Relevant Text: Rom. 6:1-2
Full Text: Job 2; Rom. 6

The Stakes | Only one kind of life leads to eternal life. All of us are guilty sinners through our own disobedience and through our being united with Adam. Another life that leads to heaven, however, comes from being united with Christ: “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” [1]. What leads to eternal life? Sanctification. Freedom from sin. Slavery to God.

The Danger | In the first part of Romans, Paul shows a radical emphasis on justification by grace alone through faith alone apart from works of the law. This is tremendous kindness: Christ’s obedience – not ours – is our grounds for justification. Yet, Paul recognizes that such sweeping grace can be dangerous because it can be easily distorted. As D.A. Carson explains, “People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated” [2].

The Reality | So, having just said, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” [3], Paul counters: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace abound?” [4]. Then he resounds: “By no means!” Why not? Because dead people don’t sin: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” [5]. In other words, when Christ died, we died in and with him [6]. When he rose, we were made alive in and with him [7]. Therefore, we are to become in practice what we are in truth: dead to sin and alive in Christ [8]. In this way, the hard work of sanctification is not the opposite of grace; it is the result of experiencing grace.

Prayer | Lord, Our hearts are fundamentally flawed and deceptive. Although we cherish your grace, we go about manipulating it for our own selfish purposes. Therefore, we ask that you would change our hearts to hate our sin and to love your grace, as we live obedient lives of sanctification. Amen.

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Footnotes

Relevant Text: Job 1:21
Full Text: Job 1; Rom. 5

Tension | In February 2006, six weeks after her daughter, Penny, was born with Down syndrome, Amy Julia Becker journaled:  “I went to the doctor for a follow-up appointment today. The receptionist was very nice. She told me about a good friend of hers who has a daughter with Down syndrome. The young woman is in her mid-20s, with a job, with highlights in her hair. I think the receptionist was trying to comfort me by giving an example of how functional someone with Down syndrome can be, but her words betrayed her. She said things like, ‘They dress her in cute, funky clothes,’ and, ‘She can walk around the neighborhood all by herself and the neighbors keep an eye on her.’ What I heard was not that she wears cute clothes and goes for walks, but that her mom still chooses those clothes, she can’t drive, and she needs the neighbors to look out for her on a walk around the block. I didn’t feel particularly consoled. People are always trying to downplay the hard part and overemphasize the good instead of letting the tension remain” [1].

Limitations | Job is about letting the tension remain. It’s written for people who struggle with loss. It’s realistic about confusion in suffering and limits in understanding. Although Job “feared God and turned away from evil” [2], he lost everything – his family and his wealth – in a single day. Yet, even as he mourned: “Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head” [3], he also worshiped: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” [4].

Honesty | Suffering is universal, but sometimes we’re tempted to avoid admitting that it brings doubt, fear and anger. We want our praise nights to be pep rallies. A realistic understanding of the Christian life, however, includes a recognition that the founder of our faith was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” [5] and that, if we want to be glorified with him, we must also suffer with him [6].

Prayer | Lord, Make your name holy in our lives, as we walk in your footsteps. Let us live in the tension of the suffering of the cross as well as the joy of our salvation through it [7]. Help us to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice [8], even as we learn to love others in grace and honesty. Amen.

Relevant Text: Esth. 9:1
Full Text: Esth. 9-10; Rom. 4

The Gallows | “On the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them” [1]. Haman’s plot against Mordecai was foiled. He was supposed to be exalted and Mordecai was supposed to be dead. Instead, Mordecai was honored and Haman was hanged on the very gallows he built for Mordecai. And the people rejoiced in their salvation: “The Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor. And in every province and in every city, … there was gladness and joy among the Jews” [2].

The Cross | On the very day when the enemy of God hoped to gain the mastery over Jesus, the reverse occurred: Jesus gained mastery over the one who hated him: “God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” [3]. In the death of Christ, Satan was disarmed and shamed. He was stripped of his power to accuse us before God because the cross nullified his indictment against us [4]. And we rejoice in our salvation: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” [5].

Prayer | Lord, You work all things according to the counsel of your will [6] and you are righteous in all your ways [7]. In the story of Esther and the gospel of Jesus, not only did you defeat evil, you made evil destroy itself. Although the dark powers did their best to destroy your glory, they found themselves “quoting the script of ancient prophecy and acting the part assigned by [you]” [8]. Therefore, we have hope because no plan of yours can be thwarted and nothing – not even the most evil plans – can separate us from your great salvation [9]. Amen.

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Footnotes

Relevant Text: Rom. 2:5
Full Text: Esth. 7; Rom. 2

Worldview | Each of us has a narrative about how the world works. Conscious or subconscious, its effect is pervasive. Leslie Stevenson suggests, “So much depends on our conception of human nature: for individuals, the meaning and purpose of our lives, what we ought to do or strive for, what we may hope to achieve or to become” [1].

Christian | The Christian narrative, argues Albert Wolters, is utterly unique in its perspective: “The great danger is to always single out some aspect of God’s good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain. Such an error [conceives] the good-evil dichotomy as intrinsic to the creation itself … [as] something in the good creation is identified as [the source] of evil. In the course of history, this ‘something’ has been variously identified as … the body and its passions (Plato and much of Greek philosophy), as culture in distinction from nature (Rousseau and Romanticism), as authority figures in society and family (psychodynamic psychology), as economic forces (Marx) … As far as I can tell, the Bible is unique in its rejection of all attempts to either demonize some part of creation as the root of our problems or idolize some part of creation as the solution” [2].

Effect | The problem with the world is sin and it’s in all of us. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “[T]he line separating good and evil passes … right through every human heart” [3]. Its effect is disastrous. Paul wrote, “[B]ecause of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself” [4]. Why start the week by thinking about God’s hatred of sin? To the extent we understand it in our minds and hearts, the love of God will not sink to sentimentalism and self-help. It is not this. It is an infinitely precious and powerful treasure, an invaluable redemption, and the ultimate solution to the sin problem of the Christian narrative.

Prayer | Lord, You declared that your creation was “good” and that those created in your image were “very good” [5]. When sin entered the world, however, sin attached itself to every good created thing like a parasite. Our reasoning, emotions, actions and motives alike are all under its influence. Therefore, we praise you with deep humility for Christ’s redeeming love that cost him his life and that solved the sin problem for all who believe. Amen.