Law of Nature

Hello everybody and welcome to the first church service of the new year. This year, we’re doing what you proposed us to do and we’re teaching you things that you wanted to preached to about. Let me tell you a little bit of why we’re starting our January a little differently than we usually do. This year, we start with a series called doctrine. Usually around this time of the year, we’re trying to dissect our past year and rebuild for a future in this year. But instead, what we’re doing is giving you a foundation so that you can build on your own. Therefore we have this series called, “doctrine.” This series, that should be 8 weeks, but we only have time for four weeks, is divided into four foundational pieces of what this church believes. I’m saying this because its from these four foundational topics that everything we do as a church becomes justified. Here’s what I mean by that. The activities we engage in, the rationale for doing the things we do, the way we do them, it’s because we believe these four things so wholeheartedly that to deviate from these things would be counterintuitive to who we are as a church.

• 1/6 – Natural Law: why people do the things that they do
• 1/13 – Forgiveness of Sins: Why Jesus had to die to fulfill the law
• 1/20 – Outreach: Doing good at a cost to us
• 1/27 – Communion: sour bread and almost expiring grape juice as symbolism for the second coming

Let me define Natural Law to you. I’m not talking about the natural laws of science as defined by Newton. I’m taking about what’s natural about the way we do things and the rationale human beings have about doing them. Very simply, natural law, if you don’t know, is the reason people behave without them knowing why they do what they do. I’m not talking philosophically, I’m talking practically. Natural law is the absolute, fundamental human instinct that is present over all human beings. I haven’t explained it yet, you didn’t miss anything. Here’s where people are going to get caught up. People are going to say, well, that’s morality, and morality is an evolving beast and it depends on culture and etc, etc. But I’m not talking about subject right or wrong. I just talked in a circle. So let me give you an example: WWII. There were the people who were “right” and they were called the “Allies” and then there were people who were “wrong” and they were called the “Axis.” But if you think about it in their context, the people in the “Axis” powers found that they were “right” and the “Allies” were wrong for opposing them. Yeah, they even got the Bible involved and long story short, the “Allies” were the good and the “right” because we won the war; but it was subjective and it was subjective because we didn’t care who was right and who was wrong, as a country. We only entered the war, after years of double dealing because we wanted revenge from a terrorist attack. Am I right? Who could blame us? We were in relative peace, we were making lots of money. If there was an objective “right” in terms of morality, then the United States of America would have done something from the beginning of the war that was supposed to be “Good” versus “Evil.” Here’s what I’m talking about when I’m talking about natural law:  it is human nature, in every society and every age, that human beings want to be treated better and received better than is reciprocated. I’m saying that natural law dictates to the human being that we deserve more and better every single time, without a fault and that if we can’t do the same, we’re okay with the excuse that the other person didn’t deserve it. I’m going to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. I’m calling to your attention the fact that this year, this month or very more likely, this day, we failed to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from other people and naturally, it was okay for us to accept our own excuses but have most unrighteously condemned somebody else for doing the same. You promised your mom or dad or sibling or friend that you’d do such and such and you never done it and the reason you didn’t do it was because when you promised it you didn’t realize how busy you’d be. You know what I’m saying? Natural law is our ability, as human beings to be hypocritical at best, and malignantly evil at the very worst. So let’s begin to dissect it. Why do we expect more from people? Genesis 1, let’s go. ²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ²⁸ And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” – Genesis 1:26-28 It’s plainly simple in verses 27-28. We were created in the image of God and we were told to be rulers over the creation given to us by God. We expect more from people because when God created people, and you can say that you don’t believe in the literal creation, but I do, and I’m not talking about the merits of the philosophical nuances of this passage. Even if you don’t believe this as fact, but more of an allegory—it explains something about human nature—we expect more to be given to us because we’re predisposed to being “special” as gifted to us by God through His blessing. Further, we were told to be kings and queens over everything that lives. Honestly, if we expected more from everybody and everything and we got more than we expected each and every time, we’d be living in utopia. It would be a fantastic life. It would be paradise. But we don’t. That’s always been the problem. It always seems as though we’re walking against the grain and against the current. No matter what we do or how we do it, we just never catch a break or get what we rightly deserve. (what we consider rightly deserved is another story and question for another day). But here’s the problem. Genesis 3. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,³ but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. ⁸ And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”  – Genesis 3:1-10 Verse 7. Why do you think that it was imperative for them to make themselves clothes? They were naked all this time already. Yeah. It was shame. But shame from what? The law of nature therefore is this: that we want and expect people to behave a certain way, but we, in ourselves, never act that way, and then we cover up for not acting that way. I just explained the wireframe plotlines of every novel that you ever want to read and every movie you’d ever watched. Shoot, it explains the news every single night of the week. Why do people do bad things? It’s because they are covering something about themselves up that they are ashamed of. They expected more from the people around them, but they didn’t get and they couldn’t keep up themselves so they commit crazy atrocities. This is human nature. We condemn ourselves and we do the stupid things we do and justify our stupidity and condemn in everybody else. Your question is then, why doesn’t God do anything about it and that’s simple, let’s go to Romans 1. ¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. ²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!  – Romans 1:18-25 Verse 21-25—People chose and God allowed it. You see, people got it all wrong. Christianity is not a set of rules and regulations. It really isn’t. Christianity is a choice in relationship. We don’t become Christians because we do certain things or don’t’ do certain things or adhere to one set of moral codes. Christianity is simply a decision and matter of trust that we make, knowing that we will never meet our end of the bargain, but we’re forgiven of that. There is no political program. Human nature, if you don’t know already, naturally is inclined to expect more than what you can give and then to vehemently attack other people knowing that failing to do so will result only in your shame for not coming up with your side of the bargain. Natural law does one thing—it takes us away from being honest with ourselves. It takes us away from the way God naturally created things to be. This is what you have to understand about natural law. People will always do what is self-serving and then never be able to compensate. For example, if it came to saving your life vs their own, very rarely do you see purple hearts given out by the President. That’s exactly why. It’s natural law. Paul writes about it to the church in Rome—people are shown what God wants for their lives, and they walk away from it. Just think about your decision making sometimes. Sometimes you do what’s intentionally harmful for you despite the fact you knew that. Like on Tuesday, New Years Day. I knew that eating a box of clementines by myself would be bad for me, but I did it anyways and then ended up sitting on my porcelain throne the rest of the night because I’m an idiot. But imagine if somebody else did that—yeah, I’d be ridiculing them. Let’s be honest at least for the moment. We are inclined to naturally self-sabotage ourselves. But we get a choice. We don’t have free will because nobody has philosophic free will unless you are will itself and we don’t have that because we didn’t get to choose our parents or when we were born, we were sort of held to those things and we get to make choices from where we are and when we are in life. So we have this grand choice. This grand choice is to know that we will always work against ourselves at best and always be expecting more; but that there is hope so that we don’t cyclically end up in a broken record the rest of our lives. Or we can do nothing.  Let’s go to Romans 8. ¹² So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. ¹³ For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. – Romans 8:12-16 So this is your choice and this can easily be your choice when we live life—that we trust in God, like our money says, and believe that Jesus saves us from ourselves and our inability to live up to our own double standard or just live in fear. The fear of being found out, so we live offensively. Making this choice doesn’t mean that you’ll be less inclined to mess yourself up. It makes you understand and revaluate yourself as a person who can now live with his or her own humanity and realize that the intentionality you once had for people is different than before. It is to see a vision within people that does more than expect them to play a particular role. It is to live with people, choosing to do for them more than you’ll ever be able to do and expect nothing for it. This is what Christianity is about—a transforming relationship because God constantly is doing more for you than you’ll ever be able to do for Him. This week, I want you to try it. That you’ll stop living into your subconscious, exaggerated, irrational fears which no amount of moral effort can do anything about and choose to do the dangerous thing by putting yourself out there and doing what Jesus did for you and me. If you don’t want to do it with strangers, do it with your friends, with your family and just see how those relationships begin to change. Let’s pray.