ROM-79-150215 - length: 63:47 - taught on Feb, 15 2015
Class Outline:
Welcome To
BARAH MINISTRIES
a Christian Church
Rory Clark
Pastor-Teacher
Good Morning!
Welcome to Barah Ministries…a worldwide Christian Church based in Mesa, AZ…my name is Pastor Rory Clark.
Isaiah, Chapter 41, Verses 8 to 10…
“But you, Israel, My servant…Jacob whom I have chosen…descendant of Abraham My friend…”
“You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth…and called from its remotest parts…and said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you.’”
“‘Do not fear, for I am with you…do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God…I will strengthen you, surely I will help you…surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’”
How great it feels on the days when you realize there is a God…that He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth…that He created you…that He has a plan for all mankind…and that He has a perfect plan for you and your life. What a wonderful feeling!
The God we are talking about is the Lord Jesus Christ.
In these opening verses, the Lord makes it clear to the most persecuted country in the world…Israel…and to the most persecuted people in the world…the Jews…that they have nothing to fear. Does he have anything less planned for you than He planned for Israel and for the Jews? Of course not! Romans, Chapter 2, Verse 11…
For there is no partiality with God.
God thinks just as much of you as He thinks of anyone. Each of us is special in God’s eyes. Even God’s enemies are special to Him. Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 8…
But God the Father demonstrates His own unconditional love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners (ungodly, unrighteous unbelievers), Christ died for us.
Now as believers in Christ we are much more sure of God’s feelings for us… Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 10…
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God the Father through the death of His Son, and we were, much more, having been reconciled (as believers in Christ…through faith alone in Christ alone), we shall be saved by His life.
Welcome to a place where you can hear the Word of the Lord and be edified by it, knowing that even though your don’t think of yourself as special, the Lord Jesus Christ thinks you are very special and is always thinking about the next provision He is going to make on your behalf. Will you notice?
MUSIC AND REFLECTION
Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ
Enjoy the Singing of His Praises
As the Deer I/Love You Lord
Let’s begin our worship of the Lord with a song…the opening song is…As the Deer I Love You Lord.
OPENING PRAYER
Let us pray...
We’re grateful to you, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…
Wipe out the emotion of fear from our eyes with your gentle Person…help us to experience the mental hugs Your Word provides…wipe out the hesitation we feel when we are unsure…help us to move forward knowing that you are always with us…remind us to ask you for the help we need… show us that Your strength is perfect when our strength is gone…edify us so that we can stand in Your power in the face of the schemes of the evil one… Your enemy, Satan…keep in the forefront of our minds that You consider us special and that You are preparing us for an amazing destiny…and that You did the preparation for our lives in the past…it is an established fact…and it is unfolding now…right before our eyes…give us the feeling that You have us exactly where You want us…right this minute…
We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit...in Christ’s name...
Amen.
TODAY’S STUDY
Can a Christian Live in Sin?
No.
Let’s kill the suspense.
No.
So where did the expression, “Living in Sin” come from? That’s the next issue we will tackle in our study of Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter 6.
We Died to Sin
So where did the expression, “Living in Sin” come from? It has come to mean…
LIVING IN SIN
Leading a sinful life…cohabiting and having sexual relationships with a person to whom you are not legally married…it is fornication if you are single…adultery if you are married…this expression arises from the idea that legal marriage is a prerequisite for sexual relationships…it is popularly associated with the attitude of religious organizations…and connotes a belief that such sexual an cohabitation behavior is sinful.
The idea of “Living in Sin” is actually an identity that the God’s enemy, Satan and his kingdom of death like to promote and like to attribute to you as an identity to make you feel inadequate…to give you a feeling of hopelessness…to give you the feeling that God is not on your side…and it works! If your brain is twisting in confusion because you have used this expression yourself, or if you believe a Christian can actually “Live in Sin,” then you are probably in the process of tuning out. Don’t! Stay tuned, because I have no interest in providing you with my opinion. My job is to tell you what the Word of God has to say, and the Word of God is God’s exact thinking. When you hear things like this, rather than adopting it, you should check out what the Word of God has to say.
We Died to Sin
We don't always want to hear God’s thoughts on matters like these…we’d rather take on the identity God’s enemy wants us to have…“Living in Sin”…or how about an identity for a woman…“having a baby out of wedlock” … where did that come from? Interesting that this is only attributed to a woman and not to the man who “knocked her up” … “divorcee” … another identity… Hispanic…we love when the enemy of God gives us identities we can use to put ourselves down, especially when we go through the things that all humans go through…the times when we have sex when we are not married, the times when we have a baby and we are not married…the times when we choose to live with someone before we are married…there are people I know who decided to marry so they could have sex “legally” and so they wouldn’t be living in sin…of course the marriage wasn’t right from the start…wrong motivation…and a few years later they were divorced…but at least they didn’t disappoint God by having illicit sex…forget about the more egregious error of the sin of disunity…of joining to each other as one flesh and then letting the kingdom of death tear them apart. There are more identities that Satan has for us…and we willingly take them on along with the burden of feeling like God sees us as defective. But He doesn’t. First John, Chapter 4, Verse 8…
The one who does not love unconditionally does not know God the Father, for God the Father is unconditional love ( in His very Person).
God is not judging you. God loves you unconditionally, right this minute. He wants for you the things you want for yourself, at least those things that do not destroy you.
Turn in your bibles to Romans, Chapter 6 where we continue our study of Paul’s letter to the Romans, a foundational biblical work that teaches us the Christian Way of Living. We’re studying the first passage in this chapter that extends from Verse 1 to Verse 11…
What shall we believers in Christ (such ones as we…the children of a King) say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
May it never be! How shall WE who DIED TO SIN still live in sin?
We Died to Sin
So how can a Christian “Live in Sin?” Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 3…
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into union with Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of God the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we believers in Christ have become united with Him in the likeness of
His death, and we have, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection…
…knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin…
We Died to Sin
…for he who has died to sin is freed from sin.
Now if we believers in Christ have died with Christ, and we have, we believe that we shall also live with Him…
…knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
We Died to Sin
Sin is no longer master over you! Death is no longer master over you! How do you like that identity? Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 10…
For the death that Christ died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God the Father.
Even so, believers in Christ, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We Died to Sin
So I ask you…can a Christian “Live in sin.” That’s the next subject we take on in the sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. For all of the lessons this year, we have been looking at Romans Chapter 6, Verses 1 and 2…Paul
asks us to consider the proper use of our freedom…
What shall we believers in Christ (such ones as we…the children of a King) say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
Paul is asking if we think we should sin more to get more grace? Paul says, in Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 2…
May it never be! How shall we believers in Christ (such ones as we…royalty…the children of a King), who died to sin (as an established fact at the moment of our salvation), still live in sin (as if sin is still our master)?
We Died to Sin
So in our study of the opening of Romans Chapter 6, we have dealt with the ludicrous idea that God’s graciousness toward us is a license to sin. It is not the proper use of freedom. What actually give us license to sin…and license means “formal permission” to sin…is our free will. God allows us to act independently from Him…therefore we have freedom, and we can use our freedom to obey God, or we can use our freedom to disobey God. So we have license…formal permission to do whatever we want. You’ve heard people say this…mostly teen-agers…“I just want to be able to do whatever I want” … you can! But Paul is asking us in the first two verses of Romans, Chapter 6, “Is it a good idea to think of free will as God giving us formal permission to sin?” Paul says, “May it never be!” Absolutely not!
There are a few words hiding in the second verse that deserve attention.
We Died to Sin
What does that mean? In short, it means that we, as believers in Christ, as people who are in union with Christ, we can’t “Live in Sin.” How can you live in something that you have died to? You can’t! I’m looking forward to studying this expression with you and to tearing down another lie
You’ve been carrying around in your soul. Take a five-minute break…
BREAK
How Great is Our God
Welcome back…what does it mean…“We died to sin?”
We Died to Sin
God’s enemy wants to give us an identity that cripples us mentally and that encourages us to think we are doomed…that we have no hope…for example…Satan wants us to believe that the sin of homosexuality is more than just a sin…he wants us to believe that it is an inborn identity…that engaging in it dooms us to hell…and Satan’s false teachers will cite these verses…First Corinthians, Chapter 6, Verses 9 and 10…
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals…
…nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
What is missed when these verses are cited, even by well meaning Christians, is that “the unrighteous” are unbelievers. It should be no surprise to any Christian that the “unrighteous, ungodly, sinner,” the unbeliever who has rejected a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, will not inherit the kingdom of God. It is not the sins mentioned in these verses, nor any other sins, that will keep them out of the kingdom of heaven…it is the rejection of a relationship with Christ that keeps anyone out of heaven. But of course Satan loves distorting Scripture and making us believe we are hopeless when we sin. It’s just not true.
I have had numerous friends who consider themselves one of these identities…gay, lesbian, homosexual, faggot, puff…you name the name for the identity…formal or slang…national or international…and I have heard them say on numerous occasions. “I was born this way. I can’t help it.” Well the bible says it is a choice, not an identity. The bible says homosexuality is a sin…a sin that the Lord Jesus Christ paid for at the Cross…no different than sins like lying…stealing…judging…gossiping. Satan takes sins and turns them into an identity…if you lie, you’re a liar…if you steal, you’re a thief…if you are judging, you’re a judger…if you are gossiping you are a gossip. We willingly accept these identities. And if you are cohabitating with a member of the opposite sex, even if you aren’t engaged in sexual practices…even if you were just sleeping in the same bed without having sex…you are “Living in Sin.” Then the bible goes and confuses us…
We Died to Sin
God gives us believers in Christ identities, too. Why don’t we identify with them?
GOD GIVEN IDENTITIES FOR BELIEVERS
Saint
Priest
Righteous
Holy
Blameless
GOD GIVEN IDENTITIES FOR BELIEVERS
Justified
Reconciled
Redeemed
In Union with Christ
New Creature
GOD GIVEN IDENTITIES FOR BELIEVERS
Ambassador
Indwelled (by the Trinity)
Temple
Son
What would we worry about if we accepted these identities, while shedding the identities the kingdom of darkness has for us? Romans, Chapter 5, Verses 1 and 2 talk about the past, the present and the future of the believer in Christ…
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we believer sin Christ have peace with God through our union with the Lord Jesus Christ…
…through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this sphere of grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope (absolute confidence) of the glory of God (in the future).
We Died to Sin
Now that we know that we can’t “Live in Sin,” what mental freedom does this burden lifted provide for you? Romans, Chapter 6, Verses 1 and 2…
What shall we believers in Christ (such ones as we…the children of a King) say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
May it never be! How shall WE who DIED TO SIN still live in sin (as if sin is still our master)?
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have God’s peace…He has nothing against you. In light of that established and irrevocable fact, what is to become of your lifestyle? Romans, Chapter 6, Verses 14…
For sin shall not be master over you believers in Christ in the Church Age, for you are not under law, but you are under the sphere of grace.
Hallelujiah!
The Promises of the Lord Jesus Christ
are Guarantees!
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own private interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men carried along by God the Holy Spirit spoke directly from the exact thinking of THE God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
CLOSING SONG
You Don’t Have to Beg
CLOSING PRAYER
Let us pray...
THANKS- INTERCESSION- PETITION
And we pray that You continue to shape the messages from this pulpit that are an accurate reflection of Your unconditional love, Your glorious Person, Your lucid thinking, Your impeccable work, and Your magnificent essence...we ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit, in Christ’s name, Amen.
Thanks for coming!
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for listening!
www.barahministries.com
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1220 S. Alma School Rd. Suite 201 Mesa, AZ 85210 |
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