Classic Christianity – Book of Romans P26 (01-07-19)
Synopsis
Romans 5 and Romans 8 get into the heart of life in Christ Jesus. Paul, appealing to men who are lost, without understanding, anticipates common questions that could be asked. So there is a pause between Romans 5 and Romans 8. In between, in Romans 6 and Romans 7, Paul is going to answer three basic questions.
Romans 6:1
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
Romans 6:15 (NASB)
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
Romans 7:7
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful?
The lost person cannot discern the things of the Spirit. So he answers according to the natural man. So if sin causes grace to increase, why not just sin more so grace increases. To the lost person, still dead in sin, sin is pleasurable to him. There is pleasure in sin for a season, but it takes its toll over time, and has you bound in death. A person who responds this way has not come to the end of the law. He has not understood the purpose of the law.
So is the law sinful? Certainly not. Just because I am sinful does not mean the law is. Why do you try to obey the law if you think the law is sinful. So you admit the law is just, holy and good. So where does the problem lie? In you, does it not? So Paul elaborates on the purpose of the law.
A lost person thinks that he can obtain righteousness by obedience to the law. But if he stops to think about it, he should quickly realize he cannot obey it. So what does he do instead? He picks and chooses what he thinks he can obey, and compares himself with others. He hides under religion to appease his conscience, to deceive himself that he is okay. He who compares himself with others is not wise.
So the lost man looks only at the outward actions of what the law says. Jesus comes along and says that if you look lustfully at a girl you have already committed adultery in your heart. So God is looking underneath the skin. If you are lusting then you are capable of committing adultery. If you are angry with someone, you are capable of murder. God exposes the attitudes of the heart. If you just failed at one point of the law, not just outwardly but in the attitude of the heart, you have broken all of the law. And what does the law say to those who break the law? The wages of sin is death.
So why was the law given? We recognize the law is just, holy and good. So what is our problem? It is certainly not the law. There is something wrong with me that I cannot obey the law. The problem with me is that I am a sinner, and I am a sinner because I am dead, dead to God. Not only am I dead, so is everybody born into this world. So the law was added so I might recognize I am a sinner, and there is a consequence to that called death, and coming to understand that, I turn to Christ for life. Salvation is life.
So Paul appeals to men about a different way to live, not under the law of sin and death, but under the grace of God, where God comes to live inside you and lead you internally into all truth. Now, truth is what sets you free. You are free to live a life you want to live, a life that is pleasing to God in accordance with how He made you to live, with all love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.
If you do not have a change in attitude towards who you are and who God is, then what value does the cross have? If you do not know that you are a sinner, then what does Jesus death on a cross mean to you? If you do not know you are dead and in need of life, what value does the resurrection of Jesus from the dead mean to you? God sent Jesus into this world to do something for you that you could never do for yourself. He came to create you into a new creation, to be born again, not of mom and dad, but a spiritual birth from God. God places in you the Spirit of the living God. God in you is indispensable to the proper functioning of the man. God is the one who produces the fruit of the Spirit that you were never designed to produce in the energy of your flesh. As a new creation in Christ, you have the divine privilege to allow Him to do that. That is living under grace. Will you come to receive the life of Christ Jesus today?
Sadly, even in the Christian world today, so many pastors teach law rather than grace. People who are born are living as if they are still under law. How many people have heard this kind of grace teaching, “Oh, you are teaching people how to have a license to sin.” I do not need a license to sin. I sin quite well without a license. Have you ever noticed anyone not sinning who is under the law? Have you ever known anybody under the law who never sinned? This is the legalistic thinking, “I am under the law so I do not sin, but you are under grace, so you do sin.” I got news for you. All have sinned. It is just whether you want to be mastered by sin. If you want to be mastered by sin, keep yourself under the law. If you want to be mastered by God, keep yourself under grace.
Paul uses an illustration of masters and slaves to explain the difference between someone under the law of sin and death and someone under grace. Whatever you put yourself under, you have become a slave to that. When you offer yourself to someone as a slave, you are obligated to obey the one you offer yourself to. A lost person is under the law by default. A saved person can choose to put himself under the law. Whenever a person puts himself under the law, he becomes mastered by it. The law arouses the passions of the flesh. So when you strive to obey a law, you sin all the more. The law stirs up sin. It is like telling a child not to eat that cookie. What does he do? He goes ahead and eats that cookie before eating a healthy meal. There is this war in our minds, a battle between the flesh and the Spirit. But if you are not born again, you do not even have the Spirit to guide you and instruct you. You have no choice but to be under the law until such a time you choose life in Christ Jesus and are born again. So do you want to be slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness? Who will be your master?
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Transcript
Romans 8:1-2 (NIV)
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Do you understand that? In Christ, what are we told? There is no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. Why? Because the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. There is no condemnation awaiting you, who are in Christ Jesus. So when people are telling you that if you keep doing this or this or that, then that is a lie. No man will be held accountable for their sins when there is no law. The law has been put aside for those who are believers. The law has been put aside so you can now be led internally by the Holy Spirit of God who lives in you. Is that good news, folks? Yes. Because of this truth is why Paul says this.
Romans 6:13-14
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
We talked about this last time. If sin is not your master because you are not under the law, but when you are under the law, sin is your master. Sin is your master when you are under the law. The only way you are going to be freed from being mastered by sin is to become mastered by Him. You can be mastered by sin or you can be mastered by Him. There is nothing in between. When you refuse to be mastered by Him, you are automatically mastered by sin. There is no alley way. There is just a fence. On one side is Him. On the other side is sin. You have a choice of who you want to be mastered by, by Him or by sin.
Three basic questions, that are obviously, going to pop up in a person’s mind, when they are either first introduced to the fact that you are no longer under law, but under grace, or are adamant toward that teaching, or whatever the problem might be. Paul says he is going to address these basic questions to get them out of the way before we go into chapter 8. There is therefore now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1-2).
Paul is going to answer three basic questions.
Romans 6:1
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
Romans 6:15 (NASB)
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
Romans 7:7
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful?
Between chapters 5 and 8, you have a parentheses before chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 5 goes right into chapter 8 in thought. But Paul pauses here to answer some questions in chapters 6 and 7. Before we go on to the good news that is in chapter 8, Paul will answer some questions. Chapter 8 is where he picks up saying there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, who has set us free from the law of sin and death.
Romans 6:1
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
So the lost person thinks, “If this grace is so good, then should we just go on sinning so God’s grace can be known all the more? If the more we sin, then the more this grace will be talked about. So let us just sin up a storm so God’s grace can be shown to the whole world.” That was one question that was asked.
Romans 6:15 (NASB)
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
What then shall we say? We are no longer under the law. Sin shall not be your master. It clearly says here we are not under the law, yet we have numerous denominations that teach people they are under the law. Legalistic as can be, putting you under the law, and therefore, keep you under the power of sin, and then beat the daylights out of you every day for sinning.
How many people have said with this kind of grace teaching, “Oh, you are teaching people how to have a license to sin.” I do not need a license to sin. I sin quite well without a license. Have you ever noticed anyone not sinning who is under the law? Have you ever known anybody under the law who never sinned? This is the legalistic thinking, “I am under the law so I do not sin, but you are under grace, so you do sin.” I got news for you. All have sinned. It is just whether you want to be mastered by sin. If you want to be mastered by sin, keep yourself under the law. If you want to be mastered by God, keep yourself under grace.
Romans 6:15 (NASB)
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!
In other words, that is a dumb question.
Romans 6:16 (NASB)
16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
Do you not know that? When you offer yourself to someone as a slave, you are obligated to obey the one you offer yourself to. Is that right or wrong? When you are a slave you have no rights. When you are a slave, you live under the control of the master. You really have no option. You are just there to obey the master. When you and I offer ourselves to someone to obey, you are slaves to the one whom you obey.
Romans 6:16-17 (NASB)
16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
Before you were saved, you used to be slaves to sin. How many of you can testify of that? You might as well, all of you, testify to it, for the bible just got saying that. So you do not need to think, “was I or wasn’t I?”
Romans 6:17-18 (NASB)
17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
You had teaching, and you whole-heartedly obeyed it. When you were under the law, were you whole-heartedly trying to obey the teaching you were entrusted to? How many of you were whole-heartedly trying? How many of you were successful? Not many hands this time. But you were out there trying, whole-heartedly. But what did you find out about trying to obey the law? We will study that in Romans 7. The things I want to do I do not do. The things I do not want to do I do anyway.
So as far as obeying the law, we pick the ones we know we can do. I can go to church on Saturday instead of Sunday, or vice versa. If nobody sees, I can not drink. Nobody smells, I can not smoke. I will pick the ones I can do, and those are the ones I am going to concentrate on. We concentrate on those ones. But God gave us ten. When you look at the law, no man has ever lived in obedience to the law. James said if you kept the entire law, and violated at one point, you violated all of it. That puts us all where we belong.
James 2:10-11
10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
You can grow up in a home with good teaching or you can grow up in a home with bad teaching. Unfortunately, in this day and age, where there is divorce that splits up homes, you can have one parent teaching nonsense and another parent trying to teach truth, and that poor child is bombarded with double mindedness and becomes unstable in all ways. There is no consistency in what is being taught. We have to rely as parents, if you are going to get along with each other, and going to split, for God’s sake, become committed to teaching the child the same moral values. Do not have one over there teaching you to live like the devil and the other teaching him going to church obeying the things of God. That causes a double minded man and makes you unstable in all ways. Get at least consistent for the sake of the children.
James 1:5-7
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
So we go out whole-heartedly and obey the teaching for which you were instructed. But in Christ, you have been set free from sin. You have been set free from being a slave to false teaching. Do we realize that? Why? We have the Spirit of God living in us. What is the purpose of the Spirit of God living in us? To lead us into all truth. If the Spirit of God does not live in you, then you do not have a clue what truth is. You are just leaning on your own understanding. Quit leaning on you own understanding, and instead rely on Him.
Proverbs 3:5-6
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
But if you do not have the Holy Spirit of God in you, you have no choice but to lean on your own understanding. We have been set free from that. We have a plumb line in our life, where we can go to, and know precisely whether the line is straight or not. We talk about the fact that we have been set free from having to believe lies. We do not have to believe the lie of Satan. We do not have to. We can choose to, can’t we? But we do not have to.
John 10:10
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
But before you knew Christ, you had no option. He told you to do something, you just went and did it. Satan comes along and tells you things, things that are contrary to what you know to be true. He tells you that you know full well are harmful to your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit of God. He tells you how much fun it is. Oh, he tells you all kinds of stuff. So we pour things in our veins, in our mouth, all kinds of deals, smoke down the lungs, or get into booze and drugs, and all kinds of things that we know full well are harmful to our bodies. Who are you listening to? Not to God. God says your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit of God, but you do not treat it that way.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
You have been set free from having to do that. There is no such thing as saying “I have no control over this”. Yes you do. You can do anything you want to do. Anything you want to do, you can do. If you want to quit something, you can quit it.
Philippians 2:12-13
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Before I came to the Lord, I used to smoke like a furnace. I just could not wait to get another cigarette. If it was late at night, and I ran out, then I would go out and get some. Now, if Amy was asking me to get groceries, I thought she was punishing me in some way. On the day that I realized those cigarettes controlled my life. I did not do it for my health, because I was on the 200 year plan back then. They controlled me. The reason I knew they controlled me is because I could not quit. So I threw them in the waist basket and never picked one up again. I joined a health club. I quit drinking booze and quit drinking coffee, for a month, just a month. Every time I wanted coffee, I wanted a cigarette. I cut out everything that equated with smoking cigarettes. I smoked three packs a day. That is a lot of puffing. Some say, “You were not smoking. You were just a sucker.”
John 10:10
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
The issue is, don’t say to me you cannot quit. I know you can. I quit as a non-Christian, so do not tell me you cannot quit. The issue is you do not want to because you bought the lie you will gain weight. Is that the big one? What are you going to do with your hands? That was a big one with me. All of that kind of stuff comes up. All that talk comes from Satan, not from God. Would you walk into a church building and light up a cigarette in the middle of the service? Why? This is not the church. This is just a building. Your body is the church. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I am not down on smoking. I am just saying this is just a good example of how Satan can lie to you and the way he does lie to you. If you want to quit, you can quit. If you want to quit drinking, you can quit drinking. You want to quit drinking coffee? I quit drinking coffee for a month or two. Whatever you want to do, you can do. God lives in you to give you the power to do it. It is not the fact you can’t. It is the fact that you won’t. I realize I am meddling. But chapters 6 and 7 meddles.
Romans 6:18 (NASB)
18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
You have been set free from having to obey the commands of Satan. Instead you have become a slave to righteousness. In other words, I want to do what God tells me to do. I have asked a person sometimes, “Will you pray to God to make you want to want to. You say you do not want to quit. Will you ask God to make you want to want to?” “Yes, I will do that. ” And they pray that. “Lord, make me want to want to. ” In a few weeks later, they come back and say, “I quit ”.
Philippians 2:12-13
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
You have to wonder. Your wonder is either under the control of Satan or under the control of God. But you have to wonder.
Romans 6:18-19
18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations.
We are weak in our natural selves. We have this weakness of the flesh that is subject to error.
Romans 6:19
Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
This ever increasing wickedness. Have you ever noticed how sin never goes backwards? It just goes forward. Have you noticed that in life? Sins never gets less. You do not sin and say “I am not going to do that any more.” You do not kiss a girl, say twice, then just say you will kiss her just once the next time. No, you go for three or four. It increases with desire.
Romans 6:19-20
so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
Righteousness had no control over you and me when we were lost. None at all. It would be a foreign thought to be controlled by righteousness. The mind of the lost person is, “I want to be controlled by what I am having fun doing.”
Romans 6:21
21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?
Is that true or not? Have you ever looked back on your life, and are ashamed of the things you have done? Can anyone hear tell me? No, do not tell me. Is there anyone here who does not have something in their life that they are ashamed of? Maybe so? Maybe not? The issue is, when you look back on it, what caused you to do this shameful thing? There is one simple thing. I was listening to the voice of Satan instead of the voice of God. There can be circumstances surrounding that. There can be things, yes, I understand how that took place, but in the final analysis, you were listening to the voice of Satan instead of the voice of God.
I look back on my past as a lost person. There was no benefit to that at all. It was shameful, the things I was doing, and the things we have all done. You do not have to submit yourself to those things anymore, those things that are shameful.
Romans 6:21-22
Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin
You have been set free from having to obey the shameful lusts you had within you.
Romans 6:22
and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness,
Holiness is being set apart, being able to walk with a clear conscience. There is no more valuable possession that you and I can have than a clean conscience.
Romans 6:22-23
and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now, turn to Romans 7.
Romans 7:1
1 Do you not know, brothers and sisters – for I am speaking to those who know the law
I am not speaking to a group of people who do not know the law. I am speaking to authorities. The Jewish world at that time were authorities on the law. If they weren’t, there was certainly a group that would tell you what it said and what it meant, to them.
Romans 7:1
– that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives?
The law has authority over you as long as you are alive.
Romans 7:1
2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive,
This is the Jewish law. You are bound to a husband as long as you are alive.
Romans 7:2-4
but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another,
You died to the law. You were born into this world married to the law, joined to it, married to it. When you came into this world from your mom and dad, from your mother’s womb, you were joined to the law. What was the purpose of the law? To show you your sinfulness. That is what baptism is. You died to the law, and leave the law to the grave, and then you were raised to marry another, Christ Jesus the Lord, and became the bride of Christ. You died to the law so you might belong to another.
Romans 7:4-5
to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law
So the passions are stimulated and aroused by the law that says, “do not do this”. All you have to do to get a child to do something is to tell them not to do it. Then you have him set toward it. That is the power of the law. Is that right or wrong? So these sinful passions are aroused by the law. That is what the bible is saying here. Man took the law and said, “No. No. This law is not to show you your sinfulness. This law is a method to show you how righteous you are.” By doing so, they do not realize they are keeping people under the power of sin by keeping them under the law that stirs up and arouses sinful passions within us.
Romans 7:5-6
were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us,
What bound us? The law. You died to what bound you. What bound you? The law bound you.
Romans 7:6
we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Can you trust that? Can you trust the Holy Spirit of God, who lives in you, to lead you and guide you into truth. Can you trust the Spirit of God to live in you to give you discernment as to what is right and what is wrong? Can you trust the Holy Spirit living in you to make you sober minded? You know, if you are sober minded, you are not silly minded. There are some people who make the Christian world into silliness, silly stuff. You see it on television every day. Silly Christianity. Does anyone in here believe that God knocks you down in the Spirit? Where do you find that in the bible? That is silly stuff. That is man made silly stuff to make you think that.
So this is an example of silly Christianity. “I have some kind of power that you do not have because you are not knocking me over.” I have never seen anyone slay Benny Hinn in the Spirit. He just slays you. He has got some special power, saying “I can blow on you”. Maybe he has got bad breath. I do not know what the story is. You can just touch somebody on the top of the head so that he can fall over into the hands of someone who has the gift of catching. Silly stuff. If you have an ounce of discernment in you, then you would know that is silly. That is not in the bible. The Spirit of God did not once to slay you. The Spirit of God came to give you life. There is a lot of silliness that goes on in Christianity.
When I look at the Christian world, it is in terrible shape. The ones not being silly are practicing legalism and burying people under the power of sin that is in the law. There are very few people today, unfortunately, who are proclaiming the fullness of the grace of God, to enable people to go free in Christ Jesus. There is nothing controlling with this, folks. When you are preaching grace to people, you might as well forget it, if you ever had an ounce in your mind, if you ever wanted to control somebody, forget it. God never meant for you and me to control people. He meant for the Holy Spirit to control people. If a man wants to control somebody, don’t teach the grace of God to them because you cannot control people who are under grace. Only people under the law can you control.
To me, as we have the privilege of doing, I believe a meeting on a regular basis, in this congregation, of what I tried to do for 40 plus years that I have been in Christ Jesus, is to teach truth to people. I have not tried to control people for I have no desire to control people. They are trying to tell you how to, or not how to, live your life. I am here to say what the scriptures has to say in regards to how to live your life, and that is between you and God. That is not between you and me.
