Called to be Transformed

May 26, 2019 Background Scripture: Romans 12 Lesson Passage: Romans 12:1 – 8 I never get tired of meditating on this passage of scripture. It seems that every time I revisit this passage, I learn something new from it. God does not save us and then leave us in the spiritual condition that we were in prior to salvation. At the time that God saves us, He places the Spirit of Christ in us. The indwelling Spirit convicts, convinces, and instructs us in all truths. We cannot have this embodiment of the Spirit within us and continue to comfortably live lives contrary to the revealed will of God for us. Christians have the capacity to experience many of the things that Jesus experienced in this life. Jesus was human with the Spirit of God in him. Jesus did not have sin in his flesh, but his human flesh still had desires and tendencies in it. Jesus lived victoriously in this world because he kept his flesh under subjection through fasting and built up his spirit person through continuous prayer. So how are Christians able to do that today? That is the subject of our lesson passage. We are born into this world with a desire to be conformed to the world. We are also born into this world with sin in our flesh. When God saves us, He destroys the power of sin in us. We are no longer slaves to sin. Being a slave means that we do what the slave master wants as though it is okay for us to do it. Sin is no longer a slave master to a saved person; however, we can still choose to submit ourselves to sin as its servants. Having a slave’s mentality is a natural tendency for us even after we are saved. We can overcome this tendency by renewing our minds with the word of God. It is this renewal of the Christian’s mind with the word of God that causes a transformation in the life of the Christian. Through transformation, we develop new impulses and desires that are aligned with the will of God. With sin’s power over us broken and a renewed mind, we can walk in a newness of life. This is the life Christians are saved to live in this world. We cannot do it without being transformed. We are called to be transformed so that we can become instruments of God’s peace in this world. God does not want anyone to live a sinful life—especially Christians. When Christians live in this manner, it dishonors God and provides an opportunity for God’s enemy to rejoice. Our lives should reflect what is the will of God for people in this world. We cannot be transformed by simply having a “made-up” mind. We must have a renewed mind. Transformation is not dressing up the old. Transformation is a complete overhaul of the person so they no longer behave or appear the way they previously did. Transformation brings about a new creation not a cleaned up old one. Through transformation, the individual becomes a new person. We are transformed as we submit ourselves to the Spirit and allow our minds to be renewed with the word of God. We have an active role to play in transformation. God will do the transforming but we must be submissive to Him and His will. Transformation is God’s will for the saved person. Robert C. Hudson April 15, 2019

Called to Righteousness

May 5, 2019 Background Scripture: Romans 3 Lesson Passage: Romans 3:21 – 31 Quite often, conversations about righteousness devolve into different opinions about what constitutes self-righteousness. Any meaningful conversation about righteousness must be between parties who recognize an undeniable standard for what is righteousness. For those of the Christian faith, that standard is established by God. First and foremost, righteousness to a Christian should be viewed as being in right standing with God. Regardless of how one stacks up in comparison to another person, the issue that remains to be settled is: How does one stack up against God’s requirement? God’s standard for righteousness is more than situational or comparisons. God’s standard requires us to recognize what keeps us from being in right standing with Him. He tells us that our sin separates us from Him. Our sin is as much a part of our spiritual being as our DNA is a part of our physical body. No matter how well we stack up against another person, our sin keeps us from being in right standing with God. We can never attain to true righteousness through our efforts to increase our self-righteousness. We can become better than others and yet remain unrighteous and under the condemnation of God. Our hope of true righteousness lies in the text of our lesson today. In the text, God condemns all who are born of man and woman as unrighteous. Even those who received the oracles of God and were attempting to live by them were under the same condemnation. The text goes on to point out the behavior we exhibit as proof of our unrighteousness. God provided His oracles, the Law, through Moses to point out the unrighteousness that is in us. Many have and continue to use the Law in failed attempts to demonstrate a behavior that, on the surface, looks like righteous behavior, or righteousness. When the Law says that something is wrong, we attempt to do the opposite. When the Law says something is right, we attempt to do more of it. None of those things will ever make us righteous—they can make us better than other people, relatively speaking. But we will still fall short of God’s requirement. Sin is so intertwined within the soul of mankind that we cannot extract it no matter what we do or don’t do. Sin can naturally cause wrong behavior. However, behaving correctly does not remove sin. The Law only makes the presence of sin obvious. Behaving appropriately, according to the Law, cannot remove sin. A mirror reflects the image of whatever is place before it. A mirror does not judge, nor does it alter what is before it. Likewise, the Law reflects the sin of the one that is before it. It is up to the person to recognize sin and accept that God is the only judge of sin. God makes a person righteous by judging the sin and freeing the person of its punishment. God did this through the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross of Calvary for the sins of the world. All who accept by faith the death of Jesus as God’s punishment for their sin will receive the righteousness of God. This is the only way the person is put in right standing with God. It is not through individual effort that righteousness is attained. When God calls us to righteousness, He calls us to accept by faith Jesus as the one who took our place in God’s judgment of our sin. When we accept that our sin makes us unrighteous, and accept by faith, that Jesus was punished for our sin, then we show that we are in agreement with the Law. Robert C. Hudson

Called to Mutual Acceptance

May 19, 2019 Background Scripture: Romans 11 Lesson Passage: Romans 11:11 – 24 “Can we all just get along?” That’s the timeless question posed to the television cameras by the now infamous Rodney King during the Los Angeles riots on May 1, 1992. The unpolished Rodney King appeared to be a street addict as his image flashed on television screens across the world. He was responding to the horrific sight of the riot that broke out in California after the “not guilty” verdict was returned for the cops that beat him unmercifully even while a camera was recording it all. People started a riot because they had seen with their own eyes that the cops were not behaving in a way that would suggest they were trying to serve the public’s interest as they beat the unarmed Rodney King. It would have seemed normal for Rodney King to have endorsed the California riot as a proper response by the public to the disgrace of an unjust so-called justice system. However, in the midst of a city set afire and innocent people (especially the young and old) being hurt by other citizens, it was Rodney King who spoke the most sensible words of all: “Can we all just get along?”. Our lesson today is a reminder that Christians are called of God to see non-Christian Jews as brothers beloved. Paul explained to the church at Rome that it was the Jews’ rejection of the Messiah in his first advent that opened the door for gentiles to be brought into the saving grace of God. Judaism is the spiritual foundation of Christianity. All of the Law and the promises of God in the Old Testament find fulfillment in Christ. The new Testament isn’t a replacement of the Old Testament but a fulfillment of it. The Old Testament, or old covenant, was an agreement between God and Abraham and his descendants. This covenant was renewed and passed down through the Jewish patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob. The seed of promise came through a branch of Jacob (Israel). This branch is the tribe of Judah and the seed is Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was a direct descendant of King David and the promised heir that Israel awaited as the eternal king. Jesus presented himself to Israel as their long-awaited king and they rejected him. Jesus met all of the criteria that God had prescribed but he did not meet the expectations of the worldly-minded Jewish leaders who rejected him. In his rejection, Jesus became the sin sacrifice that humanity needed. His innocent (sinless) blood was shed for the remission of sins for many. Many gentiles, who heard the good news of Jesus' sacrifice being preached, willingly accepted God’s offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. Through this salvation, they (and we) were grafted into the covenant promises of God. One provision of the covenant was that all nations would be blessed through Abraham—who is the father of the faithful. Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary’s cross opened the door for the gentiles to be grafted in. Paul admonished the Christians at Rome to not think that they were more than the Jews. It was through the Jews’ rejection of the Messiah that gentiles have been grafted into the covenant of God. Gentiles should accept that the Jews are still the object of God’s covenant promises and plans and Jews should accept that God is now grafting gentiles into that covenant. God calls us to accept each other in Christ. “Can we all just get along?” Robert C. Hudson April 15, 2019

Called to Life in the Spirit

May 12, 2019 Background Scripture: Romans 8 Lesson Passage: Romans 8:1 – 14 This is a perfect follow up to last week’s lesson. Last week’s lesson laid the groundwork for the legal side of salvation, i.e., justification. Last week’s text made clear the need for God to be the justifier and the one to make us righteous. Today’s lesson concerns the life of a saved person. It describes sanctification as an ongoing spiritual process within the believer. God does not merely call us to a title or position—justification being the believer’s position in Christ. God calls us to a lifestyle of spiritual living; which we call sanctification. Why is sanctification so important? Christians have been saved and separated in the world. We have not been removed from the world. For what reason, then, would God save us from the destination of the world but yet leave us in the world? Christians are left in the world to be used by God to accomplish His purpose for the world. The bible states that, God does not desire that any person should perish. How would perishing people know that they are perishing, and that there is a solution to the dilemma that they are in? God works through the life of the believer to communicate with the world. Hence, there is a need for believers to be in the world but not of the world. Christians living in the world are not just here with a verbal message or proclamation. Our lives are to be living testimonies of the grace of God towards us. If Christians live the same defeated lives as non-believers, then why should a non-believer even consider the verbal message of a Christian? Non-believers need to see something different in the life of Christians—even if it is just a calming peace in the midst of life’s turbulence. Through salvation, God has set us free from the law of sin and death. Through the Law we could see ourselves being controlled by our flesh which keeps leading us to act contrary to the Law. Therefore, we are convicted by the Law yet controlled by the flesh to walk contrary to it. This is the misery of the body of sin that Paul described in Romans 7. It is a never-ending cycle. Non-believers know this as “normal” and are not likely to seek to change unless convicted by the Law to repent. Once convicted, the only hope of breaking the cycle of sin and death is to turn to God through Jesus Christ. When we place our faith in the saving power of Jesus Christ, God breaks the cycle for us. That’s the reason sin becomes a choice for Christians. The desire to sin is still in the flesh of a Christian but sin no longer has power over the Christian. That’s the essence of life in the Spirit. This newness of life that comes with salvation empowers Christians to live a life that witnesses to the world concerning the saving grace of God. God calls us to walk in this life victoriously by obeying the Spirit of Christ in us and not yielding to the desires of the flesh. Robert C. Hudson March 1, 2019