Wednesday, May 14 | The Flesh and the Spirit

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You can use promo code T-O-D-A-Y at checkout to get 10% off your next order. It's going to save you money and it's going to support all of us here at the Clearview Today show. So stay hydrated, stay healthy and without further ado, let's start the show. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis and we are here today in the Clearview Today studio.

Welcome to the studio. Got a great conversation with our host with the most from Coast to Toast. He's pastor from Coast to Toast.

It's out right. He's a pastor, professor, proud coffee enthusiast. He can exegete Greek flip burgers and save the church Wi-Fi all at once. He's the theological ninja in your earbuds and the face behind the pulpit.

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for our pastor, our friend, our doctor Abbadan Shah. I got the whole thing. I didn't understand the Wi-Fi. What did you say about the saving the church Wi-Fi? What does that mean?

I don't know. I got the rest of it. I was like, okay, even the burger part.

Cause I've made, I think I make good burgers. I just didn't know about the Wi-Fi. I think I was having trouble with the Wi-Fi when I was like, you guys, I wrote that as like, you guys were walking up the stairs and I was like, I always fumble over the slam pole. Coast to Toast goes crazy.

Coast to Toast is insane. Yeah. Well, Dr. Shah, our verse of the day is coming to us from Matthew chapter five, verse 14. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. You know, a lot of people don't know this, Dr. Shah, but if you're not a member of Clearview or if you're just not in the immediate area, you know, our logo is the lighthouse. Almost everything we do when we brand anything with our logo, it's got the lighthouse on it. And you chose that as our logo. You really, you chose that as our identity, really at the very founding of Clearview Church as a, as a new church.

Right. Well, we really didn't found this church. This church was always there.

When I say always, it was there when I got here and it's been there since the 1940s. And I came, my wife and I came, Nicole and I came here in 1998 as a youth pastor. And then in 1999, when the pastor at the time left to go back home to Georgia to take care of his family, I preached for the church a couple of times, and then they extended to me the call to come as a pastor. And so we were there at, at this church, I would say at least two, three years before I began to use the light, before I began to use the light imagery to represent our church. So light came before the lighthouse? Yes. Gotcha. Yes.

And initially it was just a sun rising. And I created that image in art. Okay. Like word art, is it? Or like paint? Paint, yeah. In paint, like, like meticulously one, one line after the other and putting them at an angle, angle, angle, and then creating an image out of it. Which is not easy to do, by the way. Right.

It is like people sleep on paint cause that's what you use with kids. It's difficult to get it looking like, I've seen the original design. It's difficult to get it looking. Have you seen that tabernacle Baptist church? Yeah.

And it was tabernacle Baptist church. And then there's a line on top of that. And on top of that is that rising sun made out of these, these lines.

And I did a lot of studying. It's like, okay, we want to have the light imagery. Right. Because Jesus is the light of the world and you are the light of the world.

So how do we use that? And then I also remember how people, because we're about three hours from the coast, people love the beach around here. I mean, they love the beach, but something else I noticed, it's not just that people love going to the beach. They like to bring the beach to themselves.

You're right. So one thing I noticed, and this is going back in the early 2000s, is that people would have these lighthouse props in their front yard. Have you all seen them?

Not in many years, but yes, I do. Yeah. So I'm like, what are they doing? What they're doing is since I cannot be at the beach every single day, because I have to work and I have to make a life, I'm going to bring portions and bits and pieces of the beach that I like back with me here so I can enjoy it all year round. That is my parents to a T. They will wear beach t-shirts. They've got like the beach memorabilia you put up in your beach house, like the leave only footprints taken. They have that in their actual house. Beach themed bathrooms. Shells everywhere. Seashells in the bathrooms.

Yeah. So I noticed that I was like, you know, people love the lighthouse around here because it reminds them of being at the beach. So what if we utilize that imagery to, in a sense, market the church? It may appeal to the people because it's like, oh wow, this is us.

This is me. And so I began to think about that and lighthouse, light, Jesus is the light of the world. We are the light of the world.

It worked perfectly. And so again, I created a lighthouse. So did the lighthouse come before Clearview?

No. So Clearview was already established. Clearview was already, by 2008, we had transitioned from Tabernacle Baptist Church to Clearview Baptist Church. Gotcha.

And then Clearview Church. And so we used, I created this lighthouse imagery, a logo. And again, I don't know what program I used.

I think I used Print Shop, which is another program. And I used it to create lighthouse. I didn't like it very much. The logo or the software? The logo. Okay. Because it was too rigid. It was too, it was not good.

But I was like, okay, for right now, this works. I don't know if y'all have seen that lighthouse. I think Clearview Church.

The lighthouse, it's off to the left hand side of the world. Yeah. I don't know that I've seen it. I might need to, I might need to. I've come back through like old design stuff to kind of see where, where we are.

It's like a, it's more of a rectangular look. That's another thing I appreciate about you. You save all those old logos. Nothing is deleted.

Everything is archived. And so, and then when there was another young man who worked here, who was good in art. And so I asked him to build this. So he built it and I didn't like it. I was like, okay, I want you to change some things. And I don't think he wanted to change that. I was like, no, I want you to do it.

Trust me. It's going to be good. And then slowly we began to change and put a cross on the lighthouse.

He's like, I don't know about that. I was like, no, no, put it in there because that, even though it may look sort of old fashioned, but that is a good thing. And then we put that together. And today I think we have a pretty good logo, I would say. Absolutely. It serves well.

It's timeless. I mean, we've been able to, and we've been able to apply it in various different ways. We have one that's sort of designed for kids and we have one that is like the logo, but it's sort of inverted. So there's more negative space and just, you know, we've been able to take that design as a parent design and apply it in a lot of different ways. It does what a logo is supposed to do, which is when you see it, it gives you, at least for me, it gives me a feeling. Like when I'm driving down the highway late at night, like one, two in the morning, and I see that big golden M, I get hungry.

My stomach literally growls. That's what a powerful logo is supposed to do. When I pull up in our parking lot, even just on a workday and I see the logo on the door. Yeah, there's our logo. If anyone's watching the show and doesn't know our logo. And I wanted it to be done this way. I said, look, I want you to create this thing.

It was, it was, the one that we initially created was kind of like the blue shade to it. But again, we're talking about this because you're not trying to brand a church because the church is branded on Christ. That's right. But you are trying to make it relevant for your community.

Yes, that's right. You want it to be recognizable. You want it to have some legacy behind it. So when you don't have that, you haven't put some thought into your logo and it's just something you, some image, some clip art you found and you just stuck your name on it and went with it. It's okay.

But if you spend some time with it, spend like a couple of months praying over who you are as a church, what makes you distinct, what makes you special, and then pray and ask God to give you an image. For us, it was this. Amen. And you can even see the waves on the bottom. And I told him, I said, put those waves in there. And he said, okay.

And he did it. And I said, you know, that represents that we are, sometimes we are in a stormy sea. Sometimes we find ourselves in turbulent waters. But the lighthouse is always there to guide us back. That's right.

That's right. And the lighthouse of course is Christ and his word. Amen.

Amen. And for those of you who are listening, we do have, I'm not going to announce what it is, but we do have a special project that's going to be released in the next few months. And it is titled The Lighthouse. Now, well, it's The Lighthouse with Dr. Abbadon Shan. Now, what is it? You're going to have to stay tuned and find out, but I can promise you this.

It's going to bless a lot of people. Stay tuned for more information. We got some hot takes going on in the studio here today. This is a huge segment. It's a hot take. So Ryan, this is a segment of our show, I should say for everyone where we bring an unpopular opinion or something that we think is going to cause a little bit of stir online or among our listeners. Ryan, what is your hot take for this week?

I have a hot take for this week and it is maybe the hottest of takes that we have had so far. I can't wait. So buckle in. Here we go. All right. Get ready.

Get ready. Some cereal, some, not all, some cereal is better soggy. What? If you let it get soggy, let it sit in the milk for a little bit, kind of marinate in the milk for a little bit, lose some of that structural integrity. Some cereal, better soggy. I can't go with you on that one, brother. Can you give me an example? Cap'n Crunch is one of them.

Ryan. Cap'n Crunch is one of them. Let it soak up the milk a little bit. Otherwise you're going to rip the roof of your mouth to shred. That's why I don't even eat Cap'n Crunch to begin with. Cap'n Crunch is one of them. Kellogg's is another one with the flakes.

Ryan. Put it in there. Let it get a softy, especially if you have like the red berries in there. They're dehydrated strawberries, so you need to rehydrate them a little bit with the milk.

It gets a little softer. Why are you bringing chemistry into breakfast? Dr. Shaw, please set this man straight. Tell me you don't eat soggy cereal. Not all, but some is better soggy. Tell me, Dr. Shaw, you would not put milk into your cereal and then sit there and let it, let it sog up for a little bit. Well, the, the frosted Wheaties, the, the ones that are like almost like a... Frosted Wheaties?

It look like a little sack. They can, they can be better, I think, when they're soggy. The Frosted Mini-Wheats.

Yep. Mini-Wheats. They're better if you let them get soggy. I have never even seen that. I haven't eaten them in good grief like 15 years because they're loaded with sugar.

What's the best, what's your favorite? Like if you, if your sugar, if there it is, golly, look at that. So, so you let it soak for a little bit, like how long is it? A little bit.

Like a couple, like 30 seconds? Yeah, because they don't go bad because then what happens and once you have, once you have eaten all those Wheaties, then you feel like, okay, there's this milk left, but no, if you go deep in it, you still have... If your sugar, if your calories, if none of that was a factor, what would your dream, what would, what is your favorite cereal? What would you be eating? Oh my goodness, what a question.

I don't know. Do you even eat cereal that much anymore? No, I've stopped eating cereal about a couple of years ago just to, just to, you know, take care of my sugar level. Did you ever eat the Special K protein? The protein? They had Special K that's like high in protein.

I did eat Special K. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what that protein is. It was basically like, it was like, they, it was Special K, but it just, they upped the amount of protein in every, in every serving.

Like what is the protein in it? I don't know. I'm sure they just put some sort of animal protein like in the, in the ingredients. I'm not sure.

It also could just be, it's just numbers printed on a box. I don't know what they actually... Yeah, I've never heard of that. I started eating that for a while, but then I was like, you know what? I miss Reese Puffs.

I miss, yeah, there it is. That's, that was it. Special K protein. Now that Special K is one that you absolutely cannot, you got to eat it quick because it will get soggy.

I'm not with you, man. You let it, just, you don't let it sit for like five minutes. You just let it sit for 30 seconds, maybe a minute if it's a little crunchier side and then you just, you know, it's a little softer. I would like to know what the listeners think. Write in and let us know. 2-5-2-5-8-2-5-0-2-8. Would you ever, in your natural life, just let your cereal on purpose get soggy? Just a little bit. Just a little bit. I think Dr. Shaw and I are onto something. I don't think we're alone in this. I don't know what to say.

I got to move on from that because it's starting to make me gag a little bit. Dr. Shaw, we do have a check in today coming from an anonymous listener. He wrote in, I did, his name is in the subject but I'm not going to, he didn't give his name so I'm not going to say it, but he did say this. Hey Dr. Shaw, he's from New York by the way, New York City. Thank you for writing in.

Hey Dr. Shaw and the Clearview Today team, I've just felt like I needed to write this out either for you guys or for myself. I grew up in the south in a church that demonized almost every sin imaginable. I felt like I can, I never measure up to the expectations our preacher shouted down at us from the pulpit. I spent most of my young adult life ashamed of being a fallen human which led to resentment towards the church and even towards God. I spent too many years trying to crush every part of me that felt human, every desire, emotion, or weakness.

If it didn't look like victory, it was failure. I thought I was doing the right thing and that denying the flesh meant shutting down every longing and stumble. All that to say, sorry I'm skipping ahead, all that to say within the last couple years I've joined another church that takes a much more measured approach to sin. I wanted to write into the show and say I appreciate you, I appreciate that you understand denying the works of the flesh was never supposed to meant denying humanity. It's not about hating yourself into holiness. That's a great quote.

Thanks for the show, thanks for your example, anonymous writer. That's a lot of good points in that check-in. We did an episode yesterday on the flesh, on what it means to actually like live in the flesh and you know your point yesterday was you hear that word flesh and you automatically assume okay if it's of the world or if it's if it has anything to do with being human and not being divine it is a sin.

That's what people think. But the word flesh has multiple meanings. Yeah it is a complex word and so we've focused on those four distinct meanings just looking at the book of Romans. We didn't go to all of Paul's letters, we did not go to every use of sarx in the New Testament or even the counterpart in the Old Testament in Hebrew. Right. So we just focus on sarx in the book of Romans and we found four meanings that stood out. The first one is just simply human existence.

Sarx means you are human, you have a human nature. Right. And we find that right up top in Romans chapter 1 verse 3 and 4 where Paul is describing Jesus who is fully God, fully man, has a human nature after David but also has a divine nature being fully God.

And so I believe and I think several important scholars in the field of New Testament believe that that was Paul sort of laying out what he will deal with later on in Romans chapter 7 and 8. How the human nature and the divine nature and where does the Holy Spirit come in and the old nature versus the new nature and how how we combat sin in our lives. We don't combat the old nature with the new nature. Right. The old nature is is counteracted or countered I should say by the Holy Spirit. Right. It's not this new nature that Christ gives us that combats our old nature.

No it doesn't. The old new nature does not have the power inherent to combat the old nature. Do you think that's why people will make that false claim that listen if you're a Christian if you're truly saved then you can't sin because you can't be like it is that is that where people are. They're talking about the eradication of the old nature.

Got you. That's that's that's a belief that people have it's called the eradication of the old nature which means you don't have the old nature anymore. It's gone. It's confusing to me that people hold that view because I don't have to spend very long with myself to know that I still have an old sinful nature. So let me explain it this way. The old nature is dead. The old nature is dead because the Bible tells us. Right. It's dead. You say wait a minute I thought we just said it's not and he just said that eradication of the old nature is not biblical what what what I'm confused right.

A little bit. So what happens when a person dies? What happens to a human being? A human being is body and soul. Right. The immaterial and the material or the material and immaterial. Material would be your body immaterial would be your spirit or your soul. Right.

So what happens to a person when they die? There's a separation between the immaterial and the material. Right. What happens to the material side? It remains.

I mean it starts to go composed. Right. It's dead.

Right. It's dead. It's over. You gotta bury it.

It's gone. Now of course eventually at the resurrection both sinners and saved will come back. One with a glorified body like Christ. The other one with a same body but with the eternal powers to stay alive but in a state of punishment in hell. Okay. So it's very different. But what happens to that person?

Now think about what we're saying here. A person has died. The body is done.

What happens to the person? Is the spirit also dead? No. The spirit is with God. Right. So also with our old nature that when it's dead the body is dead but the spirit lives on. The spirit of the old nature. Right. So the combat that is taking place is between the spirit of the old nature and the holy spirit. That's a good point.

That makes sense. Because with human death we understand there's a separation. There's soul over here.

Bodies over here. But with spiritual death we want to make it separate. If the old nature is dead then it has to be dead completely.

It has to be annihilated. But just like our death there's a dual death within our old nature as well. The body of the old nature, the physical is gone. Which is not even physical because it's a nature but you know what I'm saying. But the spirit of the old nature is still there.

It's still alive. Right. And that's where the conflict is. And these are not just ideas that I've found out of thin air. They are very biblical. So it's right here in Romans chapter 8 and verse 9. It says, but you are not in the flesh but in the spirit. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ he is not his.

I'm reading from Romans chapter 8. If Christ is in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness. So the body is not my physical body it's the body of my old nature.

Right. It's dead but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. So Paul is a deep deep theologian and he is not just randomly coming up with these ideas. This is based on the scriptures.

This is based on the old testament. So in a sense he's talking about the old nature but in the process he's also talking about how one day we will experience resurrection in our in our body as well in our physical side of us. So when people so when people do say okay the new nature is at combat with the old nature is it just lack of understanding or is that a completely different theology? It's all it's a lack of it's a completely different theology coming from a lack of understanding. Gotcha gotcha okay. You have to wrestle with these verses you have to study them in their context you have to properly exegete them linguistically and contextually and maybe even rhetorically in some places and then canonically and and theologically systematic theology wise biblical theology you have to use all of that to go okay what is really being said and once you see that you go layers of implications sometimes not layers of meanings because it's one meaning but but the meaning is not just like one tiny little segment it has many things Paul is explaining here. Would you say would you say that the new nature can't combat the old nature because it's not strong enough it needs the holy spirit or would you say the new nature is not even designed to function like that it's not even supposed because nature cannot fight the old nature how how how can it do that it's it's so it's not that it's not capable or not strong enough it's not designed to do that it's not designed to do that got you new nature is your new mindset how can the new mindset fight the old mindset you can people can say yeah you should but how see now I am I am focused on Christ and I want to do things that please him I want to turn away from sin so I'm going to fight to keep down I'm going to fight like your nature's going to fight who's going to fight yeah but if you read scripture carefully it's not you who's fighting it's the holy spirit who's fighting got you yeah that makes sense yeah the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh these are contrary to one another that's what Paul says got it so when you really understand these things and unfortunately you know I hate to say that you can go to seminary and not learn these doctrines these are not secretive these are not something like in a you have to go to a special class or special meeting it just requires you to wrestle with it right you know I wonder you know I'm reading this and I'm thinking so many people like the guy that write in I think they're putting it on themselves right like they're putting on themselves that they have to fight this old nature right with some help from the holy spirit well that's certainly the kind of language that people use I mean we have to do battle against our sin nature we have to we have to crucify ourselves we have to render ourselves dead but in reality that nature is still ours so we can't fight against it it's we need a nature that is opposed to it which is the holy spirit and if you notice here in Romans chapter 8 verse 12 if somebody wants to read that for us 8 verse 12 therefore brethren we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh keep going 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 if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body I can't do it yeah the spirit has to be the spirit I have to do it by the spirit right that's where you learn how to submit to the leadership of the holy spirit the discipline some people ask about the discipline why does God discipline us in all of this discipline us because we are choosing the old way so God has to discipline us not punish us there's a big difference between punishment and discipline punishment is reserved for those who reject God and one day the real punishment is not in this life the real punishment I mean there are there are certain levels of punishment even now but the real punishment is in the life to come yeah that makes a good that makes a good sense that makes that's a good point I remember feeling in my late teenage years like early 20s feeling like this gentleman who wrote in where you feel kind of resentful where it's like I'm going to the Christian life is I get no none of the credit all of the blame and that was kind of like a mindset that I had but growing up and maturing you realize that that's sort of true but in a good way you know what I mean like like when I choose to do good it's not me choosing like I overcame it's that I submitted to the holy spirit right you know what I mean right and so when I choose sin I yes I'm choosing sin but I'm also choosing not to submit so that in the submission of doing the right things or doing good works or whatever it is it's not like hey you chose the right thing and then you acted it out in your own power good for you you chose to submit and let the holy spirit do what he wanted to do right and I think that genuinely looking at that way makes a huge difference you are led by the spirit because it takes the resentment out it's helpful because you realize you're not it doesn't all rest on your shoulders you're not the one fighting you're submitting to the one who is fighting on your behalf that's right which is a much more beautiful truth when you think about it that God is actually waging war for us it's not just up to us to you know hopefully do our best and follow God the best we can yeah Christianity is not something that you can turn on when you come to church the point good that's what people want to do just uh you know flip on the the switch I'm here did my thing now I'm gone that's why the whole idea of you know I'm part of the high church or I'm more traditional minded or I like my liturgy my ritual I'm not against people who want that because I guess we all fall under the umbrella of Christianity in some ways but I think it is more detrimental to biblical true Christianity because if you're relying on ritual to do for you what this is supposed to do then how can you ever truly be satisfied or victorious in your Christian life good point if you're trusting emotions and emotionalism we don't have to go like Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy just in those segments of Christianity where the emotionalism is the way you go I feel it brother I feel right you know if that's what's going to help you win this battle I mean where do you find that in scripture right but you have a lot of people who lean on that lots of people in that camp for sure yesterday we sort of did the mass effect uh option tree you know what I mean where like mass effect style we we laid out all these different conversational paths and we took one today I want to talk about the flesh as a cosmic power unfortunately we have about two minutes left in the show you think maybe tomorrow we can talk about absolutely absolutely guys make sure you join us for tomorrow's conversation same time same same place thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible and don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes and you can always support us financially at cleareveetodayshow.com John what do you want to leave a listeners with today very very quickly we are going live on may 23rd that's part of our 24-hour prayer vigil from 7 to 9 pm we're going to be live on Facebook live on YouTube live on our church website cleareveubc.org you can write in let us know how we could be praying for you we'll pray for you live on the air or you can call us 252-582-5028 there might be someone in your life who needs this phone call who needs this prayer so give them that number tell them to call in also you can find all of Dr. Shah's exclusive content on pray.com maybe you're listening on pray.com right now head on over to Dr. Shah's page click that follow button you can also give and support the ministry big thank you to everyone who has already given and supported it means the world to us that's right we love you guys we'll see you 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