Episode 53: Romans 3:19-28

Translation: Common English Bible (CEB)

3 Questions:

What word, phrase or image strikes you in this text?

Toward what is God calling you in this text?

How will you live by faith?

Additional texts:

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Psalm 46

John 8:31-36

Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22

Sirach 35:12-17

Psalm 84:1-7

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Luke 18:9-14

Joel 2:23-32

Psalm 65

Transcript

00:00.79
Nathan Pile
Kevin, I don't know if where you're at is as dry outside as where I'm at, but it has been very dry here at Sequanota and it has not rained in, well, we're, we're over weeks and we've moved into months.

00:19.05
Nathan Pile
Um, and with, when we do get rain, it's very, very light.

00:19.87
Kevin Shock
Oh, boy.

00:23.38
Nathan Pile
So not only is the ground like dry, My spirit feels a little dry.

00:32.50
Nathan Pile
And so today seems like a great day to sit and talk with a buddy about scripture and, um, see what God has to, do has for me to help, um, you know, energize my soul.

00:47.03
Nathan Pile
So it's good to be back, my friend.

00:47.76
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:48.54
Nathan Pile
It's good to be back.

00:49.12
Kevin Shock
Let's do it.

00:49.26
Nathan Pile
Tend, this week, we're going to look at, uh, Romans, the third chapter. um

01:01.65
Nathan Pile
verse 19 through 28. So Romans chapter three, verse 19 through 28. Kevin and I are going to read from the common English Bible translation. um You can follow along with whatever Bible um is close by, or you can look it up on Bible gateway.

01:17.73
Nathan Pile
um Three questions this week. What word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text? toward what is God calling you in this text? And our third question this week, how will you live by faith?

01:34.02
Kevin Shock
Yeah, here's some information about your hosts. We are men married to women in financially stable households, white, firmly in middle age, college and seminary educated. We work in the Lutheran Church and were born and raised in Western Pennsylvania.

01:47.97
Kevin Shock
All this affects how we read scripture and discuss it, but none of this makes us better able to read and discuss scripture than anyone else. We believe that the wisdom of Scripture is the whole community's compiled interpretation for life with God and one another.

02:03.12
Kevin Shock
So we want to know what you hear and think from your life experience. As Nathan said from Romans, the third chapter, verses 19 through 28. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law in order to shut every mouth and make it so the whole world has to answer to God.

02:23.15
Kevin Shock
It follows that no human being will be treated as righteous in his presence by doing what the law says because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. But now God's righteousness has been revealed apart from the law, which is confirmed by the law and the prophets.

02:40.49
Kevin Shock
God's righteousness comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in him. There's no distinction. All have sinned and fall short of God's glory. But all are treated as righteous freely by his grace because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus.

02:57.48
Kevin Shock
Through his faithfulness, God displayed Jesus as the place of sacrifice where mercy is found by means of his blood. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness in passing over sins that happened before, during the time of God's patient tolerance.

03:13.90
Kevin Shock
He also did this to demonstrate that he is righteous in the present time and to treat the one who has faith in Jesus as righteous. What happens to our bragging? It's thrown out.

03:24.66
Kevin Shock
With which law? With what have we accomplished under the law? No, not at all, but through the law of faith. We consider that a person is treated as righteous by faith, apart from what is accomplished under the law.

03:41.65
Kevin Shock
If you are meeting with a group, you can pause the podcast now and engage the questions on your own. Nathan, what word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text?

03:52.61
Nathan Pile
Uh, fall short,

03:55.92
Nathan Pile
um, was the phrase, there was lots of phrases in this, but, um, fall short was one of those, uh, places that I got in my own thought vortex there around that, um, around that language.

04:09.15
Nathan Pile
Um, know, all have sinned in all and fall short. The, uh,

04:16.39
Nathan Pile
you know there You and I have talked about um sin, selfishness, brokenness um around this idea of of who we are as God's people.

04:29.92
Nathan Pile
um And you know hear this that phrase of falling short. Yeah. you know, just before this, that was the, all of the, there was lots of, you know, how many times the law was used four times in two verses.

04:43.55
Nathan Pile
Um, law, law, law, law. law Um, I guess it was actually three verses. It was used six times. So twice in every verse, um, up until that, um, until the 22nd verse there. But, uh, but here, this idea of that, that we're going to fall short of, of,

05:06.80
Nathan Pile
of, of our own, of our own striving to be God, um, of our own, um, our own selfishness to be, uh, of power and control.

05:20.72
Nathan Pile
Um, and so the, you know, again, I would say that's part of my, um, my Lutheran Christian lens, um, has helped me to, to,

05:36.55
Nathan Pile
Be aware of that, uh, that my own selfishness is, is a thing that gets in the way. um of this relate, this right relationship with God, um, because I'm going to, even if I don't intend to, or do it purposefully, sometimes I do it purposefully, but I'm going to continue to put myself in front of God, um, on the priority list, um, in my own life at times. And, and, um, being reminded

06:13.07
Nathan Pile
that um

06:16.47
Nathan Pile
that that is the case, but also that we have a God who is able to not do that, um, is miraculous, um, and a blessing.

06:29.30
Nathan Pile
And so, but being able to kind of hear and be reminded that as I seek to live in right relationship, um, there's, there's my, my own selfishness is going to get in the way of doing that.

06:44.86
Nathan Pile
Um,

06:48.98
Nathan Pile
24 seven, seven days a week

06:54.38
Nathan Pile
kind of a thing. And so being, having Paul here, uh, remind us of that. And then, you know, we'll talk, I guess I don't want to go any further than that because it also would lead into my second answer.

07:09.80
Nathan Pile
Um, uh, or could depending on, what the spirit does here in the second question for me. Um, but yeah, that's, that's where I'm going to wrap it up.

07:24.32
Nathan Pile
What about you, my friend? but What word, phrase, or image strikes you?

07:28.81
Kevin Shock
Yeah, um I keep hearing that treated, treated as righteous.

07:37.45
Kevin Shock
um

07:40.90
Kevin Shock
I don't know what to make of it. It's something that, yeah, it occurs a couple of times in this translation, treated as righteous. um

07:49.40
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

07:50.51
Kevin Shock
I mean, I know what it means that there's, you know, we're not we're not condemned. where um and ah I'm guessing, that in some of the other, um, translations that we read, like new revised standard version, updated edition that that's the, there's the word justified is used there. Justification. I don't know.

08:15.18
Kevin Shock
Um, but yeah, treated as righteous, both sounds like a, uh, a thing of honor.

08:27.57
Kevin Shock
um, certainly a thing of grace and, and, or mercy. Um, cause it makes Paul makes pretty clear in this passage that, uh, righteousness is not something that we can gain on our own.

08:46.39
Kevin Shock
Um, but treated as righteous sounds like honor, grace, mercy.

08:47.71
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

08:54.33
Kevin Shock
But for me, it also sounds like Um, um I think it,

09:04.41
Kevin Shock
I don't know, if we if we unpack this a little bit and talk about that God loves people who aren't worthy of God's love, so it says something both about us and about God.

09:16.29
Kevin Shock
I think it gets at the root of what, in our tradition, these are, by the way, the texts, one of the texts for Reformation Day, a lot of congregations in our tradition observe Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday of October. So that's when this will fall.

09:34.14
Kevin Shock
um and So we, you know, we, we lift up verses, passages of scripture that point to particularly Lutheran context. And so um

09:48.62
Kevin Shock
the one Lutheran concept is law and gospel. um And those are things that are, we believe both the law and the gospel, the the word of the the word of instruction and the ah the good news of salvation art go hand in hand.

10:08.44
Kevin Shock
um

10:10.99
Kevin Shock
And are in there's a there's a tension, we live in the tension between them. And so I think that if if I were to use a phrase to explain law and gospel,

10:26.25
Kevin Shock
Quickly and in plain person's terms, I think what I just said would be a good one. And that is that God loves people who are not worthy of God's love.

10:39.91
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

10:41.58
Kevin Shock
The law tells us that we're not worthy of God's love. I mean, it says it right here in verse 20. No human being will be treated as righteous in his presence by doing what the law says. Because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.

10:55.45
Kevin Shock
And gospel is God, God loves.

11:00.23
Kevin Shock
God, God loves even those who are unlovable according to God's standards. um

11:09.62
Kevin Shock
So yeah, it's that treated so treated as righteous is, um for me, evokes feelings of honor, grace, mercy, but most of all, love. Yeah.

11:24.07
Nathan Pile
Well, and as you were talking, you you were correct. The NRSVUE would have translated this as justified.

11:32.52
Kevin Shock
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. just, I don't know. There's something about that phrase treated as righteous that justified feels like a very churchy term.

11:42.15
Nathan Pile
It does. and And to be honest, again, this is one of the reasons we like the CEB, like treated but treated um as righteous helps us maybe to understand what justified means.

11:47.33
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

11:54.29
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

11:54.66
Nathan Pile
um

11:55.46
Kevin Shock
Yep.

11:55.58
Nathan Pile
God is, God is treating us as living in right relationship.

11:59.82
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah. Even though we don't.

12:02.23
Nathan Pile
Even though we don't.

12:02.24
Kevin Shock
Right. Yeah.

12:03.92
Nathan Pile
um God has decided um to love to love all just as we are. um so and And not because we've done we've we've done the law right or we've done enough good things.

12:13.78
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah.

12:23.16
Nathan Pile
God loves us because of who God is. That's who God is.

12:27.30
Kevin Shock
Yeah, and and and pulling Jesus into it, which Paul does here, um Jesus came to show us what righteousness is, um but Jesus also came to be our righteousness.

12:38.65
Nathan Pile
right

12:40.80
Kevin Shock
Verse 22, I like the translation of this too. Uh, God's righteousness comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in him.

12:50.98
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

12:54.80
Kevin Shock
Even there, the distinction is maybe a little bit more than I like, but it's Paul, so I'm not going to argue it too much. Because I think, or or rather, I think that we, human beings in a in our self-righteousness, tend to point to that for all who have faith in him.

13:12.03
Kevin Shock
And when what what we do is we run the risk of making faith itself a work. Faith isn't a work.

13:17.50
Nathan Pile
yeah because it's also given yeah it's also a gift

13:19.38
Kevin Shock
Faith is a gift. Yeah, it's it's a it's a gift. And um yeah and that's like saying love is a work. Love is, love is something that wells up in us.

13:38.87
Kevin Shock
Anywho. Okay.

13:39.65
Nathan Pile
Well, um so as we talk about this law gospel piece,

13:47.93
Nathan Pile
as we... um this Reformation Sunday always seems like a time when we can wrestle with this. And as you were talking, that that question always pops back into my head. I, you know, I wrestle with it every time around Easter too of he and, and, and and the Reformation again, they're not the same kinds of readings, but they are talking about um

14:15.81
Nathan Pile
the living out of Jesus as, being the one who makes right our relationship with God. Um, but I thought while, while you were talking, I thought, well, this might be a good time to talk just a little bit. We don't talk about it a lot.

14:35.84
Nathan Pile
Um, but you always have a, uh, I appreciate your, um, your theological system around this of, of the,

14:48.34
Nathan Pile
the person of who Christ is,

14:53.38
Nathan Pile
and this idea of of right relationship, um that God grants through Christ for us. But there they're the one of those voices in my head is, do is God really that vindictive that God has to kill off God's son so that you and I can live live freely?

15:12.49
Kevin Shock
Mmm.

15:14.91
Kevin Shock
Mmm.

15:15.01
Nathan Pile
um

15:15.99
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

15:16.21
Nathan Pile
So, you know, and and I know others have that. So what's what's, you know, this this is a part of that but This is part of Reformation that we celebrate is that that God frees us in these ways.

15:33.19
Nathan Pile
But how would you talk to someone that says, well, is this the true image of God then? That God has to kill, something has to die so that right relationship exists?

15:45.66
Kevin Shock
yeah Yeah,

15:50.21
Nathan Pile
See, I got it out before you did it, so now it's a question for...

15:52.87
Kevin Shock
yeah and Nathan. I mean, I, I want to say no, because we, in the Lutheran tradition, I mean, there's some language here that's uncomfortable to me.

16:05.83
Kevin Shock
um God displayed Jesus as the place of sacrifice. where mercy is found by means of his blood. i ah Sacrifice? ah I, So what I'm about to say is not just because I feel icky about sacrifice. It's because I have read the whole of Scripture, not probably as thoroughly as some other people have, but you know I spend some time in Scripture.

16:34.97
Kevin Shock
And what I see in Jesus... So in... In our tradition, again, we uphold that everything that we know about God, we know to be true about God can be seen in Christ Jesus. And the inverse of that works too.

16:49.92
Kevin Shock
If there's something that is not true about Jesus, then we we believe that it's not true about God. Jesus does never never demand sacrifice. He talks about discipleship. I mean, he talks about he does talk about giving up um you know giving up all all of your possessions to follow him.

17:08.45
Kevin Shock
So, I mean, I guess in that way we we could talk about it being sacrificed. He never talks about violent sacrifice. He tells people to put away their weapons. He says those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

17:22.03
Kevin Shock
You know, I mean,

17:25.39
Kevin Shock
so so to think that God demands a sacrifice in order to appease God... makes the makes the God of Hebrew scripture an vengeful, angry, violent God. And I don't believe that to be true because I think that in Judaism, God is righteousness.

17:48.79
Kevin Shock
God is love. God is merciful. um

17:56.82
Kevin Shock
So

18:00.07
Kevin Shock
was, did he appear as a sacrifice? I think that to be true. um Did he appear as a ransom? Jesus himself even says that he's come as a ransom. But I don't know that the, I don't know that the ones demanding the ransom are is God.

18:15.60
Kevin Shock
The ones demanding the ransom could be human beings. You know, um ge ah it's it's the is it the chief priests? Is it Annas and Caiaphas?

18:27.58
Kevin Shock
One of them who says...

18:27.89
Nathan Pile
One

18:29.56
Kevin Shock
It's better than what that one person die for the sake of the nation than the whole nation be wiped out.

18:31.13
Nathan Pile
die. One die.

18:35.93
Kevin Shock
I think that's the ransom that Jesus pays. I think Jesus, I think Jesus makes himself a sacrifice to the

18:46.64
Kevin Shock
to at the altar of our bloodthirst.

18:51.44
Kevin Shock
um I don't think that God demands it, but I think that I do think that Jesus... goes to it willingly. and And what it says in the rest of that verse around sacrifice, um that that the cross, where God displayed Jesus, the cross is where mercy is found by means of his blood.

19:13.22
Kevin Shock
And that is like, you know, he ah to me, that doesn't mean he paid his blood so that God doesn't take our blood. um What it does mean is that he he gave himself to the very end. He loved us to the very end.

19:27.78
Kevin Shock
He let his blood be poured out on the ground so that the love of God could be made known. that where, where mercy is found, where mercy is found is there on the cross.

19:36.36
Nathan Pile
Right. Yeah.

19:38.83
Kevin Shock
um and And we are treated as righteous freely by his grace. ah Because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus, perhaps yes, um but

19:57.06
Kevin Shock
But the point is, all of this happens because God loves humanity so much. Jesus comes because God loves humanity. ah um

20:08.83
Kevin Shock
If God, like, I just can't, I can't wrap my mind around knowing who God is, knowing who Jesus says I can't wrap my mind around a God who simply exists to say,

20:23.43
Kevin Shock
well, they all deserve to die, but since I sent someone to die in their place, I'm not going to do it. Like, I think if you want to kill someone, you're going to find a way to kill them. So I just, I, I resort to a belief that God does not want us to die.

20:40.99
Kevin Shock
God wants us to have life. And if God didn't want didn't want us to have life, God would not have sent Jesus. God would have just let the law be enforced the way that it always has been,

20:54.27
Kevin Shock
and And just, you know, wiped us out from the earth. Kept doing that until we got it right. But that's not the way that God has chosen. The way that God has chosen is a way of mercy and a way of love.

21:07.38
Kevin Shock
That is made evident, that is made known in Christ Jesus. Who let his body be brutalized.

21:17.32
Kevin Shock
So that righteousness would prevail.

21:23.47
Nathan Pile
Well done. See?

21:25.26
Kevin Shock
well

21:25.66
Nathan Pile
knew was in there.

21:26.17
Kevin Shock
Well, I don't know. I mean, I mean there' there there might be theologians who listen to that and say, well, yeah, you're not right on this point, though, and you're not right.

21:27.10
Nathan Pile
I knew you had it.

21:33.05
Kevin Shock
Well, what about this verse? what I mean, there may be that.

21:35.41
Nathan Pile
Right.

21:36.43
Kevin Shock
but

21:37.19
Nathan Pile
But that's this is your system.

21:37.40
Kevin Shock
But in our...

21:39.13
Nathan Pile
This is your system. and And I'm with you.

21:40.28
Kevin Shock
This is my system, yeah.

21:40.81
Nathan Pile
I don't, I don't, I don't feel like it's... like I'm with you. I don't think God... um I think my challenge with with Reformation and Easter celebrations is we use these passages that are...

21:55.08
Nathan Pile
that are um oftentimes written by Paul, not all, but sometimes written, most most of the time um written by Paul, um you know, 30 years or so, 20 years or so after Jesus was actually alive.

22:09.95
Nathan Pile
um But from a theologian, he himself is building his own system, trying to understand. and And so that um that ransom payment in my own piece I, you know, I appreciate your, your point of that. Maybe this is the ransom payment for human action, um, or, or our own limitations as human Caiaphas and, and, uh, Annas can't get past

22:42.74
Nathan Pile
this, the God that Jesus is proclaiming is too big for them.

22:47.55
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

22:47.96
Nathan Pile
And so their own anger and, um, and Sinfulness, brokenness is keeping them to, of seeing a bigger God. And so um Jesus pays the price of that, um of their, of their, their, their system of theology. It's not big enough to be able to be where Jesus is proclaiming.

23:19.19
Nathan Pile
He has come into conflict with them because he is,

23:25.06
Nathan Pile
He's making the, the world, ministry world bigger than what they're, they're willing to or able to at that moment in time. And so there has to be a cost from for that for them.

23:38.18
Nathan Pile
that This guy is ruining the church or ruining God's kingdom.

23:41.89
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

23:44.00
Nathan Pile
And so he has to die. And so the ransom is... is

23:50.37
Nathan Pile
you know that You know, as Paul writes at it, it's hard because it feels as if God is the one that we're paying the ransom. But yeah I appreciate your piece here of of kind of pointing it more at, again, our our own our human um shortfall um of being able to see we can't we just can't see God's bigger picture.

24:18.84
Nathan Pile
And Jesus pays the price because because we can't see that.

24:24.35
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Um, I don't know. I'm, I'm like, I, I know that I'm not well read on atonement theories. Um,

24:36.01
Kevin Shock
Because there's, I mean, there's substitutionary atonement, but there are different levels of that too. There's penal, there's satisfaction, there's penal substitution, you know, that, so not all, not every substitution atonement theory says that God demands a sacrifice, but, but it has become, um, ah in, in more modern North American Christianity, um,

25:04.72
Kevin Shock
substitution has become a pretty widely, I don't know, I hear people talking about it a lot, maybe not in the, not using those exact terms, but the things that they're saying point to it.

25:17.94
Nathan Pile
Sure.

25:18.13
Kevin Shock
And, um and I think that, you know, we, we have some comfort in the idea of Jesus appeasing a violent God, because we ourselves know that we're violent.

25:29.74
Kevin Shock
And if we create God in our own image, then God has to be violent.

25:32.66
Nathan Pile
Got to be violent too. Sure.

25:34.47
Kevin Shock
but But the thing is, if if um if the ways of God came to us naturally, like violence does, then there wouldn't be any problem loving one another.

25:51.38
Kevin Shock
There's, there's something about Jesus's life, death, and resurrection, but especially his death, that shows us that love,

26:03.24
Kevin Shock
can conquer anything. And

26:09.90
Kevin Shock
he silences even his opponents whenever he's put to death. ah And yet there's there's a there's a feeling even in his death that

26:23.34
Kevin Shock
the he is the, the powers that would destroy him have not destroyed him. And I think the chief thing in scripture that I point to that makes me think that is the centurion, you know, on the moment that Jesus breathes his last on the cross, looks at him and says, truly this man was the son of God.

26:48.86
Kevin Shock
I, how, how does he know that?

26:52.52
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Hmm.

26:52.73
Kevin Shock
Cause he can see love in that act. He can see ultimate love in that act. And, um, And this is one who put him to death. So, you know, who was, who was there participating in the act of his crucifixion.

27:11.33
Kevin Shock
Um, I, I don't know. There's just, there's so many, I think that there are so many ways that God can bring the world into unity, into oneness and, and that God can bind us together in love that don't that don't point to a God who needed a violent sacrifice.

27:35.62
Kevin Shock
I think that, I just think that, I think that violence is seated in humanity and it's because we're broken that we're violent because there's nothing about the ways of God, especially as they, the you know, the first creation and the new creation that point to God being violent.

27:58.43
Kevin Shock
Um, in In Christ, we see God as a victim of violence. he's he is

28:09.36
Kevin Shock
he's He makes himself one with those who are oppressed, those who are imprisoned, those who are wrongfully accused, those who suffer, those who are abused. He makes himself one with all of those people in this act on the cross.

28:30.10
Kevin Shock
And say that God

28:36.11
Kevin Shock
um demands a bloody sacrifice is to put God in the place of the oppressor, the abuser, the one inflicting trauma.

28:46.96
Kevin Shock
And I just can't believe that about God. I can't. I can't.

28:50.91
Nathan Pile
Yeah

28:51.62
Kevin Shock
And it's not because I don't want to. It's because when I look at, examine the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I do not see it.

29:02.48
Kevin Shock
And everything in the Gospels points to Jesus being at one with God the Father. So much so that in Christian tradition, we say that they they are one in the same.

29:16.07
Kevin Shock
they have the They are of the exact same essence.

29:22.72
Kevin Shock
So anyway, you asked me a question about systematic theology, Nathan, so I went there.

29:29.96
Nathan Pile
You did.

29:31.81
Kevin Shock
Why don't we look at it a second time?

29:32.24
Nathan Pile
Thank you. Thank you. That's like, yeah, let's do it a second time. Let's do it a second time. um that Yeah, it's my turn to read.

29:40.33
Kevin Shock
Yeah, it's your turn to read.

29:40.97
Nathan Pile
Is that my turn to read? Okay.

29:42.41
Kevin Shock
Yep.

29:43.79
Nathan Pile
ah Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law in order to shut every mouth and make it so the whole world has to answer to God.

29:55.26
Nathan Pile
It follows that no human being will be treated as righteous in his presence by doing what the law says, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. But now God's righteousness has been revealed apart from the law, which is confirmed by the law and the prophets.

30:14.60
Nathan Pile
God's righteousness comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in him. There's no distinction. All have sinned and fall short of God's glory, but all are treated as righteous, freely by his grace because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus.

30:34.05
Nathan Pile
Through his faithfulness, God displayed Jesus as the place of sacrifice where mercy is found by means of his blood. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness in passing over sins that happened before, during the time of God's patient tolerance.

30:51.36
Nathan Pile
He also did this to demonstrate that he is righteous in the present time and to treat the one who has faith in Jesus as righteous. What help but happens to our bragging?

31:03.15
Nathan Pile
It's thrown out. With which what law? With what we have accomplished under the law? No, not at all. But through the law of faith. We consider that a person is treated as righteous by faith apart from what is accomplished under the law.

31:22.77
Nathan Pile
Kevin, toward what is God calling you in this text?

31:28.51
Kevin Shock
Well, this is too easy to answer. um

31:33.21
Kevin Shock
going to take the easy way out is what I should have said.

31:37.46
Kevin Shock
It's um based on my first answer, and that is ah to to treat others as righteous, um to honor people, um

31:51.02
Kevin Shock
to show them grace and mercy and and to love them. I think not, there I can never do that enough to make myself equal with God. I mean, this reading points that out exactly. But I think i think that the only way to um

32:09.45
Kevin Shock
the only way to exhibit God's salvation in the in the world is to to act you know in a righteous manner. and and And a righteous manner shows us that we are to treat other people as righteous.

32:21.64
Kevin Shock
even if they don't deserve it. Now that's hard. That's hard. I think that, I think that for the people who I feel like have wronged me, it does mean to forgive. It, it, it might even mean to reconcile, which I think is ah people have convinced me in the last few years that reconciliation is a step a little bit farther than, than forgiveness.

32:42.81
Kevin Shock
Um, but, uh, I think it can also happen with people who, haven't wronged me, but people who might not feel like they're righteous or might not feel like they're worthy of love.

32:59.54
Kevin Shock
I can love someone who doesn't feel like they're worthy of love.

33:05.37
Kevin Shock
So, yeah, that's what I think I'm being called toward.

33:11.16
Kevin Shock
What about you, Nathan?

33:14.62
Nathan Pile
Um, well, you always do such a nice job of like pulling all the pieces in that I feel like, like the best, like, like the, the, what I should say is ditto.

33:26.86
Nathan Pile
Um, you know, and we just move it to a third time.

33:27.55
Kevin Shock
but it gets

33:30.64
Nathan Pile
Um, but that's what the beauty of having a friend that is, um, as articulate as you are.

33:30.97
Kevin Shock
Oh, no.

33:37.26
Nathan Pile
So, um, yeah, I, I, I deeply appreciate that about you. So I do not,

33:42.21
Kevin Shock
Well, we bring we bring out the good things in each other when it comes to this kind of stuff.

33:45.31
Nathan Pile
There we do.

33:46.21
Kevin Shock
Nathan, I will say that.

33:46.45
Nathan Pile
We do. We do. So um I think for me, I, you know, that I'm, I'm um dancing around the same spot here. um

33:59.76
Nathan Pile
Like it's, it's, it's recognizing that we have this God and that even my my faith is a gift from that same God.

34:13.12
Nathan Pile
um I have a God that's patient with me. um You know, oftentimes many of the, you know, you know that that is that that is able to forgive, that is that is empathetic.

34:26.16
Nathan Pile
Sometimes some of the things that I can't do in my own life, at least not immediately, um when I'm in ah in the midst of a conflict with someone. um But we have a God that is able to do those things.

34:39.88
Nathan Pile
um Again, I think, ah this idea of mercy. We've talked, we talked about this a little while ago. um it's not a word that I've used a lot in my life, but it is something that has been ringing, has been coming up in conversations like this, well like this, but this podcast, you and I've talked about mercy a couple of times, um, this summer and, and, um, and even fall.

35:11.70
Nathan Pile
Uh, And recognizing that we have a God of mercy that that is that is able to see my brokenness and And whether or not, I don't think, again, this is my image of God, yeah that God doesn't see that brokenness as unfaithfulness as much as God sees it for what it is in my own selfishness.

35:40.10
Nathan Pile
And so is able to show that piece that gift of mercy to me

35:47.92
Nathan Pile
so that I can trust the promise that, that, that God's love and forgiveness are mine.

35:54.84
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

35:55.51
Nathan Pile
Um, and then of course, then that, that example hopefully leads to me being more merciful, um, and thinking about that. And I, and I do think, um, want to look at that third question, make sure I'm not going where it's at.

36:10.66
Nathan Pile
Okay. Um, I do think that the older I get, the more I, I, I see my deep need for forgiveness and mercy and and try to practice forgiveness and mercy with those that I encounter because of who God is with me. because of

36:41.33
Nathan Pile
Because of this um being treated as righteous way of God. That it reminds me that when i have when when somebody wrongs me, or or I consider somebody has wronged me or hurt me,

36:56.92
Nathan Pile
um

37:00.79
Nathan Pile
are there ways that I might live more fully into forgiveness and mercy? Because I've, I've first witnessed and experienced that through the God who loves me.

37:11.49
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

37:13.61
Nathan Pile
So, saying similar, maybe a few different words.

37:21.05
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. um Should we go ahead and move on?

37:28.78
Nathan Pile
I say let's do it a third time.

37:30.73
Kevin Shock
Okay. From Romans 3. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, in order to shut every mouth and make it so the whole world has to answer to God.

37:42.88
Kevin Shock
It follows that no human being will be treated as righteous in his presence by doing what the law says, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. But now God's righteousness has been revealed apart from the law, which is confirmed by the law and the prophets.

37:58.70
Kevin Shock
God's righteousness comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in him. There's no distinction. All have sinned and fall short of God's glory, but all are treated as righteous freely by his grace because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus.

38:15.23
Kevin Shock
Through his faithfulness, God displayed Jesus as the place of sacrifice where mercy is found by means of his blood. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness in passing over sins that happened before, during the time of God's patient tolerance.

38:31.60
Kevin Shock
He also did this to demonstrate that he is righteous in the present time and to treat the one who has faith in Jesus as righteous. What happens to our bragging? It's thrown out.

38:42.78
Kevin Shock
With which law? but what we With what we have accomplished under the law? No, not at all. But through the law of faith, we consider that a person is treated as righteous by faith apart from what is accomplished under the law.

39:01.03
Kevin Shock
Nathan, the third question, how will you live by faith?

39:09.16
Nathan Pile
um

39:14.77
Nathan Pile
but only Only by God's grace will I live by faith um ah is my first kind of gut response to this. um Because even... I can't do it without God's help.

39:28.09
Nathan Pile
And, and probably some of the chief ways that God is going to help me is going to be through my buddy, Kevin, and through my other friends and family who I live with every day and make blunders and mistakes and they love and forgive me.

39:47.80
Nathan Pile
And I in turn love and forgive them. Uh, and so it becomes, um,

39:56.78
Nathan Pile
Again, the way God intended, um the community helps me live, live by faith because there are days that I'm not going to trust God or I'm going to be angry with God.

40:13.13
Nathan Pile
Um, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, still 49, um, for anybody keeping score at home. Um, uh, but yeah everybody's keeping score at home.

40:22.67
Kevin Shock
Oh my gosh.

40:25.71
Kevin Shock
Yeah, everyone's keeping the score, Nathan.

40:28.52
Nathan Pile
Um, but, like in my lifetime, there have been times that I've been angry with God. ah You know, one of those would be when my grandfather died. He was the first of that generation.

40:41.20
Nathan Pile
um The first one that was really close to me that passed away. And I was angry. Like how, how dare, why, why would God take grandpa away?

40:52.73
Nathan Pile
um

40:53.29
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

40:54.16
Nathan Pile
And yet I, you know, I'm 49 and I recognize that my parents aren't getting younger. um And so at some point I'll have to wrestle with that.

41:05.32
Nathan Pile
um And I'm sure I will be angry again for a time. I just, as I was angry then for a time, you know, that's part of the grief process. Anger is one of those stages of grief.

41:18.17
Nathan Pile
And so, um you know, I, I might be a little bit older, maybe a little bit more mature. I could only wish that I would have some wisdom at that moment in time, but, um, but I would imagine there's still going to be anger.

41:35.13
Nathan Pile
Um, because I listened to my own parents as they talked about their own anger when their parents died. Um, and so recognizing that, that I will need the community that is around me at that time to be able to live in faith and trust with God,

41:57.34
Nathan Pile
during hard times, the, the, that, that level of faith and trust does, you gets shaken. Um, you know, the last week we talked about that idea of wrestling and discernment of call and, and a part of that wrestling is that is also the relationship that we have with God.

42:14.15
Nathan Pile
We're going to wrestle with that relationship with God, um and what that means.

42:16.73
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

42:18.86
Nathan Pile
And so, um, and, and if I track trace all of that back, the source of it is God. um And so when I say that, how will I live by grace ah moving forward? It's by the grace of God. It's because God has already...

42:35.09
Nathan Pile
um

42:38.82
Nathan Pile
nurtured, cared for it and created the community that will support me in those in those places and times and and and when I'm not the one hurting or struggling, I'm I then am a part of that community to support the other people in that community.

42:56.82
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

42:58.96
Nathan Pile
God uses me, Nathan, at that moment in time. That's, that's how I get used. um You know, God will use me um in those moments. And so um because there will be days that others' faith and trust in God, it will be the thing that helps to get me through. it and and And there will be days...

43:23.25
Nathan Pile
That my faith and trust in God it will help help others in their in their place.

43:33.74
Nathan Pile
but Because um when I think, when I think of things being really bad, it, it has to be bigger than me. The help has to come from someplace beyond me.

43:45.00
Nathan Pile
and so So that's why that's where I'm at. How about you? How will you live by faith?

43:51.90
Kevin Shock
Yeah. um Well, first off of your answer, I mean, I think, yes, it's true to say that only by the grace of God, that's um yeah, I think my answer is different than yours, but I, but I can't accomplish my answer without what you mentioned in your answer.

44:10.57
Nathan Pile
Sure. sure

44:12.09
Kevin Shock
Um, there was one other thing that you said right there at the end, you, Oh, you said, you know, how do you live by faith through the help of others? And I think it's important to be, I mean, I agree with that. Yes, I absolutely do. and and I think especially the other who is Jesus, that's, I mean, that's one thing in this translation that, I mean, I said that early on that we turn faith into a work, um,

44:41.17
Kevin Shock
but faith is a gift. It's a gift that other people give us, uh, the gift of showing us what trust in God is like, and also showing us what, um, trusting us too. I think that that's a faithful thing to do as a human being, trusting other people.

44:59.75
Kevin Shock
Um, certainly though, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ is what gives us the gift of faith at all. Uh, he, he first was faithful so that we can then also be faithful.

45:12.38
Kevin Shock
um So I think that, I think that faithfulness, having already said that I can't accomplish it on my own, it's not a work. But part of the key of faithfulness for me is to stop thinking that it is up to me to accomplish it all.

45:30.98
Kevin Shock
And, um, and also I think that living in faith, living by faith means that we even take on a little more risk than what we normally would because faith and self-preservation are not compatible.

45:50.50
Kevin Shock
um So putting ourselves out there, asking for forgiveness, exhibiting forgiveness, ah loving people when it's hard to do,

46:04.61
Kevin Shock
So going out of our way, and by going out of our way, I mean switching our schedule, ah you know maybe maybe taking um taking some sacrifices ourselves for the sake of somebody else.

46:17.87
Kevin Shock
ah Going out of our way to help someone else is um is a risky thing to do, but it's the kind of thing that God calls us into and the kind of thing that faithfulness allows us to do, frees us to do.

46:32.98
Kevin Shock
if we, if we trust in God, we don't have to worry about our own, our own status. We certainly don't have to worry about our own salvation because God has already taken care of that for us through Jesus.

46:47.26
Kevin Shock
Um, and, and I'm not saying that God protects those who are faithful necessarily. If you, if you, um, jump off a cliff and act as though it's a work of faith, um, you're probably going to end up

47:04.07
Kevin Shock
you know, injured or dead on the ground anyway. um I don't think that that's, don't think that's how faithfulness works, but faithfulness also, and faithfulness doesn't exist outside of relationship either.

47:08.57
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

47:16.23
Kevin Shock
We only know that Jesus was faithful because he was, he was, on he unwavered, unwaveringly obeyed his father.

47:17.90
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

47:24.78
Kevin Shock
um Faithfulness is something, I, you know, I use the word trust between human beings. and Trust requires another and an object of An object and a subject.

47:38.41
Kevin Shock
um ah Trust doesn't just happen on our own. ah So, yeah, I think that I think that faithfulness is also about is about choosing a relationship over over self.

47:52.76
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

47:55.30
Kevin Shock
But, again, I can't, I can't choose a relationship over self without the grace of God. like It's impossible for me to do on my own.

48:08.40
Kevin Shock
Yeah, so I think that's where with that answer. Okay.

48:15.12
Nathan Pile
All right. Um, yeah, I think, uh, I get, I appreciate your, um, your reflection and, the, the re the reality again, that, that, that in, in faithfulness, God is the one who's acting it. We were not, we're, we're, we're not completing,

48:38.31
Nathan Pile
um we're not completing the, the law. We're not, um,

48:45.15
Nathan Pile
us, you know, our attempts at being faithful isn't making us justified. All of that is God's action.

48:55.53
Nathan Pile
All of those, those things being treated as, um, righteous is God's act. Um, beginning, beginning and end. And the, the gift of faithfulness is, is, is, is a gift.

49:10.84
Nathan Pile
Um,

49:13.99
Nathan Pile
not able to be done without God.

49:17.61
Nathan Pile
So, um, anything else you have?

49:23.04
Kevin Shock
I don't think so.

49:25.66
Nathan Pile
All right. Some additional texts. If you, um there are a lot here that you can, you can select and pick.

49:32.85
Kevin Shock
Well, that's because, yeah, it's because it's two Sundays worth.

49:35.06
Nathan Pile
So there's, there are readings. Yeah. There's two Sunday, two, two sets of, of texts here. So um our, the our reading is from the reformation list of readings. And so the others with that, that kind of fit Jeremiah 31, the,

49:55.13
Nathan Pile
chapter 31, verse 31 through 46, and John chapter 8, psalm forty six and john chapter eight 31 through 36. This is the gospel story, or Jesus says, continue in my word and know, and you will know the truth. Again, John, John's gospel being one of of of communicating the truth, of of making that, that's a part, big theme in the gospel of John. And we hear it on this Reformation

50:25.89
Nathan Pile
um Sunday as a gospel text. The additional, these these other readings are for um whatever Sunday of ordinary time or Sundays after, Sundays after, Sundays after, we got to be getting close to the

50:39.29
Kevin Shock
Yeah, I can't remember which it is, but...

50:46.87
Nathan Pile
the twenties, um, since, since, um, Pentecost. So this would be Jeremiah chapter 14, verse seven through 10 and 19 through 22, Jerusalem will be defeated.

51:01.71
Nathan Pile
this is the, um, prophecy that that Jerusalem will fall. Uh, Syriac, um,

51:13.42
Nathan Pile
35 verses 12, verse 12 to 17. God is impartial in justice. And here's the powerless. Psalm 84 verses one through seven. Happy are the people whose strength is in you.

51:28.59
Nathan Pile
Second Timothy chapter four, verses six to eight and 16 to 18, where you can just read all of from six to 18. um ah The good fight of faith.

51:40.63
Nathan Pile
And then Luke chapter 18, verses 9 through 14, a Pharisee and a tax collector pray together. um And then the semi-continuous readings for the this week um would be Joel chapter 2, verses 23 through 32, the Lord promises to restore Israel, and Psalm 65, your paths overflow with plenty.

52:06.27
Nathan Pile
um Kevin, as always, appreciate your... um your reflections and your sharing um your thoughts here on scripture today as we look at the reformation and ah wrestle with that, that idea of justification um or as the CEB puts it, um treated as righteous.

52:30.63
Kevin Shock
Treated as righteous. Yeah.

52:32.54
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for that. We hope to tend our faith with you again soon. Grace to you.

52:40.36
Kevin Shock
And peace.