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This devotion accompanies themes that have been studied in the previous week’s Sunday morning Bible class. Over the next few weeks, join us at 9am on Sundays at Trinity for the following discussions! After commanding her ten-year-old to pick up the dirty laundry on his bedroom floor for the seventh time, mom is getting tired of repeating herself. And when her son protests for the seventh time, “Why do I have to do this right now?” she is out of patience. She resorts to a classic play straight from the book millions of other parents and says, “Because I said so, that’s why.” However, her son adeptly launches a counter-attack that she didn’t see coming. “But mother,” he says, “Your logic is flawed. That I should obey you because you say so is a classic example of the circular fallacy.” “The what?” the mother asks, growing evermore frustrated. “Your argument is that I should obey your authority because you have authority. Logically, this doesn’t make sense!” If this were the conversation we were met with, we’d join the mother in shouting, “Just do it already!” The circular fallacy is familiar to most Christians, because it’s exactly the fallacy we’re accused of committing. Over the last blog posts, we learned the horrible truth that we are by nature sinful (Psalm 51:3-5), but that God has laid on Christ the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6), crucifying it on the cross and therefore setting us free from sin (Romans 6:6-7). We learned how we are connected to this glorious forgiveness by God-given faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). This newly-established relationship with God expresses itself in our thankful actions and our desire to serve God and neighbor (Ephesians 5:1-2, 8-10). “And then we lived happily ever after,” right? We’re saved by Christ alone. We’re saved through Faith alone. We aren’t saved by our good works, but we live them out as expressions of thankfulness to him. Easy peasy! As you have undoubtedly learned, these matters may be so simple that a child can understand them, but living them out is the hard part (see Paul’s description of his and our struggle to live as we ought in Romans 7:7-25, and Galatians 5:16-26). How do we navigate the struggle to live as well as we should, know Christ as well as we should, and be God’s people as we know we should? The answer is simple. The Word of God serves as our constant companion to ease our doubts, calm our troubled conscience, and give us direction as we struggle to live as people of God and leave his mark on the world. How can it do all that at once? Well, because it’s the Word of God, of course! God inspired (“breathed into”) human authors his enduring Word to reveal to us the truth of sin and grace (2 Timothy 3:15-16, 2 Peter 1:21). How do we know he did? Why, he tells us, of course (see passages cited above)! Now, isn’t that “the circular fallacy”? Isn’t it flawed logic to say that I should trust what the Bible says because the Bible says to trust what it says? Maybe it doesn’t seem like the most logically airtight argument in the world, but that doesn’t make it false by any stretch. Allow me to explain: Almost all systems of belief center on one truth: we should be good. You can believe in one god or many gods. You can believe in no gods at all, or consider it an open question. No matter what, most approaches to life boil down to that fact: we should behave well. Have you ever wondered why most religions (and even forms of atheism) basically boil down to that same point? The Bible explains that this is because mankind can easily observe and conclude that some powerful person or force created this world (Psalm 19:1-4, Romans 1:20). Haven’t you also noticed that basically everyone has some idea of right and wrong? Before opening a Bible or any religious text, each person has a conscience by which they try to live rightly (Romans 2:14-15). The problem is, if that’s all you’ve got, there are still a ton of unanswered questions and unsolved problems. Who gets to define what “right and wrong” actually are? What about when I do everything “right” but still feel bad about myself? Where are we going when we die? If there is a god, who is he/she? We cannot answer these questions if all we’ve got is our own senses and intellect. This is about as far as most faith systems get us. Most. The Apostle Paul affirms in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 that nobody could have cooked up who God actually is and what he actually does for us. John 1:18 affirms that salvation from sin by God’s grace through faith alone had to be revealed to us. This needed to be revealed to us. We should trust what God says about us, the world, and our lives, because these words come from God. Does that challenge our human logic? Sure, why shouldn’t it? Jesus’ life-saving obedience of God’s will for you, death for you, resurrection for you, and current all-encompassing reign for you is a lot more than I could have ever come up with for you. And it’s a lot better. That’s what all other faith systems other than the truth of the Bible lack: grace, unconditional love. Since this truth is revealed in Scripture, I better hang onto that Scripture! Since this divine, transcendent, out-of-this-world reality of full and free salvation comes from God’s Word, I want to stay in God’s Word! My whole life I want to be singing that song many learn to sing in their childhood: “Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.” The Bible, then, becomes our constant companion. God speaks through it to soothe your troubled conscience with the Gospel, pointing always to his grace through Jesus. God grows your faith by deepening your understanding of who he is and how he works. He gives you guidance as you seek to turn your thankfulness to him into action. You’re reading this blog on the website or newsletter from a Lutheran church, so I hope you don’t mind a little more talk about Luther. Martin Luther recognized and taught that there are two main teachings in the Bible: the Law and the Gospel. When I read the Bible and discover that I’m not as well-behaved as I thought I was, that’s the Law at work. The Law reveals God’s will for his creation. When I see what God really wants from me, I am compelled to give up the charade of being “good enough for God.” That’s a good thing, even if it feels awful. It is good because it prepares me to hear the gospel, which is Scripture’s proclamation that God has saved me purely because he wants to, because he loves without conditions, and he promises to always love me and forgive me for Christ’s sake. These two teachings work together to keep us mindful of who God really is, how he really works, who we really are in Christ. “Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Once I’m comforted by the gospel, and looking for ways to say “thank you” to God, the Law returns, not to slay me all over again, but as a useful guide to help me find my direction as God’s dear child. I might need to come up with better ways to explain why obeying my commands is a good idea than saying, “Because I say so,” but do we really need any other explanation for how we can be sure God loves us than “Because he says so”? And knowing that this is the God who wants what is best for me, whose will is always good (Psalm 106:1), who is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does (Psalm 145:17), do I really need any more justification for following what he has to say than, “Because he says so”? I realize that this may bring up a whole host of other questions. I should hope that it does! I likewise hope that you’ll join us in our discussions of these things in our 9am Bible Class every Sunday Morning. You are welcome to reach out to us at any time. We would love to continue the conversation with you! God bless you through the revelation of his love that he gives in his Word! Pastor Mike Cherney

This devotion accompanies themes that have been studied in the previous week’s Sunday morning Bible class. Over the next few weeks, join us at 9am on Sundays at Trinity for the following discussions! A high school cafeteria can be a scary place. More than just a place to find nourishment for the second half of the school day, one’s behavior in the cafeteria is governed by unwritten rules and invisible forces. Getting a tray of food is not the hard part, but what happens after. Where you park that tray of room-temperature pizza and baby carrots is the most important thing you do in that cafeteria – in the eyes of the rest of the students, anyway. Where you sit says a lot. Whom you can or should sit next to is thoroughly scrutinized. Apparently, the religious group known as the Pharisees had not outgrown this adolescent obsession with such scrutiny. Mark records for us that they were viciously critical of Jesus for no smaller a reason than the people with whom he chose to sit and eat. “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” they asked (Mark 2:16). Jesus sat with the lowest of the low – the social outcasts. Jesus knew he would fall under that kind of criticism. He sat with these people intentionally. He wanted to show by a simple but friendly gesture of sharing a meal that the love and forgiveness he came to bring is for everyone. He replied to his critics, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). In other words, if you catch Jesus showing love to people who don’t deserve it, good! You are noticing why he came in the first place. Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, all need to be justified by God’s grace. Thanks to Christ, we are (Romans 3:23). We are saved by God’s grace alone (Ephesians 2:8). So everyone is going to heaven, then, right? Because Jesus came to save all people from their sins (1 John 2:2) why isn’t everyone’s relationship with God restored? John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,” so doesn’t that mean we are all saved? That Jesus has done the work of justifying the whole world (Romans 3:23), of reconciling the world to God through his sacrifice (2 Corinthians 5:18-19), of atoning for all sins (1 John 2:2), is an objective fact. But don’t forget how the most famous verse of the Bible ends: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Faith is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8) that connects you to the work Jesus accomplished for you, summarized by the term “gospel” (Romans 1:16-17). But what even is faith, and how do we get it? Faith is confidence (Hebrews 11:1). It is trust (2 Corinthians 4:8). Faith is as simple as looking at Jesus and saying, “That’s my Savior!” (John 3:14-15). “Faith” is another way of talking about the trust-relationship with God that flows from understanding that he has saved you from all your sins (Psalm 13:5-6). In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the titular vampire is only able to enter the homes of those who willingly invite him in. A lot of people think that’s how Jesus works, too. But clearly, in the sinful state we inherit, we are incapable of inviting him into our hearts. Before this trust-relationship with God happened, we didn’t know God nor wanted to (Romans 1:21), and if we did, we would have opposed him with all our might (Romans 8:6-7, see also Ephesians 2:1). So clearly, if it were up to us to make this relationship with God happen, we have no chance. We are too far gone on our own to accept God into our own hearts or make a decision to follow and trust in him. But Jesus barges into our lives and wins us into his kingdom by his love. He makes a home of our hearts through his glorious gospel (Ephesians 3:16-19), freeing us from our sin-darkened minds by showing us the light of his love and grace. He does this through the gospel (Romans 10:17, Romans 1:16,17). Through the gospel itself, Jesus changes our hearts from enemies of God to his trusting children; from spiritually dead to spiritually alive; from dreadful objects of wrath to heirs of eternal life (Romans 9:9-11,14-17). This is how much God loves you: not only does he forgive you your sin, but he uses the message of your forgiveness to breathe the breath of life into your heart, so that you are now able to rest secure in him. The reason some aren’t going to heaven is not because Jesus didn’t die for them. Nor is it because God doesn’t want them to be saved (1 Timothy 2:3-6). It is because of their own rejection of the gospel (John 3:17-20). Do you have to understand all 66 books of the Bible in order to be saved? Do you have to be able to explain deep theological concepts? Or is it just enough to know the name of Jesus? The key word to remember here is “trust.” As soon as a baby emerges from the womb, she trusts in her mother. A severely disabled patient trusts the compassionate nurse that attends him. Trust does not depend on intellect. The kind of trust we’re talking about is a spiritual thing, not just an intellectual thing. Remember that Jesus described saving faith as simply looking to him and thinking, “That’s my Savior” (John 3:14-15). A baby, a double PhD Philosophy professor, or a fourteen-year-old struggling to find his way through freshman year are all capable of relying on the goodness of God to save them. If I’m saved apart from anything I can do to earn or deserve it, and the faith that I have in my heart didn’t get there by my decision or inviting it in, but is a gift from God, what kind of life am I supposed to live? You will notice that Scripture answers this question very thoroughly, but if we forget what has been said previously, we’ll miss the point. Yes, God has plenty of things to say about the kind of people we should be, but remember that you are different now. Now you have been changed, taught by God himself to rely on him for all goodness, for love, for salvation, and for his strength – apart from anything you can do (Ephesians 2:8-9). Scripture’s encouragements for how we should live can be summarized this way: “Live as the person you now are.” I wish we had more time to discuss this. For now, see Ephesians 4:1-6, Ephesians 5:1-10, Romans 8:1-17. There are many other passages, but those will be a great start. When Jesus sat with the tax collectors and sinners, he loved them despite their sinful failures. He showed his forgiveness, and then would have explained how to live in the light of that forgiveness (see the example of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:9-10).  We would love it if you joined us as this conversation continues in our Bible class at 9:00am every Sunday morning. We also would love to hear from you on this or any topic, so please get in touch with us! God bless you with rest, knowing that your relationship with him is secure in Christ. May God give you guidance and courage to live out that relationship every day! Pastor Mike Cherney