The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Marks of the True Christian (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Is it easy to live the Christian life? Definitely not! Is it worth it? Absolutely! Jeff Cavins continues his discussion on what the marks of a true Christian are. Using Scripture, Jeff points to what St. Paul used to define a Christian and explains what that might look like in our lives today. Snippet from the Show Evil does not overcome evil. Good overcomes evil. Be the good. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 350, Marks of the True Christian, Part 2. Well, I want to welcome you to the show. Once again, I'm Jeff Kavens, and this is the Jeff Kaven show. And we're talking right now about family formation. In fact, we're in the midst of an ongoing series called Important Content for Family Formation. We've been talking about a lot of different things all the way from show number 344, now 50, talking about various bits of content that families really need to get a hold of if we're going to be forming our children and preparing them to live the faith. and last session we talked about the marks of the true Christian. And I attempted at least to get through Romans chapter 12, verses 9 through 21,

which is it's a different kind of section in Paul's writings where he just absolutely downloads one thing after another that really mark the true Christian, the life of a true Christian. And I've been looking at this for, I don't know, a couple months now. And my wife and I, when we pray in the morning together, I keep coming back to this and we talk about it. And I finally said, I said, you know what, I need to do a show on this because it's really grabbing a hold of my heart. And if it's grabbing a hold of my heart, well, it stands to reason it might grab a hold of your heart. I hope so. So this section of scripture is Romans chapter 12 and it is nine through 21. And last session, I actually thought I was going to get through all 20 commands

because in this little portion of scripture, which is just really rifling off one thing after another, I thought I was going to get through it in one show and then I got halfway through it. I only got through 10 of the commands. And then I had to punt, which means we're here this week. But in those first number of verses, 9 through 14, there were 10 different things that Paul said that these are the marks of a true Christian life. Like, for example, let love be genuine, hate what is evil. Number two. Number three, hold fast to what is good. Number four, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor.

And then never flag in zeal be aglow with the spirit. serve the Lord. I like that. Be a glow with the spirit. And then in verse 12, rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Verse 13, contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality. And verse 14, bless those who persecute you and bless and do not curse them. So those were the 10 in 9 through 14. And we've got another set of 10 this week that we're going to go over. By the way, if you are just joining me this week and you do want the show notes, you can you can simply text my name, Jeff Kavens, one word, Jeff Kavens, and text it to the number 3-3-777. And then we'll get you on the list to send you all the show notes going forward.

And I'll tell you what, I think what I'll do is if you didn't get in last week on the notes, I'll put last week's notes into this week's show notes as well, just to make sure that you get them all. Okay, so you have to be concerned about your family, don't you? I talk to so many people who are, they're so concerned about their kids and their grandkids and what is happening in the world with Russia and Ukraine and now in the Middle East. And they don't see, they don't see the world the way they used to see the world, say five, six, seven years ago. And they're wondering, what do we do? And automatically people kind of go into a defensive posture. You know, that, well, we're going to get up, we're going to go underground, we're going to get enough food for two years, and we're going to get ammo, and we're going to get guns and houses and everything, you know, all of that type of thing and what they call it the prepper lifestyle.

That's not my thing, but I think that what we need to do in prepping is to teach our children, not teach our children how to hide or cower or deny that there's really any problem or get ourselves into a Christian get. and never leave, I think we need to teach our children how to live in the midst of these days that we are in right now. How do you live? How do we interact with society that seems to be unhinged at every turn? Well, I do, I know we can look at it on the negative side and say, well, it's just all falling apart. The world's going to hell in a handbasket. And I don't know why they chose a handbasket for hell to go into, but that's what people think. And I just don't think that way.

I think we do have a big problem on our hands, but I also think that a problem gives way to opportunity. And the opportunities are great for us to let our light shine and to let people know what the gospel is, what the good news is, what the truth is. And that is that sin has really messed up our lives. I give you the evening news, okay, that's it. It's messed up our lives.

I don't even need to argue that point anymore. So what do we do? Well, we look to God and God says, well, I died for your sins. And now I'm going to ask you to radically reorient your life to me and to be baptized, that is to identify with Christ completely with his death, burial, and resurrection. and then to be filled with the Holy Spirit, confirmation, to receive power to live this life on a daily basis. Or as I used to say when I was a Protestant pastor to receive power, right? And that's what we need, whether you're Catholic or Protestant, you need power, the power of the Holy Spirit, to live this life.

So I'm optimistic. We've got chances and opportunities to let that light shine. I'm just here to encourage you to do it. Don't lose heart. Don't give up. Don't fall apart. Look to Jesus. He said, look, in this world, you're going to have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. And you know when he said, in this world, you're going to have tribulation, you know that that word tribulation literally in Greek means to tear apart on the inside. You're going to have times like that. Well, you're wondering what's going on, but he says, listen, be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. I've overcome the world.

So let's look at 10 more things that Paul says really mark the Christian life in Romans 12, 9 through 21. 9 through 21. We went through the first 10 in verses 9 through 14. Let's pick up with verse 15. and go through the second 10. Let's pray and let's ask the Lord to really speak to our hearts about what Paul is saying here

and not just to speak to our hearts so that we have head knowledge, but we want heart knowledge. We want that knowledge that Paul's talking about, the challenge that he's talking about. We wanted to go from our head down to our heart and hopefully out on the street where we can live it.

In our homes, at church and at work, We can live this in our marriage, our relationship with our children, our finances, our time. Every single aspect of our life is transformed by the power of God. As a result of marinating in His Word, our minds are transformed. We think differently than the world. It's just a matter of getting it out there to them. Okay, so verse 15, let's continue on with the 11th one, rejoice. This is so good.

If you're going to form your children, if you're going to teach your children, then one of the marks of a Christian that you need to teach him is this. We need to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. That's what Paul says. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Now, I find this particular verse so interesting because it is the command of God for us to rejoice with those who rejoice, but not everybody rejoices with those who rejoice. In fact, in fact, everything gets turned upside down sometimes in people's lives where they

they don't rejoice with those who rejoice, but they rejoice with those who mourn and weep. And they weep and mourn with those who are rejoicing. It's completely backward. It's Satan's church upside down. It's exactly what it is. We are called on to rejoice with those who are rejoicing. But when we are affected by envy, everything gets turned upside down. And you got to know that your kids are going to go through this.

In fact, they're probably going through it right now at school. And that is that when somebody else is blessed, they make the team, they got the A, they got the girlfriend, whatever. They made the honor roll. They made the debate team, the speech team. And they didn't. Somebody else made all those things. And they didn't. They don't rejoice with their friends typically.

What do they do? They weep. It brings them down. They become sad when other people are rejoicing. and then when your kids are rejoicing, other kids are weeping. Nobody likes to, you know, just rejoice with people, good things are happening to them. And we've talked about this on the show over the years quite a bit, this idea of envy. You know, envy is different.

And this is important to teach your kids, is that envy is different than jealousy. Jealousy is, I want what you have. Envy is, I don't want you to have what you have. And when you have what you have, I have a bad bad. day. It makes me sad. You know what this is called? And our kids need to know it. It's called a deadly sin. And it's called a deadly sin for a reason. You know what the reason is? It's deadly. It's horrible to be caught into envy, caught up in that spiral of envy. And it typically goes back to our relationship with the Lord and that we are not confident that God loves us and is providing for us. And we measure

God's love for us based on how we think God is loving other people, which is through things. Look at all the things they have. Look at all the blessings they have. God must love them more than me. Oh, that's so theologically incorrect. And so in order to overcome envy, we have to look to the Lord and we have to be content with what we have, who we are, our place in the kingdom of God, rejoice in the Lord. And again, I say, rejoice always and thank him for the blessings that we have. The person who walks in envy, your kids who may walk in envy are not looking at what they have. They're looking at what they don't have. And that'll kill you every time. That is the worst way to live your life is in envy.

And what happens if you or your spouse comes home from work or you both come home from work and you come into the home and you are all tied up in knots with envy about something at work, somebody else got something that you didn't, and they come home to somebody, you want to know, they come home to a spouse who is all caught up in envy, and then you have these two adults coming together, all caught up in envy and anger and sad and distraught, and there's your children sitting right in the middle of it. And who knows, maybe they're coming home with envy too. Now we've got an envy explosion in the home, which means you are not going to have a good evening.

The second, the second thing that Paul mentions here is in verse 16 of chapter 12. He says, live in harmony with one another. I love that. You want to be a Christian and be marked as a Christian, then live in harmony with one another. It doesn't happen just automatically, does it at all? It's like your family just needs to all work with each other. Yeah, that works every day, just all by itself. It's a miracle.

No, you've got to work at it. To live in harmony with one another, we have to work at it. Listen, I have had many, many times in our family and my relationship with Emily and the three girls where things were not harmonizing too well. And it might have been a day or two even where, you know, I don't like this. It's like, you know what it's like. it's like playing a guitar that's out of tune. Both E strings are somewhere in the D range and the F range or the G range, and it just doesn't even sound good.

And maybe your family's like that. Maybe your family's so out of, out of tune. Well, that's what Paul's saying here is that live in harmony. Tune up the family. Reach up there, grab each string. and tune that family to Christ. That's what I would encourage you to do. He says, live in harmony with one another.

Number two, or I guess I would say for this week, number three is part of verse 16. He says, live in harmony with one another. And then he says, do not be haughty. Do not be haughty. And then the third thing, he says, is but associate with the lowly. Associate with the lowly.

and then the fourth thing he says in this one verse verse 16 is never be conceded now i'll tell you what if you just took verse 16 and divided it up into four and used it as family formation you would have enough content there to last you oh a month one little point for every week live in harmony with one another do not be haughty associate with the lowly never be conceded though are so important. And let me just say this before we take our break. I love the first one, the live in harmony. You know I like that. Live in harmony with one another. And I was immediately, as I was preparing for this, I was drawn to Ephesians chapter four, verses one through three, where Paul talks about this harmony, this unity of the spirit. Listen to what he says. He said,

I therefore a prisoner for the Lord beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all lowliness and meekness with patience forbearing one another in love eager to get this here it is now eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace you see what the holy spirit is trying to do in your family is to bring together unity in the family and a bond of peace there is peace god brings peace we need to maintain the peace we don't need to invent it we don't need make it or invent it. We need to maintain it. Because if we're all focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, we're walking in the spirit, there's going to be unity. How, that's so good. So let's take a break. When we come back, I'm going to go through verses 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 because there's

some good stuff in there. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hello, my name is Father Mark Mark Toop's author of the Rejoiced Advent meditation series. And if this Advent, you're looking for a peaceful encounter with God. I invite you to order a copy of Rejoice and Advent Pilgrimage into the heart of Scripture year B. You can find out more at rejoice program.com. God bless you. Well, welcome back, and we're talking about important content for family formation. And we're talking about the marks of a true Christian today. And there are 20 of them in Romans 12, 9 through 21. Before the break, we got all the way up to Where did we get all the way up to?

16. Wow, there was so many in verse 16 that I thought we were further along here. Okay, so verse 17. Let's continue on. Repay no one evil for evil. That's good formation right there. And by the way, your kids are watching you. So make sure that you don't repay someone evil for evil.

But take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. So one of the marks of a Christian, a disciple, is that we don't repay people for evil. If somebody does something to us, we don't in kind do it back. And this is kind of the mentality of the Old Testament and, you know, in some ways of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But we are called to live above that. Somebody loses an eye, we don't go for an eye. Somebody loses a tooth. We don't go for a tooth.

We forgive. We live nobly. We live a noble life. and that one's a hard one to do, especially if you've got boys playing football and one of them's getting his clock cleaned and dad says, well, clean their clock,

you know. So there's the difference between sports and just relationships with one another and I don't advocate cleaning anybody's clock play fair. Let's not get hurt. But repay no one evil for evil. In other words, if people

are doing things to you or they say something about you or they in the course of business, you're hurt. We don't say, you know what, I'm going to get even with them with evil. I'm going to do what's right. I'm going to live in a noble way. So you have to remember what Jesus said, and this has to do with suffering. This has to do with picking up your cross.

We don't repay evil with evil. We pick up our cross and we carry it if something happens to us. And that's why Paul said in Galatians 220, I have been crucified with Christ and it's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by faith

in the Son of God who loved me and delivered himself up for me. Love it. It's one of my life verses. So we repay no one evil for evil. Now here's another good one and this is in verse 18. If possible so far as it depends upon you

live peaceably with all. live peaceably with all. I think this one personally is a very good one to take into work. If you drive to work or you even have Zoom calls at work, you have the opportunity for contention, division. And Paul is telling us to live peaceably. As far as it depends upon you, you do your part.

Live peaceably with all. and you can maintain peace just by how you speak sometimes and what you say or what you point out. Your words are like speaking with, they're seasoned with love. That's a good way to put it. Your words are seasoned with love. You are not constantly, you know, trying to bring about strife and you don't want to argue with everyone. You want to live peaceably with people. And one of the reasons for that I really think is because the gospel, when it's shared with other people, I think it germinates better in a peaceful, you know, peaceful soil, if that's a word. Yeah, peaceful soil. I think that the word of God, the seed that's planted, it germinates

better in peaceful soil rather than angry soil. If I was a seed, I wouldn't want to be an angry soil. I don't want to be in peaceful soil. So you can maintain peace. by the looks you give, the way you speak, turning the topic to a different topic, whatever it might be. Now, when you're talking to your kids, this is one of the things that is very hard in junior high, particularly. I remember when I was in junior high, it seemed like every single day after school,

I'd be walking home and there would be this scrum. There would be like 40 people standing in a circle, yelling, and I knew what was happening in there, and that was there was a fight. And, of course, everybody wants to get up there and look in and see who's getting the tarbeat out of them. And there's something about that that just goes with junior high, at least the junior high I went to. But we as Christians can teach our children to live peaceably. And to not foster this, don't encourage people to do it.

Don't egg people on. That's a mark of a disciple to live peaceably. Now, verse 19 says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves. You know what that means, don't you? Never avenge yourself. It's vengeance. Vengeance. It's, I'm going to get even.

It's not just eye for eye and tooth for tooth. I'm going to get even. I'm going to even the score with that guy. Now, what Paul says here is he says, never avenge yourselves. So Paul, what do we do? What do we do? Well, then he goes on, and he says, he says, beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.

Leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Isn't that beautiful? I mean, yeah, I mean, and you know what I mean. Beautiful in the sense that I don't have to avenge myself. I don't have to be one of the avengers. leave room in your relationship for God to do his business.

Vengeance is mine, he says. It's not yours. It's mine. I will repay. I will take care of this. I know the balance sheet here. I know what's going on. And when we teach our children and we form them,

we need to let them know. God is the one that says vengeance is mine. Not me. You can say to your daughter, your son, listen, honey, you don't have to. You don't have to avenge yourself. let God do what God is going to do you let him repay you love

you forgive you see we're called to live so differently than the world we really are we really are we have to teach our children that repaying people is not our job it's above our pay scale and if they ever talk like that around the house you can just look at them and say honey

that's above your pay scale what's above my pay scale daddy vengeance that's that's above your pay scale okay let god do his job so even if you think you are repaying someone it's not going to work and trust me you won't feel better to avenge yourself you won't feel better you will just complicate the relationship creating more work for yourself believe me i've been there in spades verse 20 here's the next one know this okay so if your enemy is is hungry, this is what Paul says. He says, no, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty,

give him drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals upon his head. Now, what Paul's talking about there is he's really talking about how to engage your enemy. If you have an enemy, and an enemy could be all kinds of different situations. You know, it's not just a, you know, a basketball team or something. But if you have an enemy out there at work or within your own family sometimes, and that's sad, but it happens sometimes. Here's what Paul says. He says, if you notice that they're hungry, what do you do?

You laugh at them? Do you hope they become even more hungry until they get it? No, you feed them. What? Yeah. If they're hungry, feed them. But they did this, they did that. I know.

You know what you're going to do, though? They're going to feel it. How? Because you're going to love them. You're going to love them. You're going to do what they're not expecting you to do. They're expecting you to slap them or slap a lawsuit on them or slap some gossip on them. No, they're not expecting you to feed them.

And if they're thirsty, they're not expecting you to give them drink. But this is what we do. This is what we do is Christians. This is what we do. So I love this. Look for ways of meeting their needs. Their practical needs right where they're at. Don't walk away.

Don't have that nasty attitude. But love them. Can you imagine if this was the reality in the Middle East right now? Wow. It'd be a different day. And then verse 21, listen to this. Do not be overcome by evil. but overcome evil with good.

I know our kids are coming home and asking questions about the state of the world, you know, what's going on in the world. And one of the things that we can help them out with is inform them in is that when we see this evil in the world, we don't overcome it by doing evil. We don't. What do we do? We overcome the evil with what? With good.

With good. And what's good? The will of God. What's good? The love of God. What's good? The mercy of God. What's good?

Patience. Fruit of the Spirit. Gifts of the Spirit. Prayer. The Word of God. The catechism. The saints. The Blessed Mother.

The sacraments. Overcome with good. We can overcome. We shall overcome. I remember that great Negro spiritual. They called it a Negro spiritual. ritual back then and they and I remember that so well that we shall overcome well how do we overcome we overcome with good so with everything that is going on in the world it is critical to teach our

families that the way we overcome is with good it isn't with evil this is a mark of the disciple so those are 10 10 last week 10 this week and I share those with you simply as simply as ideas on what Paul said in a very short span. You know, Romans 12, 9 through 21, within that span, he gave you 20 commands. And it's great for family formation. So here's what I'd recommend as we close this out. I recommend that you get your Bible. And if you don't mark in your Bible, then put that one down.

Get a Bible that you can mark in. And go to that section of scripture. And if you want to color, highlight it, you know, highlight it with different colors. like I use colored pencils. This can be a way of marking the various commands there. And as a family, and you go through it, you can see very quickly all these various colors and realize just how rich this portion of scripture is.

Mine's marked that way. It is. You want me to take a picture of it? I'll take a picture of it. I'm going to take a picture of that page. I'm going to put it in show notes. Just to show you what I've been staring at for the last number of weeks

when Emily and I are in prayer in the morning. Well, that's what I want to share with you this week. And again, we are in the midst of a series, important content for family formation. Please pass this on to your friends. Go ahead and give it a like and make some comments if you would like, just some suggestions.

But pass this on to other families that need to hear about how to form their children, their grandchildren. That way you and I are working together on this. So please do that. appreciate it very much. Hey, if you do have any questions or you have any comments, you can email me. The email address is The Jeff Kaven Show, one word, the Jeff Kavan Show at ascensionpress.com. Let's pray. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I love my friends here.

I love them so much and I lift them up to you and their families. And I ask you, Lord, to give them wisdom, to give them tenacity, to give them a sense of love and give them a sense of purpose in the world right now and that, yes, things are difficult, but Lord, we rejoice today in that you have overcome the world. You have overcome the world. And Lord, we want to walk in that victory. And so, Lord, we thank you so much for teaching us and empowering us and helping us to be formators for our children, our grandchildren, that we would take this idea of forming our children so seriously, particularly at this time. Pour out your spirit, oh God, upon my friend here. Pour out your spirit. Fill them with power. Give them vision. I pray all of this in your mighty

name. In the name of Jesus, amen. Name of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. Amen. Again, I love you. Pray for me. I'll be praying for you. Thank you.