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Are We Softening Scripture? Jesus, Divorce, and the Cost of Grace · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity
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  just sufficient to flavor to be pleased or
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  gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what
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  we bring to your table today might add some spice
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  to your life welcome back to
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  another episode of relish i am your host roan miller
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  this is pastor don patterson don how are
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  you doing today doing well doing well so am i
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  good glad we're here today so i'm glad we're
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  here yeah so i have a question for
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  you to start out yeah have you ever been
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  mad or upset with god um i
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  don't know i think mad is a little stronger
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  of a word but when i see it
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  had been sophomore year and i broke my
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  foot playing i so i'm a two-sport athlete
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  in the spring I played soccer and golf and I
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  prioritized golf and I was
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  having a pretty good year and then in a soccer game towards the end of the season
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  I broke my basically broke my foot and so I wasn't able soccer was done with
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  I I couldn't run at all and I tried golfing on it but it didn't it didn't go great and so I I didn't,
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  Didn't do good enough to advance to state. Oh, yeah. So that was a bummer.
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  And there was a little like kind of asking God why he would allow my foot to get hurt like that.
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  But nothing too serious.
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  I haven't had like fits of rage against God. Sits of rage. Okay, good.
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  Yeah. Yeah. I remember my one time, I was really ticked to God when Michael passed away.
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  And that was my time when I really was. And then he gave me those three words.
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  I asked him, I just yelled out at him, so why did you let my son die?
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  After all this, I've invested. And he said, well, my son died too.
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  Yeah. My son died too. I guess it's four words.
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  Yeah. But it helped put all that in perspective.
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  Interesting how God does that, puts things in perspective. Yeah.
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  Of course, we have to be listening to get the perspective.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes listening is the hard part, but yeah, it'll come.
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  It'll come. Yeah. That's true. It'll come. And so you made sense of your foot?
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  Yep. I was able to get over it.
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  And I think one of the main things I took away from it was I have two years left.
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  And I think he brought to mind what my brother Noah, who tore his ACL his senior
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  year, and is right, missed his senior basketball season.
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  He missed his whole senior year
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  for sports because he did it in basketball season and he couldn't play.
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  He tried playing baseball a little, but I'm sure it wasn't near as enjoyable
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  for him as being healthy.
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  I did get to play a couple games with him. He came in towards the end of the
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  season, so that was fun playing with my older brother.
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  But yeah, it would have been a lot more fun if he would have been healthy. So it's true.
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  I think just him bringing to my mind that I have two years left to be able to
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  play sports. and my brother had lost his senior year.
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  Yeah, so brother brought perspective. Right, yeah. That's one thing to have
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  a brother around for. Yeah.
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  Go through some things before you and smooth out your ways. There you go. Yeah.
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  All right. In the Bible, there are a lot of rules and laws, one of them being
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  that you commit adultery if you marry someone who has been divorced.
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  Is that interpretation correct now and how does that work in today's times.
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  Really good question is it well we
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  have no reason not to say it's enforced now because if we say it's not then
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  what then all of a sudden we've become a critic of the written word right and
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  when we become a critic of the written word then where's truth i mean we sort of lost the
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  ability to, to, uh, figure that out at that point. Yeah.
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  Uh, how many sins can be, uh, what sins cannot be forgiven, right?
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  There's only one blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
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  Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. So yes, it's a sin.
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  Can it be forgiven? Yes, it can be forgiven.
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  And so then do we live out understanding that God has this, this profile,
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  this, uh, a desire for how he wants us to live.
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  And that's sort of the do's and don'ts.
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  And so he gives an outline of how we should live and then brings grace to that
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  conversation and also his truth.
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  Uh, Oh, Kyle, Kyle, uh, Oh, there's a book called method, messy grace,
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  uh, Caleb, uh, Caleb, weilenbach, something like that. Caleb. It's Caleb, not Kyle.
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  And in this grit, I think what Caleb does in that book that really maybe points to your question.
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  So what you have is those do's and don'ts. Those are truth, right?
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  Right. They're written in the world, black and white.
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  Then we understand that Jesus brought grace. I.
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  He says, go and sin no more. Who condemns you? And she says, no one.
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  Neither do I. Go and sin no more.
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  And so Jesus acknowledges that she's sinned in adultery, but he forgives her.
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  Okay, so in the midst of this truth on one hand, and this grace on the other,
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  which is exhibited by Jesus Christ himself, is this concept of love.
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  That love that Jesus brings to the conversation between truth and grace is evident
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  in all those situations where the Pharisees are in the conversation.
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  They say, well, but it says in the law this, and then Jesus says this.
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  And so he's still trying to bring people to the truth. He does not negate truth.
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  But let's face it, who of us gets there?
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  I mean, in Romans 3.23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And it's obvious.
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  None of us can really maintain the fullness of the law. So yes, you're right.
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  To marry again is adultery. Does that mean it can't be forgiven? Yes, it can be forgiven.
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  And so do we live, in my mind, what it does is it says, do I live my life in a self-righteousness?
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  In other words, I'd be self-righteous if I say I keep all the law and I keep
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  every statute, such and such.
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  I imagine even this has cotton and other fibers in it, polyester.
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  And the law says don't put two fibers together. All right.
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  So I think maybe even my shirt violates the law. Okay.
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  None of us are going to be able to get past that. Right. But do we understand
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  that in the way that, well, that is truth and we live in grace.
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  And do we understand that God's love slices down through the middle of it through Jesus Christ.
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  And he is trying to invite us from where we need so much grace that we can't
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  get by without it to the point where we're trying to are steadfast most to live in truth.
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  Interesting. So, it's an invitation for us to think of things in a different way.
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  That we aren't, truth is truth, and we still need to maintain that as the barometer,
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  if you will, or as the compass of what we should be doing.
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  And we need to remind ourselves that in Matthew 5, I think it's verses 16 and
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  17, that Jesus says, none of that's going away.
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  None of that's going to go away He didn't come to negate any of that But to fulfill it, he says.
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  Anyone who breaks one of the, this is 19, excuse me.
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  Anyone who breaks one of the least of these command, oh, here,
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  let's go up here. I have not come to abolish the law or the prophets.
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  I've come to abolish, not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
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  I tell you the truth until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter,
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  not the least stroke of the pen will by any means disappear from the law until
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  everything is accomplished.
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  And anyone who breaks any of these commandments and teaches others,
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  oh man, teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
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  But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
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  That doesn't sound like Jesus delineates any of the importance of the law or the prophets, does it?
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  In fact, it sounds like he gives it great importance. He's embracing them.
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  And then he goes on and says I tell you unless your righteousness surpasses
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  that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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  Can we do that on our own? I don't believe so. I don't believe I can.
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  And so that grace is really, really important. And Christ's love brought us
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  that grace so that from his love, we can embrace truth.
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  Which means in the midst of this, somehow we have to confess our sins and he
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  is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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  So we get over here to truth.
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  1 John 1, 8, 9, and 10.
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  If we say we are without sin, we make God out to be a liar. That's verse 10.
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  So, basically, in the midst of this trying to live a righteous life and keep all the law,
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  we embrace the grace that's been brought by our Lord and Savior,
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  Jesus Christ, so that through His love, we can more fully embrace the truth of God's Word.
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  Yeah, it's a good illustration. And realize that we've all sinned.
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  We've all fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 3.23, 6.23.
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  That's good.
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  Did I answer your question at all? I think we got it.
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  I mean, it started out at a spot, you know, asking whether, you know, that's wrong.
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  Yeah. Yeah. What was the name of that book again? Messy Grace by Caleb...
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  Kylenbach?
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  Fritenbach? People will be able to find it by the... The Messy Grace ought to get it. Yeah.
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  Messy Grace ought to get it. But I found it is a really good book to reveal
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  that sense of who are we in light of who God is.
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  Caleb Kaltenbach. Yeah. Kaltenbach. And I think once you pull that up and realize
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  the premise to which he's coming to that book, uh, it'll spark some interest.
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  Yeah. It might even spark some discussions.
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  Uh, he is a pastor with gay parents who learned to love others without sacrificing conviction.
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  And it's, it's fascinating. I like his approach.
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  It's worth the time. But that's, that's where.
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  And you start to make sense. We want the truth.
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  And many of us say, this is this, this is the truth. And if you're not in the
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  truth, then you're lost altogether.
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  And there's credibility to that, right? There's also...
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  We don't want to downplay the importance of grace in our lives as Christians,
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  because otherwise we'd never get to righteousness without his grace.
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  And the confession is a part of embracing that grace.
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  Yeah. When you're talking about adultery being, like it is a forgivable sin.
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  I think what, as humans, it's hard for us to understand how all sins are equal in the eyes of the Lord.
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  And when we hear of somebody getting divorced, we think that's naturally,
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  we just think it's way worse than us being jealous of another person or something like that.
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  True, but we have this little tendency, it's an orneriness that we have,
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  of thinking everybody else's sin are a lot worse than mine.
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  And so if we live with that premise, then we sort of, well, oh my, at least I don't do that.
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  That's a lot like the guy that comes into the synagogue and says,
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  well, at least my sin isn't as bad as his. And that guy's sitting before God
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  and saying, Lord, forgive my sin.
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  There's no way I can approach you otherwise.
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  And Jesus says, the second guy is going to go home forgiven,
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  much more than the first guy who says, yeah, at least I don't do that.
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  And that's all part of the gospel. Yeah.
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  Is there a question about God that you still don't have the answer to? Yeah.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  I'm sure there is. I can't think of it right now. Yeah.
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  Maybe come back to it in that episode sometime or something.
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  Question, yeah, about God.
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  Yeah, the— Or just like something you don't understand maybe.
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  Yeah, why Paul talks about— Paul gives us enough fuel to think of Calvinism
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  and Arminianism out of the same book.
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  Why couldn't you make a little plainer Paul and that's more for Paul than for God but yeah,
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  let's hang on to that one okay it's not like I don't want to have a failure
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  here no doubt couldn't really answer that one because otherwise we'd have to
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  chalk one up for you you know right,
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  we'll chalk it up anyway we'll chalk it up anyway well but it's a good one to
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  get back to yeah yeah Yeah.
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  Yeah. That's a good one. We'll cycle back to it. And so you guys will have to. Keep us accountable.
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  Stay around for probably the next episode.
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  There you go. Yeah. Come back in a week and see the next one.
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  Yeah. Put a timeline on it so we get it in there. Yeah. Good idea. Yeah.
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  Do pets and animals go to heaven?
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  Well, personally, I think they do. But I don't see anything in Scripture that
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  would say they do, as far as that's concerned.
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  I can't remember any passage that says that they are redeemed and will be in heaven.
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  But I can't imagine heaven without my dog. Yeah.
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  Why would it be heaven if the dog isn't there on my lap? Yeah. Yeah.
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  Yeah, not biblically. Sentimentally, I think it's there. Right. Makes sense.
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  We'll close with one more here. What is the most important theme of the Bible?
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  God's heartfelt desire to redeem His creation, especially humanity.
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  I mean, time after time after time, humanity has disappointed God to the utmost,
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  to the point that God would discipline and even alienate his chosen people to a distant land.
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  Yet, he keeps coming back. And even after all that disappointment,
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  he'd sent his son just to get the message specifically to that people group first.
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  And then to the rest of the world.
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  And he just wants to bring us to him. He wants us home.
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  I think that's neat that when you
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  think of the author of the universe creator of
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  not only the here and now and what's around us uh but the stars and the milky
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  way and galaxies beyond what we can see that god cares for you and cares for
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  me wow he wants the very best for us,
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  to me that's that's the main theme
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  of the book the entire bible the
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  old testament and new was god's desire to
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  redeem his people his creation right i know in bible class at at school they
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  um our bible teacher does a good job of emphasizing that with israel how amount
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  of times they've turned away and God is still persistent and loving towards them. Yeah.
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  So. If that doesn't speak of love, I don't know what does. Right.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Alrighty. Well, thank you guys for joining us.
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  You have to come back and I think Don will have one for next episode or maybe the following episode.
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  Yeah. It shouldn't take too long. This is the closest thing I think we've come to.
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  Bamboozling Don but it's more of a it's not a fact-based question necessarily
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  so no no but surely Don has an opinion yeah.
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  Alrighty well thank you Don as always thank you guys for joining us and we'll
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  see you next time Lord willing,
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  thank you for joining us for this podcast feel free to become part of this ministry
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  by sharing it with others our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our
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  understanding of who God is and is calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.