Embracing Joyful Obligation: A Divine Perspective

and he says if and if the spirit of him who raised jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you therefore brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but it's not to the flesh to live according to it [00:40:48]

and steve garber writes this while each phrase is pregnant full of meaning it's the last one that holds the key to be obligated requires that one know the reality of one situation of one's moment in time in relation to god to others to the world to be obligated who wants to be obligated means one understands one responsibility one's accountability and then acts upon it [00:19:22]

to exist is to be obligated and that is a glorious truth now when paul is writing to the church at rome he says we have an obligation, but it's not to the flesh he doesn't say what we're obligated to at least not there we'll come back to that paul and more importantly jesus is now subverting the notion of humanity and obligation and generosity and gratitude [00:51:13]

we did not create our own lives we didn't generate our own bodies we are the recipients of immense goodness all of creation is a gift to us this day is a gift to us and therefore we are obligated now this is subverting the way things were in the ancient world that paul faced when he was writing to the church at rome [00:46:24]

and he says in the ancient world not just world but generally people existed in what might be thought of as the circle of reciprocity this is kind of how the economy worked in the ancient world and the idea was that there would be a donor there would be some people that have lots and lots of wealth lots and lots of resources [00:51:52]

and then they would give a gift and uh there would be recipients the poor serfs slaves peasants and so who then would be indebted to the donor and that was the circle of reciprocity another movie to explain this one if you've ever seen the godfather at the beginning a man comes and asks the godfather for a favor for his desperate family [00:55:28]

and the godfather agrees to do it but in exchange he says there may come a day and that day may never come when i will require your services and then you will render them until that day accept this as a gift on the day of the wedding of my daughter now the way that the godfather operated was he would do favors for people so that they were indebted [00:57:44]

and turned to him and his power became that much greater and in the ancient world that was generally the idea people of wealth of great resources would give gifts money food so on that made life possible for the poor and then they were indebted to the great ones they lived with a sense of obligation to them [01:00:36]

he's saying now instead of that old circle of reciprocity that reinforced the power and wealth of the people that were in charge and lorded it over others and made their lives about just accumulating more power and more wealth he said no here's the way to understand things there is a god who is a generous and giving god [01:02:23]

and the ultimate expression of his generosity is in the cross where jesus did for all of us what we could never do jesus gave a gift that we could never repay and so our gratitude belongs to god and when paul talks about people very often what he'll say is not so much thank you but i give thanks to my god for you [01:04:41]

because all good gifts come from god and they come to us whoever us is and then god's intent is that we express our joy and gratitude and obligation much obliged to god by in turn being generous to others particularly to those who cannot repay and that's why for example jesus in john chapter 13 i think it is he washes the feet of his disciples [01:07:12]

and then he says i have set an example for you i wash your feet so that you will and then unlike the godfather he doesn't say wash my feet you will do me a favor he says you will do that for others and you will do that for the least of these because when you do that for them in some strange way jesus is present with them [01:09:36]