexico. I went on my first recreational cruise in 2014. I had about a year at sea in my 20 years in the Corps, but this was my first fun cruise.

We ported in Progresso and boarded a bus for our excursion. The guide on the bus said that Progresso means progress and as you can see, there is no progress in Progresso. It was mostly an industrial port, but you could catch a ride and see cool stuff elsewhere.

We went to Merida, the capital of the Yucatan. We saw some churches, places to eat, and places to shop where they made some unique things.

While my wife was watching a demonstration, I casually walked around the rest of the store. A very short man came up to me and said, “My friend, let me show you something special.”

He showed me a box of 5 Cuban cigars, still illegal to buy in the United States, but not in Mexico.

He gave me a deal at about $100 plus or minus. I wasn’t interested. I had smoked parts of 4 or 5 cigars in my whole life.

He saw my lack of interest and the price dropped to $50, then $40.

I said, “I don’t even smoke.”

That got the price to $25. Ok, for that price, how could I not buy such a coveted item?

A couple of days later, I am packing our luggage and am down to these cigars. I couldn’t pack them.

It wasn’t because they were illegal to bring into the United States. I was because I couldn’t fit anything else in my suitcase without crushing them.

But Sharman ‘s suitcase still had room.

The next day as we went through customs and immigration, Sharman asked me if we needed to declare anything.

I said, “I don’t.”

I did not know what sin was until the law said, “Thou shalt not have a Cuban cigar.”

Paul’s example was “I did not know what sin was until the law said, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’”

Here’s the seminary example. I thought that I had come up with this on my own until I went to preacher’s school. I prefer a preacher's school to a seminary, as too many people like to substitute the word "cemetery," and sometimes the analogy is too apt

I saw the neighborhood cat every morning before I went into the office. Never once did I think about kicking the cat until someone said, “Don’t kick the cat.”

From that point forward, how could I not think about kicking the cat? I was just told that I couldn’t do it.

Back to the cigars. I got home and smoked one. I should not have done that. I should have kept the pack intact and sold it as vintage because those cigars predated Castro’s regime in Cuba.

He came to power three years before I was born and these cigars had not been kept in a humidor or any other form of preservation.

They tasted like skubalon. That’s dung for those not familiar with the Greek term. I have never smoked skubalon, but I’m confident that what it would taste like.

They were terrible, but the law said I couldn’t have one. The law—man’s law in this case—created in me a desire for what I was prohibited from having.

It also gave me awareness of a compliance standard.

The law, if we know it, creates in us an awareness of the dos and don’ts. If we don’t know God through Christ, we probably don’t know the law very well.

While the law points out the need for Christ, some are ignorant of that need. Most people have heard of the Ten Commandments and can remember a few of them.  Many ignore the first ones that are about God being number one, having no other gods, taking God’s name in vain, and that includes Christians, but most who know Christ know a good part about the Decalogue and other directives.

Sometimes we best remember those most controversial in our time.

For those who know Christ, the law in its fullness is a systemic inspection begging to begin. If we want to fully live, we need this self-analysis.

We are all going to miss the mark at some point and though we are saved, we still struggle with compliance with the law.

The law can’t get us to salvation. Only the blood of Jesus does that in our profession of faith, but the law can show us if we have areas that displease God—the God who created us and the God who saved us from sin and death.

Salvation is not our motivation. We who believe that Jesus is Lord have been saved. Salvation is not our motivation.

Responsive love is our motivation. How do we respond to this unfathomable love?

Mostly by loving one another, but even there we slip up. If we take the time to conduct a systemic inspection, we will see every reason for our non-compliance.

Didn’t know. Well, let’s do more Bible study and study groups.

Can’t comply because I don’t know how. That’s addressed with education and practice.

Can’t comply because of scarce resources. Well, allocate your resources to the work of the Lord first.

How about won’t comply? We don’t see the immediate reward or punishment. There is eternal reward and punishment, but most of our bad decisions stem from being myopic and seeing only the now.

And sometimes, Christians just disagree. There is more of that than you might think. We justify in our own minds that God just missed that one.

But if we have the courage to examine ourselves, we will see trends, systems, and areas where we need the most work. It takes courage. Those in recovery know the Twelve Steps. Step four is to make a searching and fearless moral inventory. That’s tough stuff for people without addictions.

How about laziness when it come to the things of God. How about our comfort zones. I think I’ve done enough for the Lord today or this week or this year. I need some me time.

I will put what I would have tithed to good use. The Lord knows that my kids can’t play their best ball without a $450 bat. Besides, there’s a BOGO—buy one, get one half off.

 Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. That’s outdated. This is a 24/7/365 ¼ world. The work six and rest one—a day holy unto the Lord—is still the optimal way to live for most people.

You can conduct a systematic inspection of yourself and see where you need the most work, the most help, or a swift kick from a real friend. The law stands ready to assist.

A systemic inspection itself won’t accomplish much. It is a step.

You can do everything in compliance with directives and still not please God. Consider the Pharisees. They knew and kept the rules but didn’t know the Rule Maker well at all.

You can have the worst compliance batting average ever, and still please God if you seek him with everything you have.

So why even bring up this systemic inspection stuff?

Because when we consider the law, the Law Giver packed something into the law that human law can’t.

God’s word judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. His word does what human law can’t.  You know the verse.

 

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Almost every culture and religion has some aspect that deals with self-improvement or self-actualization, or both. The one who seeks God, knows Christ as Lord and Savior, and desires to please him has the tools to become more Christlike.

The question is will the law be a scorecard or a gameplan?

Will our treatment of the law just bring us disappointment at falling short again and again, or will we treat it as the best consultant on the planet?

Companies would pay top dollar or Yen or Euro to have a consultant so well versed in business skills as the Law of Moses and the entire word of God are in our personal development.

Businesses covet a 24-hour-a-day consultant who is available every day and as sharp at zero dark thirty as at 9 am. They’re hoping AI will get them there, and it may help. We have such a consultant but how often does it sit on the shelf or our dashboard or where did I put that thing...

What are we to do with the law now that Christ is our everything?

Put it to use as what the Hebrew people knew it was all along, a guide to good living, a model for living God’s way, or divine words that should be written on our hearts.

Those who think the law is useless miss the all-encompassing love of God. He is evident in the creation itself. He is present in his directives.  His Spirt dwells within us.

We know his fullness in Christ Jesus but we should not dismiss the value of the law.

Some misread the second chapter of Colossians and say that the law was nailed to the cross. It was not the law nailed to the cross but the invoice for our indebtedness—our sin—that Paul says was taken from us and nailed to the cross.

Paul also tells us that the law is without efficacy when it comes to salvation. You can’t get there from here. Only Jesus gets us there.

But having arrived at this condition of salvation, we should concurrently be in the state of living by the law and such living not be a burden.

The law was not given as a scorecard by which we might obtain salvation, but for our own good, especially after we have received the gift of salvation.

We are purposed to bring glory to God’s name and blessed to enjoy him very much. That’s a Presbyterian thing. We get to enjoy God as we glorify his name.

Jesus called us friends because we were more than servants. We knew the will of the Father.

We are servants, but we also enter the realm of friendship with our Lord. We enjoy God as we serve him.

That means that we should also enjoy living by the law in our salvation.

There is another whole line of discourse concerning grace and the law that I will save for another day.  For now, know that the law is your friend and the best consultant you will find on the planet today.

Break out the law and hold a systemic inspection on yourself. The blood of Jesus made us right with God. The law’s counsel will help us live up to that righteousness the best that we can.

Amen.     

Matthew 5 - Part 3

 

Read Matthew 5

What about the law?  What does it mean to us?

The law was given to God’s people for their own good.  The law makes us aware of our sin. No person except Jesus has ever fulfilled the law.

Contrary to some who say the law was nailed to the tree—the cross—the actual text tells us that it was our invoice of indebtedness that was wiped clean on the cross.  The law was not done away with by any means.  Beware of claims that begin with the law being nailed to the cross.  It is sometimes used as a nonsequitur to lead people to non-biblical conclusions, noting it to be false then presenting a false conclusion that does not follow the lead.

The short version is don’t let people lead you to their conclusions.  Do your own study.

There is a longer discourse on the law not to be pursued here.  What is noted is that Jesus did not come to do away with the law.  He came to fulfill all righteousness.  He came to fulfill those things required by prophecy.  He came to fulfill the law.

So, knowing that he fulfilled it, what place does it hold in our lives?  For those who believe, it can only show us where we fall short and how much we need a Savior.  For those who do not believe that Jesus is the Christ and who have not received him as Lord, the law condemns.

For Jesus told those listening that if they didn’t live up to the standards that the teachers of the law lived by, they would not get into heaven.  If your righteousness was not better than that of the Pharisees, it was game over.

But nobody can live up to perfect righteousness.  All have sinned.  All fall short.  So was Jesus preaching a no-win scenario.   You guys are so out of luck.

There is more to come.  Jesus will hold the answer as to how to overcome our imperfection through his perfection. 

I have used the analogy of training wheels before.  The law like training wheels help us remain upright while we ride our bicycle.  At some point, we want to go beyond what we could do with the training wheels.  We want to live a life governed by love.

The training wheels did not become bad.  We just graduated to the next thing.

Paul used the analogy of a guardian.  A parent or guardian is essential until a child comes of age to live on his own. 

I have used the analogy of headlights.  If you are driving from here to Cordell at midnight and some clown has his lights on high beam or just hose new lights that illuminate up to three counties is approaching, his headlights are blinding.

If you make the same drive the next day at noon and the same vehicle is coming at you with his headlights on, you hardly notice.  The brightness of the sun surpasses the brightness of the lights.

The law did not go away or become bad.  It was simply surpassed by the glory of God that we know in Christ Jesus.

God gave us his decrees and directives for our own good.  They did not go away, but God expects us to graduate to living by love.

Do you remember last month’s memory verse? Romans 13:8

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.

 

 Jesus summed up the law with two commandments.  Love God with everything you are. Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.  Before he went to the cross, he raised the bar and said love each other as much as I have loved you.

The law was given for our own good.  The law did not go away.  It is not bad.  Jesus fulfilled the law.  The law can still serve us as a guardian. It can still show us where we fall short of the glory of God.

We can never measure up to the law by our own effort or merit but in the blood of Jesus we are made right with God and by our love we can fulfill the law.

That’s a lot to chew on but as we do so, let us always remember we are on our way to living by love.  Jesus was the only person to fulfill the law in the flesh.  Living a life governed by love fulfills the law for us.

Amen.

The promise, the law, and a sign in the flesh

Read Romans 4

Paul is writing to the church in Rome, in the very capital of this pagan world, and yet the topic of Abraham seems essential to him.  Were he writing to believers in Jerusalem, he surely couldn’t leave out this connection with Abraham, but for believers in Rome we might ask was this really necessary?

Paul was just getting started on the topic of grace and now he jumps to Abraham?

But there was a group or actually several groups of Jews who said they followed Jesus who actually seemed to be following the followers of Jesus trying to persuade them to follow the law and take the sign in the flesh.  If Abraham had been central to you all of your life, it had to be hard to put him on the back burner and just put all of your faith in Jesus.

If you were a Jew the sign in the flesh was very important. Many believed that this was what made you right with God.  Many would argue that God commanded Abraham to be circumcised and his obedience and his actions made him right with God.  Paul said, that’s not exactly how the story goes.

There was faith then there was the sign in the flesh. Faith came first.  Paul notes that just as we have nothing to boast about in being made right with God; neither did Father Abraham.  The sign in the flesh came after he was made right with God by faith.

We understand this a little today.  We have faith then we receive the sign in the Spirit.  We call it baptism.  Paul wanted his readers to understand that faith is where we begin our journey.

Paul jumps from Abraham to King David and the first part of Psalm 32. 

Blessed is the one
    whose transgressions are forgiven,
    whose sins are covered.
 Blessed is the one
    whose sin the Lord does not count against them
    and in whose spirit is no deceit.

Blessed is the one who is made right with holy God.  Note that we translate this in what we might call the passive voice with the implication being that we did not do this for ourselves.  The forgiveness is totally from God.

Now back to Abraham and circumcision and the law, an interesting combination since the law was not fully promulgated by God to his people for another four and a half centuries or so after he selected Abraham to father his chosen people.

Paul had already noted that it was not by the law that Abraham and his seed would realize the promises of God.  In this chapter he adds that it was not by his circumcision that Abraham would realize the promises of God.  These promises would come to fruition through faith.  If everything rested on the works of Abraham, God would have just gone to the next resume.

But he didn’t.  God credited Abraham’s faith to him as righteousness.  Abraham was as messed up as most human beings but he had faith in God and what God had told him.  God credited this faith to Abraham as righteousness.

What had God told him?  What was the promise?  That he would be a great nation and that he would be the father of many nations and that God would greatly increase his numbers.

What was the problem?

Abraham and his wife were old and childless, but Paul notes that against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and became the father of many nations.  What does this mean?

Abraham believed that what God had promised was not possible but believed it anyway because God does what he promises to do.

Cognitive dissonance is where we have two conflicting beliefs in our minds that cannot be resolved.  Abraham knew that what God had promised could not happen; yet he believed that it would happen.  Abraham had no dissonance.

The promise was realized by faith and came by grace and not works.  Grace prevailed even before our own church age.  The favor and promises of God were poured out on Abraham not because of his works or because he took the sign in the flesh prescribed by God but they came by faith.

So those, wherever they were and whatever their agenda, who claimed Abraham as their father and whose compliance with the law that would come of his descendants would struggle with grace. 

And those who had never known the law or attached righteousness to God as a birthright as a son of Abraham were now also considered his offspring by faith.

To which all of God’s people said, “Do I really need to know all of this?  I want to study my Bible and follow Jesus and be God’s love, but do I really need to connect these dots?  Do I really need to know Abraham that well?”

It is not about knowing Abraham, but the God that chose Abraham for he is a God of forgiveness and love and is faithful to his promises.

He is a God who longs to pour out his favor upon his children.  He is a God who sees our hearts and desires our faith.

He is a God who doesn’t write report cards but signs his birthday cards to us saying, “I love you and always will.”  He signs them with the blood of Jesus.

He longs for us to be born into his kingdom and enjoy all that he has stored up for us since the beginning of the world.

It is not about getting to know Abraham.  It is about getting to know God.

God wants us to believe in him and in his promises.

God wants us to trust in him and in his promises.

God wants us to know the love that sent his Son to the cross to make that atoning sacrifice for our sins and he wants us to receive the justification he has in store for us.

God wants us to live in his promises.  Let’s go to a very familiar place.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

How many of us live completely in the first half of verse 5?  How many in the second half?  How many feel like they are the ball in a ping pong match going back and forth?

If you travel through Oklahoma City or Dallas or Houston and get off of the interstate, you might just believe that there are a whole lot of people trusting in the Lord with all of their hearts because the light had been red for a full two or three seconds before they sped through the intersection.  In reality, most just think, “I can make it.”

It's a good thing that many of us old timers grew up learning to “look out for the other guy.”

Most people that we know including many, many Christians live in the “Leaning on our own understanding mode.”

God wants us embracing his promises to us.  God promised Abraham that he would be the “Father of Many Nations.”  That’s quite a title to lay upon an old man with an old wife and no kids of their own.

But God lived up to his promise.  He also lived up to his promise that the whole world would be blessed through the seed of this man.  While the Hebrew people were not very good at blessing the world; Jesus fulfilled this promise as our ultimate blessing.

What has God promised us?

Many things, but for now I want us to think upon life, life abundant and life eternal.

Do we really live? 

“I exist therefore I must live, right?”

Breath and a heartbeat—that’s living, right?  In combat triage, it might get you to the doctor instead of just some morphine while those casualties that might have chance go first.

But we know there is more to life.  Even the world knows there is more to life than just vital signs.  The world seeks after things and pleasures and vacations and job titles and the list goes on.  Tom T. Hall summed up the list in 4 things:  Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money.

For those who don’t know who Tom T. Hall is, well, you just haven’t lived.

There is more to life than vital signs but there is an even fuller version of life that comes when we accept the gift of salvation and really commit to following Jesus.  This is abundant life.  This is something that Jesus said he wants us to have.

Jesus said that he came so we could not only know life but live it to the full, to the max, to the extreme limits of this sacred thing we have been given.  I would call it a promise.

I have come so that you may have life and have it to the full.

That sounds a lot like something that God says he has for me that I want.  How many live an abundant life?  How do you measure that?  Let’s look at things that fall short of abundance.

The word of the day, of the week, of the year and decade is fonly.

Don’t look it up in the dictionary.  The definition there will say foolish or fondly but that’s not what it means.

Fonly is how we say, “if only.”  People say it so much that it blends into a single word.

Fonly.

How should we define this contraction of if only?

·     The death of initiative

·     A perennial excuse for inaction

·     A procrastinator’s self-pardoning phrase

·     Cowardice by any other name

·     Having a tight grip on hopelessness

·     An excuse addict’s score

·     The kingpin of inaction

·     Addicted to one’s current state

·     Fear

The list could go on.  Add two or three of your own.  It should be easy because you have seen these two words—if only—kill recovery from drug addiction, marriage reconciliation, qualification for scholarships or competitive jobs, and so much more.

Fonly has been the death of many dreams.

What are the antonyms of Fonly?

·     Action

·     First steps

·     Just Do It

·     Courage

If you want to know abundance, get rid of these two words as a good start.  Believe the promises of God and start living in them.

God wants you to have a very full life.  As we will encounter in the next chapter, that doesn’t always mean we walk the primrose path without any struggle or suffering.

But we are called to faith.  We are called to believe.  We are called to live in what God has promised to us and for the limited point of this part of the discussion, that is abundant life.

We are also called to believe in the promise of life eternal.  We are to believe in the promise of everlasting life.

So what does that mean?  Are we supposed to sing When We All Get to Heaven every week?  We could, but it means that we live this day as if tomorrow is not promised but eternity is.

What?

We live without fear, never denying God.  We live fully, never shrinking back from life.  We live thankfully, knowing the price that was paid for our life abundant and eternal.

We live running our race with our eyes fixed on Jesus not worried about what we get so much as what we give.

We live out our salvation trusting fully in God’s forgiveness. He is faithful and just to forgive.  We are called to confess with this assurance of his pardon.

We are called to live knowing all of God’s promises to be true. 

There is another example of Abraham that Paul did not mention in this chapter, mainly because it was not tied to the sign in the flesh but is surely speaks of faith.  God called Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.  Other than the gut wrenching task that was before Abraham, realize that God had told Abraham that the promise he made about being the father of many nations would be fulfilled through his son Isaac.  Abraham was willing to do this but God stopped him at the last minute.

In this whole faith business, realize there is a little difference between Sarah saying, “I have a headache,” and Abraham responding, “This might be the night that God fulfills his promise,” and dragging your son to the top of a mountain ready to sacrifice him.  You had to know with certainty that God would still do the impossible even if you did the unthinkable thing that God had asked of Abraham. 

Put yourself in Abraham’s place.  It all came down to faith.

Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness.  Our faith brings us into the promised right standing with God.  Isn’t time that we started living out our faith?

We don’t’ contend with birthrights and signs in the flesh today.  People don’t follow us around telling us that we had better follow the Law of Moses.  Most of the things that Paul was knee deep in don’t impact us much in this century.

But are we trusting in God’s promises?

Are we living in God’s promises?

Are we looking for tangible rules—putting God’s promises into the box we call our own understanding—when God just wants us to live fully and to his glory?

He wants us trusting in him and in his promises.

Paul has taken his readers and us from everyone should have known there is a God to everyone falls short of God’s standards and his glory to God’s grace; but now he finds it necessary to remind us that faith is essential to realizing God’s promises.

God’s grace has saved us but we need to exercise our faith to realize his promises.

Let us live as people of faith.  Let us live trusting in and living in and growing in God’s grace and in his promises.

God has done everything that had to be done to be right with him.  Now let’s live in faith and realize all of his promises.

Amen.