ROM-52-141026 - length: 68:12 - taught on Oct, 26 2014
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.
Welcome to the place where you can learn about the Age of Much More and The Much More Life, the resurrection life, the “Zoe” life, the eternal life, which is the life that God the Father planned for all of us believers in the Lord Jesus Christ after the Cross. In Romans, Chapter 8, Verses 31 and 32 we see one of the many places that highlights The Much More Life…
What then shall we believers in Christ say when we come face-to face with all these things (from Romans 8:28 to Romans 8:30)? (Well…we can say) If God the Father is for us, and He is, who is successful against us?
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…in light of our union with Christ…freely give us believers in Christ all things?
He will. It is our God and Father’s desire to give us the desires of our heart. It says so in Psalm 37, Verse 4…
Delight yourself in the Lord…and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord…trust also in Him, and He will do it.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the
noonday.
If we go back to July 1, 2013, if you asked me if I believed in The Much More Life…if you asked me if I thought the Lord was interested in giving me the desires of my heart, I would have told you, “No.” As much confidence as I have in the Lord and in His Word and in His faithfulness, I thought it worked for me in every area but one…romantic relationships. In that area, I was hopeless. And I told Him so. I told Him that I was a complete failure in romantic relationships, and if there was to be one for me, He would have to do it, because I just did not know what I was doing in that area. I was incompetent. As it turns out, there was someone just as incompetent as me on the other side of town, feeling just as helpless and just as hopeless…yet with a confidence in what the Lord is able to do. She prayed that He would give her the desires of her heart. Just fifteen months later, a hopeless man and a hopeless woman have become one flesh in wedded matrimony, and we are grateful to our God for bringing us together.
I’d like to introduce you to my wife, Lila Clark.
<LILA AND RORY SLIDE>
Our marriage is God’s victory. It’s a testimony to the impossible. Matthew, Chapter 19, Verse 26…
And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
I’m grateful to God for Lila and for my new daughter Alyssa and for the happiness He has brought into my life after years of misery and failure in relationships. Thanks also to Monica Miller for her prophetic words of encouragement…“Pastor Rory…all marriages don’t suck.” Monica…I know what you mean. I’ve now got a marriage that doesn’t suck. In fact, it’s downright enjoyable. I’ll be ever grateful to you and John for being a picture of what is possible that I can relate to. And I’m glad to be joining all of my married friends back on the sunny side of the street.
MUSIC AND REFLECTION
Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ
Enjoy the Singing of His Praises
BORN AGAIN
Let’s begin our worship of the Lord in song. The opening song is…BORN AGAIN, and I’m sure June picked this just for us.
OPENING PRAYER
Let us pray...
We’re grateful to you, Heavenly Father, for demonstrating Your unconditional love for us by allowing us to encounter tribulation, sometimes for long periods of time…tribulation that is custom made for those of us, like Pastors, who can be slow learners…thank you for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God, which gives us peace in the face of tribulation…thank you for Your graciousness to let us work out our lives on our own time frames with You standing at the ready to help anytime…
Help us to continue to recognize Your hand in our lives…help us to respond to Your guidance…help us to appreciate your presence…
We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit...in Christ’s name...
Amen.
TODAY’S STUDY
Welcome to The Age of Much More
We continue our study of Romans…Chapter 5…turn there please…
THE BOOK OF ROMANS
Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 1 to 11
Peace With God
Standing in the Sphere of Grace
Coming Glory
In the first eleven verses of Romans, Chapter 5, we are told about a glorious set of riches that have been provided to us by God in the past, for our present, and for our future. As our representative, the Lord Jesus Christ has done everything for us. As the one represented, we simply accept His free gifts. It’s a generosity that we are prepared neither to receive nor to enjoy. We’re just not used to it. Most of us don’t even know how to handle a compliment, much less how to handle the wealth that the Lord has set aside on our behalf. I’m still pinching myself in the area of romance, and the song I secretly hum to myself is “Tell Me I’m Not Dreaming.” Our God has given us everything, and in the first half of Romans Chapter 5 we are reminded of His generosity…Romans, Chapter 5, beginning at Verse 1…
Therefore, having been justified on the principle of faith in the past, we believers in Christ now, and forevermore into the eternal future, keep on having peace with God the Father through our union with the Lord Jesus Christ…
Because of our union with Christ, God the Father has decided to no longer have anything against us. Whenever God does a thing, it is done once and for all time…it is done forever. At the moment you became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you were declared righteous, and God will not ever change His mind about the “so great” salvation He provided for you. This is the good news we are learning about in Romans, a good news the Lord wants us never to forget.
…and through our union with Christ also we believers in Christ have obtained our direct access to a Person of privileged rank, God the Father, who placed us into this sphere of grace, a sphere in which we presently stand; and through our union with Christ also we keep on exulting in the future hope of the glory of God.
And we not only exult in all these things (from our past…righteousness and justification…in our present…peace…in our future…glory), but we also exult in our tribulations that are given to us by God the Father, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance…
The tribulation that God gives us is for our edification. God always delivers us from tribulation…although sometimes it takes some time because sometimes we spend too much time in His way!
…and perseverance brings about proven character; and proven character brings about hope…
Hope is a happiness in the soul that all of us strive for…yet strive as we might, we seldom achieve it…and when we realize that we are not good manufacturers of happiness, God lets us know we don’t have to manufacture happiness, because God is willing to give us a happiness in our soul without the work. Philippians, Chapter 4, Verse 11…
Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.
Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 5…
…and hope does not disappoint, because the unconditional love of God the Father has been poured out within our hearts through God the Holy Spirit who was given to us by God the Father.
First we get the free gift of a personal plan for our lives from God the Father. Then we get the free gift of God the Son volunteering to take our place at the wrong end of the wrath of God. Then we get the free gift of God the Son taking on the form of true humanity, Jesus Christ, and becoming the unique person of the Universe…the Lord, Jesus Christ…100% God and 100% man in one person forever...The Lord, Jesus Christ, who is the only perfectly satisfactory payment for our sins. Then we get the free gift of God the Holy Spirit, who pours out God’s unconditional love into our hearts, so that we can redirect it toward the people and the circumstances of our lives…it helps us to maintain an attitude of peace. Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 6…
For while we were still helpless (wallowing in the sphere of our sins), at the
right time the Lord Jesus Christ died for the ungodly (for the unbelieving…
for the unrighteous…for sinners).
God helps the helpless. He sure helped me. Matthew, Chapter 9, Verses 10 to 13…
Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house (of Matthew, a tax collector and an apostle of Jesus Christ), behold, many tax collectors and prostitutes came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples.
The Lord Jesus Christ always wanted to be around people who knew they were sick. He would much rather be around the lascivious ones than the self-righteous ones.
When the Pharisees (the self-righteous ones) saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and prostitutes?”
The Pharisees would never be caught dead with “these type of people” because they had no compassion for lasciviousness or for the people they considered to be not like them.
But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick (need a physician).”
The Pharisees didn’t think they were sick.
“But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous to salvation, but I came to call sinners (I came to invite them to salvation).”
Take a five-minute break.
BREAK
I Know You’re There
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Welcome back!
In Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 7 and following, we find out what God’s love is like…
For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.
The Lord says…“I did not come to call the righteous to salvation, but I came to call sinners to salvation…” Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 8…
But God the Father demonstrates His own unconditional love toward all mankind, in that while we were yet sinners (while we were unbelieving… while we were unrighteous…while we were ungodly ones), the Lord Jesus Christ died for us (in our place).
God’s unconditional love is not given because of a cause in you…God’s unconditional love is not given because of a worthiness in you…isn’t this why we don’t take well to compliments and to generosity because we operate with a thought that everything we get we should deserve? Can you even imagine what your life would be like if God honored your wish and gave you only what you think you deserve? It would be a disaster. Banish
the thought!
We live in the Church Age…the Age of Grace…the Lord Jesus Christ and His Cross put an end to the age of the law…Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 14…
For sin shall not be master over you, for you (Church Age believers) are not under law but (you are) under grace.
If we were to call the Church Age by another name, it would be called the Age of Much More. How sweet it is! Paul, the great debater uses a debater’s technique to convince you that He is telling the truth about how God operates. He uses the a fortiori argument.
The A Fortiori Argument
A Latin Expression
If the stronger, harder thing is true…
The weaker, easier thing has to be true as well…
…much more true!
Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 9…
Much morethen, having now been justified by the Lord Jesus Christ’s blood, we believers in Christ shall be saved from the wrath of God the Father through our union with Him.
The stronger, harder thing?
God the Father declares you righteous because of the blood of Christ that was shed on your behalf.
The weaker, easier thing?
You are saved from the wrath of God the Father through your union with Christ.
The A Fortiori Argument
A Latin Expression
If the stronger, harder thing is true…
The weaker, easier thing has to be true as well…
…much more true!
Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 10…
For if, for the sake of argument, while we were the enemies of God we were reconciled to God the Father through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ’s life.
The stronger, harder thing?
You chose to be God’s enemy
You chose to erect a barrier between God and you by committing sins
God the Father, knowing you couldn’t bail yourself out of the sin mess, did the stronger, harder thing by sending His Son to die instead of you
The stronger, harder thing is that God died for an enemy, something none of us would be willing to do
If God the Father did the stronger, harder thing for us, by sending His Son to die instead of us, won’t He also do the weaker, easier things like reconciling us to Himself and like saving us with the Lord’s resurrection life?
Much more…the Lord says to us, “If I do the stronger, harder thing, you can also expect I’ll do the weaker, easier thing, too!”
Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 11…much more…much more!
And not only this (much more), but we believers in Christ also exult in God the Father through our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
The result of much more is that we are happy.
So if God the Father does the stronger, harder thing by justifying you with the blood of His Son, He’ll also do the weaker, easier thing by allowing you to forgo His wrath.
If God the Father does the stronger, harder thing by reconciling you to
Himself, He’ll also do the weaker, easier thing by allowing you to be saved through the gift of a resurrection life.
If God the Father does the stronger, harder thing by saving you while you were a despicable sinner, He’ll also do the weaker, easier thing by providing you with everything you need to live the Christian Way of Life.
Turn in your bibles to Luke, Chapter 14, Verse 28
For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him…
…saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’
The Lord, before He built us, calculated the full cost of caring for us. He will not be the subject of ridicule. Not only did He calculate to the penny what He needed for us…He also included the Much More.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Thank you Lord for the abundance of The Much More Life.
The Promises of the Lord Jesus Christ
When God makes a promise…
it’s a guarantee!
For by His glory and excellence the Lord Jesus Christ has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature…
God the Father who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with our union with Him freely give us believers in Christ all things?
Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.
CLOSING SONG
IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL
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 person, Your thinking, Your work, and Your essence...we ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit, in Christ’s name, Amen.
Thanks for coming…for watching…for listening!
www.barahministries.com
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