That's a Good Question
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That's a Good Question
A Faith that Obeys God Above All Else
In this episode, Pastor Jon Delger and Pastor Aaron Lewis discuss the fourth sermon in our series on Elijah.
Questions that were asked this week include:
Does sinning intentionally mean I have no faith/weak faith?
Do you have any practical advice for sharing the gospel when my only encounters with non-Christians are passing interactions in public places?
I know this isn't true but it sounds like God is allowed to break his own commandments but we’re not. Help me understand this better.
Who or what is the Angel of the Lord mentioned in 2 Kings and in the OT?
When Pastor Ryan was talking about the guy he was evangelizing to but had questions he couldn’t answer, what were some of the questions that Pastor Ryan couldn’t answer at that time?
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thank you for joining us on that's a good question podcast where we answer your questions from last Sunday's sermon at Peace church we hope that these answers will encourage you and help you see the depth and beauty of the Gospel let's dive into this week's questions
Welcome to that's a good question I'm Pastor John
great to see you all thanks for joining us today we got some great questions following yesterday's sermon we have some great questions talking about Sin and how we address it in our own lives as well as talking about the gospel and how we share it so we're gonna Dive Right In Here we go question number one does sitting intentionally mean I have no faith or a weak Faith so I thought this was interesting I read this question I don't know if you thought of any examples of what somebody might be referring to I don't think of any specific examples but my initial response is just yes I think if you know what God says and you dive into sin anyways then that does mean that you have some weakness or on a healthy place and you're relationship with God now all of us in our superfect Jesus is the only perfect person so yes all of us are gonna sit in our lives but if you if you see Santa if you see the line and you jump over it anyways you know that's not a good thing that's all right that's a bad Mark in your walk with the Lord
right and that's really how I took it as well but what came to mind for me is this idea of seeing God incorrectly right so if we if we want to sin intentionally something's off in our view of God right we have his characteristics and maybe we're elevating one characteristic over another characteristic of God and we see this in our culture now quite a bit right we Elevate God is love and that becomes his defining characteristics and the other characteristics are then subservient to God is love right but so to me it's like being able to see who God is God is love but he's also just yeah and those things in our work or inner play perfectly yeah and so when I hear a question like this I always have to ask you know who or how do you view God's character yeah and what is maybe sticking out more for you someone else that's really good point that's a really good point yeah I think of Romans 6
puzzle ball is kind of addressing that he talks about grace abounding, even more, the more we sin the more grace the Lord has for us but then he says does that mean that we should send more and he says by no means right so that's not the that's not the math is there's more grace the more I sinned so I should send more no that's not the answer that means that you have an unhealthy
walk with the Lord now so thinking of some specific examples maybe some maybe the person is talking about an addiction to a certain type of sin an ongoing struggle because a lot of us have those I think a one that we talked about with men very frequently which is pornography you know somebody has an addiction a habit towards pornography and so maybe they're thinking I know that that's in but I keep jumping into it anyways I would say that that's still like we said an unhealthy place and you walk with Lord and you want to get some help with that but I also say that I think is a little bit different because it's not like you're seeing the line and just saying I don't care I'm gonna do it anyways it's something that you're falling into getting sucked into still not good you need help we have actually a group of Peace church that works on that and so contact our Men's Ministry get connected with them and likewise women kind of the women's ministry but we have specific programs to help people try to work through that but maybe that's something of but if you're somebody who's seeing the line and saying I don't care I'm gonna jump over it anyways then yeah
man there's something going on wrong with that situation absolutely yeah good great question all right oh a couple of that passages I wanted to share related to that just to back all this up is I think of in first John Jesus says if you love me you will obey my commandments so man if you aren't obeying God and your intentionally disobeying him then are you really loving the Lord think of Hebrews chapter 10 verse 26 says if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth they're no longer remains a sacrifice for sins so very serious passage about if you have if you have the Holy Spirit in your heart and you go on sinning then
do you really have the Holy Spirit in your heart and you really been saved so some questions to that space of justifying the behavior yeah right and so as soon as you make that transition from you know Grace covering the sin to a justification for Behavior then you're automatically off the rails yeah yeah
cool second one related to that here we go
I know this isn't true but it sounds like God is allowed to break his own Commandments but we're not so help me understand this better great question love the way that was asked so we're back to the sermon the pastor Ryan preached on Sunday
we talked about the three groups of 50 that come to Elijah and then fire comes out of heaven and destroys two out of the three of those groups and so Pastor Ryan shared that God is allowed to do that
namely smoke those groups of 50 men but we are not allowed to do that we don't get to just decide we're gonna go kill people yeah so how do you think about that yeah I think what initially there's a difference between murder and killing right and so it's this idea of murder is an unjustifiable yeah killing and so but then that bag is a question of what is justifiable killing and if anyone can justifiably kill it's the perfect judge right yeah and so the one who sees all knows you know the inner workings of our heart and to be able to trust in his I think what Pastor Ryan said was trust in his righteous judgment yeah and I think that's the key factor we are in able to go to that place of righteous judgment to make that kind of a decision and God is right exactly the scripture tells us that God
righteous he doesn't do evil I thought of James 1:13 that says God can't be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone so
when God is is
bringing fire out of heaven and consuming those men he's not breaking his own commandment because he's righteous right so he's not doing something evil I think what Pastor I was saying is that not that God is allowed to do evil because he can't do evil he's the very definition of good but there are some things that God can do that are not evil that if we were to do them they would be evil yes right it's you know yeah the scripture says you know God says vengeance is mine not so we don't get to we don't get to go out and just decide somebody's on righteous and so we get to kill them but God right if he decides that that's the time then he gets to execute that Justice and that's okay one more thing there is you think about satisfying God's Wrath right and so as a believer
God's Wrath was Satisfied by jesus' sacrifice on the cross right but one of the ways he's still pours out his wrath and perfect judgment is even by
giving one over to their debased mind as what it says right and so so in these kind of things it's it's not just that God kills for
you know the fun of it that's not what's going on he's working out is perfect to plan as the Esther Ryan mentioned and so and that can take that can look in so many different that can look like you know the justifiable killing but it also can look like you know the hardening of Pharaoh's heart yeah and both of those things are pouring out his radathon
pouring out his good wrath on yeah the people yeah right something you said in there I'll soon you think of this that every sin will be punished either by
The Suffering The Death of the individual who sinned or by the death of Jesus on the cross you kind of alluded to the crucifixion there yeah so either all sin gets paid for either by Jesus on the cross or by us
something right yeah yeah all right cool next question here we go
some questions about evangelism sharing the gospel here all right do you have any practical advice for sharing the gospel when my only encounters with non-christians are passing interactions in public places and we had a similar question also that said I see several patients in a day and I have about an hour of time to discuss with them I have a captive audience because my hands are in their mouths now I'm assuming that's because they're addicted I don't I I hope I hope that that's what's going on reading about yeah they say that they've shared their testimony and discuss Faith with several of them but do they have to do that with every patient all right so that's the question I thought of some things right away for the first person who says I only interact with a limited number of non-christians my first thought was just well let's go find some more non-Christian for you to hang out with right right have your neighbors over for dinner go join a club go volunteer somewhere My First Reactions just say let's let's get some more non-Christian friends
yeah how'd you say totally agree I think one of the one of the ways in which I do this and in my own life is I simply partake in my hobbies right play basketball we're yeah do some kickboxing classes those kind of things those are filled with non-christians and so we intentionally do activities that we enjoy so it's not even something that I'm begrudgingly hot gotta go do this yeah activity is that I enjoy doing that just naturally surround me with people who don't know the Lord yeah yeah I like that actually had a friend wants to tell me that he likes to share the gospel while running I'm not a good enough shape to do that but what he said he was he was a runner and he said that if you're if you're the better Runner of the two then you go for a run and the other person is more out of breath than you so you can do all the sharing yeah and they just have to listen and run so but I feel like I'd have to get in much better shape and yeah do that I I wouldn't be able to handle that that's not in mind abilities capacity right now
so to the person also who has specifically about in their job to get to share the gospel of every single person that comes across your path I'd say no we don't have we don't want to sort of legalize it and make it like that that every single human being that you interact with or that comes past the profession that you have to share the gospel with I think you should listen for the leading of the Holy Spirit and also look for the opportunity if you're sitting and I've found this in my own life that if I'm sitting with somebody and I'm asking myself oh man
should I share the gospel do I have to can I walk away that probably means you should right it means that there's probably an opportunity I know for me in a job I used to work where I worked in the trades every day I would have a lot of time in the truck or driving to and from a job site and sometimes I'd be there with just one other guy and be like all right I've got you know half an hour here to from the job site yeah to share this is probably a moment where I should say something like hey do you go to church what do you think about God what do you think about Jesus I think some of those openers are just a good way to get the conversation started enrolling absolutely
cool all right we had a couple other questions in here
very once very specific one about the text that we talked about on Sunday who or what is the Angel of the Lord mentioned in Second Kings and in the Old Testament
good question yeah you want to start us competition sure yeah that's one that that I've got asked a good handful of times I thought about studied myself I think there's a few different options so the word Angel is kind of also means like messenger so it's somebody who's speaking for the Lord so I think we could say that it's either sort of the Lord's voice kind of coming out of the air we could say that it's an angel coming down and delivering a message or we could also say that it's Jesus yeah you know we know that Jesus is God incarnate and so it makes a lot of sense based on Jesus's role that if God's gonna speak to somebody that this is the pre-incarnate Jesus right that he's God's word he's got the son he comes and he speaks on behalf of God in the Old Testament before he takes on a body he comes and speak so I think really any of those options work I definitely that's yeah that's and Genesis right with Hagar when the angel of the Lord comes and you
correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it's doing the angel of the Lord comes he's actually speaks in the first person right like I will make your descendants money to Hagar when you know talking about Ishmael and so yeah I think that's one instance where it's very clearly Jesus yeah totally well so good so perhaps of the person who's picking up on that seeing that there is a distinct character in the Old Testament known as the age of the Lord that has maybe not just any Angel but is actually the preincarnate Jesus right we only have hints at that it doesn't come out and say that specifically but I think that's a great observation all right last question we've got here for us when Pastor I was talking about the guy he was evangelizing too but had questions he couldn't answer what were some of the questions that Pastor Ryan wasn't able to answer at that time in his faith I actually texted Pastor Ryan asked him this question so here's a couple of things that he said he said a lot of those questions had to do with proof or reasons for believing other than simply saying the Bible told me so and I can relate to that I think early in
I would sort of share the gospel people and they would bring up objections about
the age of the Earth or about you know creation or about the existence of God or different proofs and arguments and I wasn't prepared to be able to make some more scientific arguments or so maybe arguments about how to prove the validity of the Bible I was able to maybe say well the Bible says this but how to go back a step further and say well this is why the Bible is true I remember I wasn't ready for those things I think that's kind of what he say and he read any of those experiences I I have I one in particular stands out is actually when I was I was in the military and my wife and I were kind of we had walked away a little bit we were kind of coming back and I just started evangelizing like crazy it didn't have a clue what I was talking about I trust now that the Lord actually redeemed a lot of those conversations that I had early on but there was a tech sergeant that would really Hammer me on the validity of the scriptures and this was at a point when I didn't even know
are multiple translations I knew there was like the King James the NIV and that's about all I need as far as translations go and he just opened my eyes that there's a 50 plus you know that's the number he used I don't know what it was at at the time and and I had no recourse I had nothing to counter that argument and I remember that feeling specifically and I think that's even why I'm so passionate about the scriptures now right yeah because he challenged me so much early on about that that I had to make sure much like what Pastor Ryan was talking about and even the gratefulness he now has for that experience I have that similar experience yes this Tech Sergeant yeah and he hammered me good yeah it was not fun I know I've had those I've walked away pretty discouraged and just feeling like oh man what am I doing here I don't I don't know what I'm doing but as Pastor I'm here on Sunday you know we don't have to that can be a chance to drive us to further stud
and growth it doesn't have to be a chance to just totally discourage us and what that's right if you're asking that question yourself why can I trust the Bible how can I trust the Bible I have a book I would recommend it's a very short one it's called seven reasons you can trust the Bible by Erwin Lutzer Lutzer I believe great little book yeah great answers in there so sweet awesome thanks Pastor Aaron yeah thanks everybody great questions hope you have an awesome week
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