Classic Christianity – Book of Romans P57 (03-18-20)
Synopsis
God has come to live in us to will and to act according to His good purposes. When we insult a brother in Christ, we are really insulting Christ for whom Jesus died and rose again. He is a member of the body of Christ. Does it make sense to hurt your own body? No. So let us learn to encourage one another and do things that lead to peace and mutual edification. So God lives in us to form new attitudes of the heart. God deals with those things inside the heart that no one sees. Those wrong attitudes, if not corrected, is what leads to those outward actions that hurt one another.
God is our counselor. He is our teacher, our instructor. He renews our minds with truth. Truth is what displaces error, and if you have a critical spirit, then your mind needs to be renewed with truth. Do you not know you are a member of the body of Christ, and you are a part of the body? So why criticize the body? Why steal from your own body? Serve your body, and take care of your body. You are a part of the body of Christ, and every person born of God is a member of the body of Christ.
We are children of God, and we are complete in Christ, but our flesh is in conflict with the Spirit, and we still have sin-indwelling flesh, that we are told must be overcome by learning to walk by faith. We are complete in Christ in that we have been given everything we need for life and godliness, that we will never be condemned for sin, for that was already done for us by Christ on a cross, and we have Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, and that by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. What we have we were freely given. So, we need to renew our minds with truth. The truth of the matter is that we will always be in continual need of being disciplined of the Lord.
We come to realize that God is not through with us. We are a continual work in progress, in sanctification, in being separated from the world, we are to walk in that newness of life. God accepts us as we are, a child of God, full of all kinds of error we had from the former life we have now been set free from. But just as a prisoner released from prisoner, or someone set free from Communist Russia, so used to others telling them what to do and how to think, are now free to live as God now leads them. But this transition in how to think in the new way of freedom, life in the Spirit, is a continual learning process.
We really are a child of God. When you think of a parent raising a child, does the child ever fall down? What does the parent do? Does he not encourage the child to start again until he learns how to walk. So too in the realm of the Spirit. We have the Spirit of God who accepts us. We are His child. He knows our weaknesses and when we do fall into error, or are learning how to replace error with truth, he is so gracious and kind to us. He is our Father, our encourager, our trainer, our coach, our best friend. He accepts us and loves us completely. We are His and He will never let go of our hand.
As we understand this new relationship with the living God, it makes life worth living. When you think back on life, what do you remember the most. Usually it is those seemingly little things in life that you remember, a kind word, a word of encouragement, someone who considered you more important than himself, someone willing to be with you when no one else did, who ate with you in a cafeteria and accepted you as you are. Those people moved your heart. It is God’s loving kindness that leads us to repentance.
Often times people come to Christ but then do not know how to live. Many times it is because they have heard a half gospel, as if salvation is getting your sins forgiven. But that is not the gospel. Salvation is being saved from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is new life in Christ Jesus. In many cases, there are people who have never been born again. They have not understood the meaning of the resurrection.
A person can also be sharing the complete gospel but a person has not quite grasped and understood what is being told to him. He gladly accepts Christ but then there is no real change in his life. A person shares the gospel with a married couple. Both hear the same message. Both pray along with the person to receive Christ, what they understood the message to mean. One is truly born again and the other not. Both couples were formerly addicted to alcohol. One was immediately set free and the other not. What happened? The evangelist goes back to the person, and tries to draw out what he understood about Christ. The man for some reason did not know Jesus is God, while his wife did. He came to receive Christ the man, and so did not have life in Him to live a new life. Once he understood this missing piece of information, he too accepted Christ, not Christ the man, but Christ who is God, and then was able to walk free of alcohol and walk in the new life God had given.
Many times though, there are those have accepted the complete gospel, but have not experienced growth in Christ. They had been improperly trained to gut it out for Jesus. Now, that you are saved, gut it out for Jesus, is what people often hear. That is not how a person is to walk in the newness of life. You cannot and never could produce the fruit of the Spirit in the energy of the flesh. The fruit of the Spirit is something God produces in you and through you as you abide in Him, as Jesus explained in the parable of the vine and the branches in John 15. Christ Jesus lives in you and Christ Jesus living in you wants to live His life through you.
God places His Spirit in you to be your counselor, to instruct you and guide you into all truth. The Spirit of God is your discipler, who renews your mind with truth. Truth is what a believer needs to grow. That is the food a child of God needs for spiritual growth. Paul even testified of this when he said, “I do not venture to say anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done.”
The same Spirit that was in Jesus when he walked the earth is now living in us. Jesus, emptying himself of his divine attributes lived in perfect love, so that we, who are not God, can understand what it means to walk in total dependence on God. Jesus even said that he does nothing except what the Father has told Him to do, and says nothing except what God has told him to say and how to say it. This is walking by faith, in total trust in God, who shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. God is love, love is the fulfillment of the law and Jesus, who is God, walked in perfect love, and laid down his life for us, only to raise it up again. This command he received from his Father.
You see this relationship between faith, hope and love, this triplicate. When you see love, you will see faith and hope, right along side. You cannot have hope apart from faith. When you have faith, you have hope. And when you have faith and hope, you have a chance with love. Gentiles rejoice in Christ. Jews rejoice in Christ. The same God that came to the Jews also came to the Gentile. They came to Christ the same way. They worship the same God. There is only one God, one faith, one Spirit, one hope, and one salvation. There is only one salvation, not two. So rejoice in the fact that He made one new man out of the two. That new man is able to walk in harmony with one another, Jew and Gentile, irrespective of their diverse background, irrespective of the fact that the Jews had the law and traditions and Gentiles had nothing except heathenism. Yet God has pulled them together into one new man.
You have been sanctified by the Holy Spirit. What does sanctified mean? Set apart by the Holy Spirit. What is it that sets you apart from the world? Is it the way you dress? Is it what you eat and don’t eat? What is it? It is what you believe. When you believe in the truth of Christ Jesus, you have now separated yourself from the entire world. So then, do not let yourself be unequally yoked, for what does light have to do with darkness. This is also why someone who is a believer should not be married to a non-believer. This is a recipe for disaster. No doctrine, no unity. Know doctrine, know unity. How can there be harmony between error and truth?
When two people studying the word of God independently, relying on the Holy Spirit to teach them, and then get together, and discover they believe the same way, then that is where unity comes from. Yet the world wants to have unity with all religious belief systems, which are often in conflict with one another, but certainly in conflict with the finished work of Christ Jesus. There is no unity in that. How can there be? There is no foundation in Christ with man-made religion. Jesus is the strong foundation. Without Him, it is just wood, hay and stubble, all to be burned up as worthless. The real fear is for those who die without Christ, a place where the fire never goes out. But those in Christ have hope in the resurrection, to be present with the Lord when absent from the body. Perfect love casts out fear. There is no fear in love. That is why we can boldly go to the throne of grace for help in our time of need.
Transcript
Romans 15:3
3 For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”[Psalm 69:9]
What Jesus is saying out of Psalms, is that when you are insulting them, such insults have come upon me. When they are insulting my brothers, I should be concerned about that. When someone insults a member of the body, it insults me because he is a brother in Christ. When someone says something good about somebody, it should be joy to me because you are my brothers and sisters in Christ. If someone is blasting you, then there is something inside of you that does not want to see someone blasted.
These are all attitudes that we need to ask God for, to purify our attitudes. A lot of the time our attitudes come from our background, or wherever they might come from, but they are awful sometimes in regard to dealing with people. We should be encouragers, not discouragers to our fellow man.
Romans 15:4
4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us,
Why do we have instruction in the bible? To teach us. The bible is the discipler. That is how God disciples you and me. Discipleship is discipline. How does God discipline our minds? By teaching us truth. If you are a person that is critical about everything you see, then you need discipline. If you have a white table cloth and has a dot on it, you do not see the table cloth but the dot, then he is discipling you, disciplining you, to quit thinking like that. Quit finding the negative about things and look for the good. Look for ways to build someone up. Quit tearing down your own body. This is your body. You got your body. This is your body. When you start tearing down one another in this body of believers, it is like tearing down a part of your own body, like destroying your leg or your arm. That would be ridiculous for you to do but that is what you are doing when you are tearing down the body of Christ. Quit doing that. Be encouraging to one another.
Romans 15:4
so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
The scriptures are given to us so we may endure with one another and be of encouragement to one another. That is why in scripture we read, as Christ Jesus has forgiven us so forgive one another.
Ephesians 4:32
32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Why? Because we are a part of the same body. We all have to think through those things. If Christ Jesus forgave you, then who am I not to forgive you. Are my standards higher than Jesus? If they are not higher than Jesus, then there should be forgiveness.
Romans 15:5
5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the Spirit of unity that God gives, from the same attitude Christ had. This attitude is what produces endurance and encouragement toward each other. The emphasis here is on Jew and Gentile but it is just as applicable to us today. May the God who gives you endurance, to hang in there, with each other. What does it mean to hang in there with each other? To hang in there because God is not through with you yet. Before long it will peel away. It becomes obsolete and suddenly disappears.
Hebrews 8:13
13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
1 Corinthians 15:50-52
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
1 John 3:2-3
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Be patient with people. That is hard for people. That is hard for me. I get impatient with people who do not see the value of Christ Jesus and when they add to this stuff, my patience is very thin with that. But God disciples me. He disciples me and points it out to me. He is not punishing me. He is just disciplining me.
Romans 15:5
5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are all speaking the same thing, those who are in Christ Jesus. We are all believing the same thing. Our hearts are molded together in oneness with Christ Jesus, to glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For you and me to have unity with one another is what brings glory to God. There is nothing more discouraging than children fighting and fussing with one another. It grieves your heart. When you come together in a spirit of unity, with an attitude of acceptance of one another, but never compromising truth.
Proverbs 19:11
11 A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.
Ephesians 4:15
15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
Truth is truth whether you like it or not. Truth is truth whether children engaged in it or not. You do not engage theology on what children, husband or wife is doing. Truth is truth. You do not compromise that. What you are doing is that you are going to be tolerant of you until we all come to the Spirit of unity in truth so that with one heart, one mind, one mouth, we will glorify the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 15:7
7 Accept one another,
How should we accept one another?
Romans 15:7
then, just as Christ accepted you,
We talked about the difference between love and acceptance. In my own life, I knew that God loved me. Well, He is God so He has to. But did He accept me? I never thought about that before, that I was accepted in the beloved. When I grasped that not only God loves me but He accepts me. He is not through with me yet. He still has a lot of work to do. Do you agree with that? I know you agree with me. What about you? A lot of work to do. He is not through with us. Ultimately, when the ultimate work of Him will take place is when we are absent from the body and present with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:6-8
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
1 John 3:2-3
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
That is where we will see Him as he is and become like him. It is when we shed this body that contains indwelling sin. It will happen when we are no longer in conflict between spirit and flesh, that is always in conflict with each other. They are at war with each other. That war will be taking place the rest of your life. How old do you have to be before this war stops? Older than me because it is still there. It will be there until the day you die. On the day you die, you get to shed this thing and go into the presence with unity and just Him. All this stuff is gone that we had to struggle with. The issue is that He says, “I accept you the way you are. I accept you for who you are. You are My child. You are loved perfectly. You are accepted in the beloved. I am not through with you yet. Do not think that I do not accept you?” That is good news, to think that God not only loves you perfectly and accepts you the way you are. I am not all that I can’t be and not all that I will be, but that is good enough right now.
I remember the story, in my early days of being a Christian in full time Christian work, shortly after becoming a Christian. I still had the old ego and pride, that baggage and barnacles you carry with you. I was real impressed with people like Billy Graham. I thought that he ought to start retiring before long. I remember that one day I was going over to Phoenix, Arizona, and was meeting with another crusade member. I was going to meet with a Billy Graham representative. We were going to meet with him on that film. We met there and the guy that I was with was a sweet brother in Christ. He was talking, and talked a little funny, as if he had not much education. I kind of wished he would shut up so I could talk so I could impress this guy. He is not very smart so I can handle this whole deal. Not very humble thoughts I had. He did not know what I was thinking, but God got involved. I think He told him what I was thinking. Kerm said, “You know, I am not real smart, but I am as smart as God wants me to be. One of these days I am going to get smarter because I think God wants me to get smarter. I do not have a lot of abilities but I have got all the abilities that God wants me to have. One of these days I am going to have more abilities because I am trusting God to give it to me.” God took this old proud heart of mine. Do you know what I did? I balled in front of that Billy Graham representative. I sat there and cried like a baby. It was like God was saying to me, “Bob, Kerm has more in his little finger than you have in your big old fat body.” I realized that God did not need my abilities. He needed my availability. That is what Kerm was doing, being available to God to be used. He was humble, and God used him in miraculous ways. I was sitting in my pride and could not be used if I wanted to be. That was all deception on my part, of how nifty I was and how unnifty he was. God pricked my heart and taught me a valuable lesson that day that I will never forget.
So he tells us to accept one another.
Romans 15:7-8
then, just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. 8 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth
So he is saying to these Gentile Romans, that to the Jews, Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs, and so the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy extended to them.
Romans 15:8-9
so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed 9 and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.
Romans 15:9-10
As it is written:“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;
I will sing the praises of your name.”[2 Samuel 22:50; Psalm 18:49]10 Again, it says,
“Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.”[Deuteronomy 32:43]
This is talking to most of us. There are people in this congregation out of a Jewish backgrond. The majority of us are of a Gentile background.
Romans 15:11-13
11 And again,“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles;
let all the peoples extol him.”[Psalm 117:1]12 And again, Isaiah says,
“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
one who will arise to rule over the nations;
in him the Gentiles will hope.”[Isaiah 11:10]13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
You are talking about the three things Paul talks about continually, faith, hope and love. I commend you for your faith, hope and love. It is a triplicate. You cannot have hope apart from faith. When you have faith, you have hope. And when you have faith and hope, you have a chance with love. Gentiles rejoice in Christ. Jews rejoice in Christ. The same God that came to the Jews also came to the Gentile. They came to Christ the same way. They worship the same God. There is only one God, one faith, one Spirit, one hope, and one salvation. There is only one salvation, not two. So rejoice in the fact that He made one new man out of the two. That new man is able to walk in harmony with one another, Jew and Gentile, irrespective of their diverse background, irrespective of the fact that the Jews had the law and traditions and Gentiles had nothing except heathenism. Yet God has pulled them together into one new man.
Romans 15:14-16
14 I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. 15 Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
There are some words there. The Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. What does sanctified mean? Set apart by the Holy Spirit. What is it that sets you apart from the world? Is it the way you dress? Is it what you eat and don’t eat? What is it? It is what you believe. When you believe in the truth of Christ Jesus, you have now separated yourself from the entire world.
That is why it says do not be unequally yoked with one another. You cannot have fellowship with someone who only believes nothing but error and another who believes nothing but truth. How can you have fellowship with one another? What sets you apart in being unequally yoked? What you believe. If you are with another man and woman, you are already separate, by being a man and a woman. The chances of that are slim in getting along. In Christ, you can get along. In Christ, you can have a unity between two things as opposites, a man and a woman. You cannot get any more opposite than that, can you? The issue is, is that what he says, when you have Christ you have a point of reference that enables you to get along on this level. When you are connected here, you are connected there. If you are not connected, then there is no way you can be connected on this level. What is important to me when someone asks for counsel on marriage are these questions. Are you unequally yoked? Are you both in Christ Jesus? Do you both have a strong relationship with Christ Jesus? If you do, then there is a good chance you will stay married.
Romans 15:17-18
17 Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. 18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done –
The apostle Paul is saying here, that anything that has been accomplished, God has done it through me. That many times is a mysterious thing to people because I would say overall, in all of the teaching that is out there in this world, Protestant, Catholic, the whole gamut of so-called Christianity, there is very little understanding on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives. I had never heard of the ministry of the Holy Spirit for 36 years of my life. I do not know about you, but I never heard of it, the idea that Christ Jesus lives in you and the idea that Christ Jesus living in you wants to live His life through you. That was a foreign thought. I sat in church all my life but never heard anything like that.
My deal was I did not even know Christ. But you get baptized and gut it out for Jesus. In a lot of evangelical type of churches, that really teach salvation by grace and grace alone, and teach phenomenal messages on salvation. There are many denominations who do that. They do teach so people come to Christ but then they stop. You have come to Jesus for life but now people are told to go burn it out for Jesus. A lot of people take pride in that. The Spirit never burns out. The flesh burns out. We just do not understand the Spirit of God is our guiding factor. He is the one who lives in us, in order to live His life in and through us. He does that by teaching our minds, controlling our emotions and directing our wills. You have to put that to the test. That is not something you just read about. If this is true, then I am going to let You live Your life through me.
Many times, the Christian life is like a driver’s education car with two steering wheels in it. You get in the car and Jesus is sitting at the wheel. He says to you, “Let us go take a trip.” Then He also says, “you will notice you have a steering wheel in front of you. I tell you the very minute you put your hands on that steering wheel and guide this thing, then I am taking my hands off, because the two of us cannot drive the car at the same time. So if you are driving, I am taking My hands off. I will run into trees with you, and ride a bumpy ride with you. I will never leave you but only one of us is driving the car. Once you get tired of driving into trees and get tired of driving this car, and let go of your hands off the wheel, we are going to have a wonderful trip together, But if you insist on driving the wheel, we are not going any place.” That is what God says in the way He is going to guide you. “I will drive your car if you let me. But when you put your hands on it, I am taking Mine off.”
This is the teaching of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the truth of being guided by the Holy Spirit. He guides us through our minds. He guides us by teaching us truth. He guides us by teaching us where to go, what to do and what to say. That is what the Word of God does for you. Sometimes it is a type of teaching we just do not have. What you often hear is, “Come to Jesus and then go out on your own.” That is where we fall flat on our faces. So Paul says, “I do not venture to say anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done.”
Romans 15:19-23
19 by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. 20 It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. 21 Rather, as it is written:“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.”[Isaiah 52:15]He loved to go into new areas and pioneer new areas with the gospel.
22 This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.
23 But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, 24 I plan to do so when I go to Spain.
For some reason, Paul is saying here there is no more place for me to work in these regions. I do not know why that would be true, but he said it. I do not think we can figure it out other than the fact he just said it. Maybe he had been to all the places he needed to go and established enough foundation in those places, knowing the message will spread all over the empire. I do not know the reasons for that but it seems to be there is no more place for me to work in these regions. So he plans to see you.
Romans 15:24-26
I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while. 25 Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there. 26 For Macedonia (northern part of Greece) and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord’s people in Jerusalem.
Paul went through and made a collection of money to take to the Jerusalem believers who were having a horrible time, not only of being able to perpetuate their faith in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the seedbed of legalism and Judaism, here is James right in the middle of it. I would not want to have the job of James, trying to be a pastor in Jerusalem teaching grace in the midst of people who did not want to hear grace. They were in a tough financial situation. Paul made a collection and was taking that to Jerusalem.
Romans 15:27
27 They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them.
For from Jerusalem is where the gospel originated and reached Macedonia and Achaia.
Romans 15:27
For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.
Where did the gospel go first, to the Jews or the Gentiles? The Jews, and the Jews spread it to the Gentiles. So he said to these Gentiles, that if we shared in this spiritual blessing that was given to the Jews, then we ought to share with them our material blessings.
Romans 15:28-31
28 So after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this contribution, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way. 29 I know that when I come to you, I will come in the full measure of the blessing of Christ.30 I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. 31 Pray that I may be kept safe (rescued) from the unbelievers in Judea
Why did he need to be rescued from that? What did the unbelievers want to do with those who proclaimed the gospel in Judea? They wanted to kill them, just like they did with Jesus and with many of the apostles.
Romans 15:31-33
and that the contribution I take to Jerusalem may be favorably received by the Lord’s people there, 32 so that I may come to you with joy, by God’s will, and in your company be refreshed. 33 The God of peace be with you all. Amen. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
