(# 299) Romans 8 - When We Are Fully Persuaded There is No Doubt

Class Outline:

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Welcome To

BARAH MINISTRIES

a Christian Church

Rory Clark

Pastor-Teacher

 

Good Morning!

 

Welcome to Barah Ministries…a Christian Church based in Mesa, AZ…my name is Pastor Rory Clark.  At Barah Ministries we are “pursuing the truth through the study of the Word of God.” We are committed to learn how to live our lives God’s way through our study of the Word of God.  We believe God’s way is the ONLY WAY…and everything else pales in comparison to His way.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

When We Are Fully Persuaded There is No Doubt

 

James was the half brother of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the writer of the most distorted, most misquoted, and most taken out of context biblical letters in the New Testament.  James is portrayed from most Christian pulpits as a critical, self-righteous legalist who is “calling people to be accountable.”  What James is really doing, as I see it, is being a minster to a group of Jewish legalists, and he’s inviting them to the freedom of the Christian Way of Living.

 

Let’s take a part of his letter out of context, as it is taken out of context most of the time…James, Chapter 1, Verses 6b to 8…

 

James 1:6b-8

…the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.//For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,//being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

 

It sounds critical doesn’t it?  Do you ever entertain doubt?  Of course you do!  Are you ever double-minded?  Of course you are!  Is anything in your life unstable?  Puleeze…do we even have to ask?  So as a result of these things, you don’t have any right to expect anything from the Lord?  That’s what the legalist would have you believe.  The Lord is looking down on you and He is going to call you into account?!  Does that sound like a gracious forgiving and unconditional God?  It doesn’t.  An even better question is this…did James ever doubt?  Was James ever double minded?  Was anything in James’ life unstable?  Again… we don’t have to ask…the obvious answer is yes.  In fact, James grew up in the same household with the Lord Jesus Christ, but did not believe in Him until after the Lord’s resurrection from the dead.  I’d certainly call that doubt.  James was an empiricist!  If he couldn’t see it, he didn’t believe it.  Here’s what the Lord would say to that…John, Chapter 20, Verse 29…

 

John 20:29

Jesus said to Thomas, the doubting one, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

 

So how about if we add the first part to the previous James passage to give it context?  James, Chapter 1, Verses 5 and 6a…

 

James 1:5-6a

But if any of you lacks wisdom, and many of you do, let him ask of God the Father, who gives wisdom to all generously and without reproach, and wisdom will be given to him.//But he must ask in faith without any doubting…

 

Leave out this part and James sounds critical…add this context, and it makes it clear that James is simply testing the extremes…the extreme between faith and doubting…the extreme between the do and the don’t…just as so much of the New Testament does.  James is saying, on the one hand there is faith…and on the other hand there are doubts.  You get to take your pick!  So let’s look at the whole passage…James, Chapter 1, Verses 5 to 8…

 

James 1:5

But if any of you lacks wisdom, and many of you do, let him ask of God the Father, who gives wisdom to all generously and without reproach, and wisdom will be given to him.

 

James 1:6

But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

 

James 1:7

For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord (even though He will)…

 

James 1:8

…being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

 

What’s James’ point?  Single mindedness is the habit of the Christian…not double-mindedness.  And when you see yourself allowing room for doubt, choose faith.  Most of all, understand that God is fully aware of your doubt, and is providing for you anyway.

 

We come together to learn the Word of God so that we will not be tossed about by the winds of this world.  As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are “in this world,” but we are not “of this world” … we are citizens of heaven and we take our direction from the Lord through His Word.  We learn His thinking, and it shows up in our words and in our actions.  All we have to do is listen a person’s words and look at a person’s actions, and we can tell everything we want to know about how this person thinks.

 

Welcome to a place where you can learn how to think like the Sovereign God of the Universe, so you can choose to reflect His thinking through your words and through your actions, to a lost and dying world.

 

MUSIC AND REFLECTION

Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ

Enjoy the Singing of His Praises

 

AT YOUR FEET

Casting Crowns

 

The opening song for this lesson is AT YOUR FEET sung by Casting Crowns.

 

OPENING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

We’re grateful, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…

 

Father, we know why You used the Shepherd-Sheep analogy throughout the bible…quite often, like sheep, we don’t know where we are going in this life or what to do…often we fail to see the clear and narrow path that You have laid in front of us…and therefore we allow ourselves to be tossed about by every wind and we miss the sound of Your still small voice directing us through Your Word…thank you for not allowing us to face our doubts alone…

 

Help us to trust You…help us to have confidence in You…help us to use the gift of faith You have given us in everything, not just in some things… illuminate our doubts and replace them with certainty…let us be confident in You and confident in Your Son and confident in the Mentoring and Teaching nature of God the Holy Spirit…

 

We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit…in Christ’s name...

Amen.

 

Let’s begin this lesson with a few announcements….

 

BARAH MINISTRIES ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Coeur d’Alene Bible Conference

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

August 5-6, 2016

 

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The Lord’s Supper Celebration

EVENING LESSON ONLY

6:00P-7:30P

August 7, 2016

 

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New York - Pennsylvania Conference

Traditions at the Glen

Johnson City, New York

September 16-17, 2016

 

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Evening Lesson Only

6:00P-7:30P

August 21, September 18

 

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Next Deacon’s Meeting

September 3, 2016

7:30A-10:00A

 

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Homecoming for the Non-Resident Congregation

April 21-23, 2017

 

NEW WEBSITE IS LIVE!

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The new site is ready for mobile devices.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

When We Are Fully Persuaded There is No Doubt

 

We’re finishing up the passage under study…Romans, Chapter 8, Verses 31 to 39…

 

Romans 8:31

What then shall we believers in Christ say face-to-face with all these things?  If God the Father is for us, and He is, who is ever going to be successful in opposition against us?

 

Romans 8:32

God the Father, who did not spare His own Son (the Lord Jesus Christ), but delivered Him over for us all, how will the Father not also, with our union with Christ, freely give us all things?

 

Romans 8:33

Who will bring a successful charge against God’s elect (all believers in Christ)? God the Father is the one who justifies…

 

Romans 8:34

…who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He…the One who died, yes, rather He who was raised (resurrected) from the dead…He who is at the right hand of God the Father…He who also intercedes for us (He is the One who condemns…but He does not condemn you about anything).

 

Romans 8:35

WHO will separate us from the unconditional love of Christ? (Or WHAT will separate us?) Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword separate us from His unconditional love?

 

Romans 8:36

Just as it is written (in Psalm 44:22), “For Your sake we are being put to death (killed) all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

 

Romans 8:37

But in all these things (in every situation imaginable) we believers in Christ overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us unconditionally.

 

Now the verses under study…Romans, Chapter 8, Verses 38 and 39…

 

Romans 8:38

For I (Paul) am convinced that neither death nor life…nor (elect) angels nor principalities (demons…fallen angels)…nor things present nor things to come (the future)…nor powers…

 

Romans 8:39

…nor height nor depth…nor any other created thing…will be able to separate us believers in Christ from the unconditional love of God the Father, who is for us through our union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Paul starts these concluding verses with…I am fully convinced…I am fully persuaded.  Said other ways?  I AM ABSOLUTELY SURE…THERE IS NO DOUBT…IT IS EXACTLY THIS WAY…IT IS CERTAIN…YOU CAN HAVE FULL ASSURANCE that what I am about to say next is true.  Then Paul introduces ten supernatural things that might be a concern to some in relation to God loving us unconditionally.  Here’s a reminder of the list…ten things…in four pairs…with two individual items…

 

FOUR PAIRS OF SUPERNATURAL THINGS
 

          Death and Life

 

          Angels and Principalities

 

Things Present or Things to Come

 

Height or Depth

 

TWO SINGLE SUPERNATURAL THINGS
 

Powers

 

Any Created Thing

 

Last week we began with DEATH AND LIFE…

 

DEATH has no power over believers in Christ…we are not afraid to die…time has no power over believers in Christ…we are eternal, thus timeless…when we die it is profitable because we are absent from the body and at home, face-to-face with the Lord.

 

LIFE  (The ZOE Life…the Resurrection Life…Eternal Life)

 

Not one circumstance in the resurrection life can separate us from God’s unconditional love.  Many live as much in fear of life as they live in fear of death.  Have you ever wished secretly that you were dead?

 

 

When you are fully persuaded, you don’t fear death and you certainly don’t fear life, begging for it to end.

 

NOR (ELECT) ANGELS NOR PRINCIPALITIES (FALLEN

ANGELS)

 

Elect angels WOULD NOT want to separate us from the unconditional love of God.  They are for us.  Principalities (fallen angels) COULD NOT separate us from our relationship with the One with whom we are in union…the Lord Jesus Christ.  One commentator calls them the “malignant angels,” and so they are.  They are a cancer.  When you are fully persuaded, you don’t fear angelic creatures… neither the elect ones, from whom there is nothing to fear, nor the fallen ones, who often are assigned to help us fail.

 

 

If I have anything against Christians, it is how much they underestimate the creatures of the Kingdom of Death, with their deep hatred of us and their deep desire to see us humiliated.  We need to be more on the alert.

 

NOR THINGS PRESENT NOR THINGS TO COME (THE FUTURE)

 

The next pair of things to not worry about are the “known now” things or the “unknown later” things…the present and the future.  These things cannot separate us from the unconditional love of God. 

 

As it relates to the present, we look around us and what do we see?  We see death and destruction on a daily basis…Munich…Nice… Dallas…Paris… Baton Rouge…the list is growing…and it’s international.  We worry about who the next president will be.  Yet these things do not interrupt God’s unconditional love for us even though they are constantly in the news to scare us into thinking God is off duty, and the world is “going to hell in a hand basket.”  The world is Satan’s kingdom, and chaos has ALWAYS been the norm here.  Do you doubt?

 

How about the future?  How about our doubts and over concern with what will be happening tomorrow?  King David was a worrywart… First Samuel, Chapter 27, Verse 1 …

 

First Samuel 27:1

Then David said to himself, “Now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines. Saul then will despair of searching for me anymore in all the territory of Israel, and I will escape from his hand.”

 

As we know, David succeeded Saul when the Lord removed Saul as King.  There was no need for David to doubt about His future…and there is no need for us to doubt about present or future...the Lord has our fate sealed…and nothing can separate us from His unconditional love.

 

In fact, I am constantly amazed at all the things God protects us from in unconditional love…both things I know about and things I don’t know about that He does for me.  Second Timothy, Chapter 4, Verse 18…

 

Second Timothy 4:18

The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

 

Matthew, Chapter 6, Verse 34 says…

 

Matthew 6:34

“So do not worry about tomorrow (the future); for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day (the present) has enough trouble of its own.”

 

Let’s take a music break and then we’ll continue.

 

MUSIC BREAK

MY TRIBUTE

Andre Crouch

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

When We Are Fully Persuaded There is No Doubt

 

Welcome back!  Romans, Chapter 8, Verses 38 and 39…

 

Romans 8:38

For I (Paul) am convinced that neither death nor life…nor (elect) angels nor principalities (demons…fallen angels)…nor things present nor things to come (the future)…nor powers…

 

Romans 8:39

…nor height nor depth…nor any other created thing…will be able to separate us believers in Christ from the unconditional love of God the Father, who is for us through our union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Will any of these supernatural things separate us from the unconditional love of God?  Decidedly not!

 

NOR POWERS

 

Not even one of the individually powerful things can separate us from God’s unconditional love.  No one!  Not anyone who claims to be powerful, in the angelic realm for example, like Satan…nor anyone in the human realm who claims to be powerful, like human governments, or their systems… communism or socialism or fascism…not those who claim mighty works… not those who claim to do miracles…not the wealthy…not superstitions… not anything or anyone that would ever be considered powerful…can ever separate us from the unconditional love of God the Father.  Yet aren’t these the very things are concerned about every single day?  Aren’t these the things that invite doubt in, giving us the feeling that the world is spinning out of control and no one is at the helm?

 

The Greek word for power here is dunamis…it forces us to ask ourselves the question, what is your source of power?  When I was kid, I watched my mom put her faith in horoscopes…a form of mysticism.  And like every lie, much of what is said in the horoscopes rings true…and we believe them… Acts, Chapter 8, Verses 9 to 11…

 

Acts 8:9

Now there was a man named Simon, who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great…

 

Acts 8:10

…and they all, from smallest to greatest, were giving attention to him, saying, “This man is what is called the Great Power (dunamis) of God.”

 

Acts 8:11

And they were giving him attention because he had for a long time astonished them with his magic arts.

 

And to this Paul would ask, as he did to the Galatians, in Chapter 3, Verse 1…

 

 

Galatians 3:1

You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

 

It’s easy for us to be fooled by charlatans…we justify it when we go to a psychic or a card reader or a deceitful spirit…we SAY it’s all in fun, but we are foolish if we think it doesn’t affect us…and I’ll be darned if it doesn’t stick in our brains in a most amazing way.

 

 

What are some of the things that people consider to be powerful?  Sorcery (black magic…witchcraft…ever heard of the Wiccans?)…necromancy (those who allege to be able to communicate with the dead)…spells (powerful ritual incantations)…superstitions (Friday the thirteenth… Halloween…black cats…broken mirrors…passing under a ladder)…voodoo (fetish and object worship)…cults (extremist forms of religion with a charismatic leader)…luck…coincidence…“knocking on wood” … any things that leave God out as our real source of power…none of these stupid things can separate us from God’s unconditional love.

 

NOR HEIGHT NOR DEPTH

 

The next two things Paul mentions, height and depth, indicate that nothing in the entire universe, not things above, not things below, will have the power to separate us from God’s unconditional love.  In Psalm 139, Verses 1 to 8, David comforts us by telling us how intimately God knows us…

 

Psalm 139:1

O Lord, You have searched me and You known me (my motivations).

 

Psalm 139:2

You know when I sit down and when I rise up (my actions); You understand my thoughts from afar.

 

Psalm 139:3

You scrutinize my path and my lying down (my whole day’s activities), and are intimately acquainted with ALL my ways.

 

 

Psalm 139:4

Even before there is a word on my tongue (you know what I am about to say), behold, O Lord, You know it all.

 

Psalm 139:5

You have enclosed me behind and before (protection), and laid Your hand upon me (an anointing…Ephesians 2:10).

 

Psalm 139:6

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me (WOW!); it is too high, I cannot attain to it.

 

Psalm 139:7

Where can I go (to hide) from Your Spirit?  Or where can I flee from Your presence?

 

Psalm 139:8

If I ascend to heaven, You are there (height); if I make my bed in Sheol (hell…the Lake of Fire…depth), behold, You are there (as well).

 

In this Psalm we see God’s omniscience (He knows all that is knowable)… we see His Omnipresence (He is everywhere simultaneously) and we see His Omnipotence (He has all the power).  So how could we ever doubt the One who created us and how could we doubt the things He has the power to do by right, as Sovereign of the Universe?  Satan has none of this kind of power going for him, yet he claims to be powerful.  Hardly!

 

For the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no way to escape His concern, especially His unconditional love for you.  Are you fully persuaded?  Or do you doubt?

 

GOD WANTS YOU!

Make the Most Important Decision of Your Life

 

Acts 16:30

“…the jailer asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

 

Acts 16:31

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and everyone in your household who also believes.”

 

Acts 4:12

“And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given to mankind by which we must be saved (except the name of the Lord Jesus Christ).”

 

John 14:6

Jesus said to the apostle Thomas, the doubting one, “I am the way (to salvation), and (I am) the truth (the Word of God), and the (resurrection) life; no one comes to the Father but through believing in Me.”

 

Acts 2:21

‘And it shall be that everyone who calls on the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation will be saved.’

 

CLOSING SONG

HIS STRENGTH IS PERFECT 

June Murphy

 

CLOSING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

Thanks for coming!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for listening!

 

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