ROM-83-150301 - length: 80:13 - taught on Mar, 1 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.
Sometimes, it’s fun to wonder why anyone would sign up for the Christian Way of Life. Here’s one of Paul’s descriptions of what the Christian journey is like…Second Corinthians, Chapter 7, Verse 5…
For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts from without, fears from within.
Paul dealt with conflicts from the outside…the constant resistance to and rejection of his person, his work and his message… Paul dealt with fears on the inside…the introspective questions….“Am I doing the right things?” “Who am I?” “What am I doing?” “Am I happy?” “Why is life so hard?” Paul faced the same challenges we face on a day-to-day basis.
The unfortunate thing that happens when we become introspective during the trials of life, by the way, most of them self-inflicted mental trials, is that we think we have to handle all of them on our own…we think they are abnormal…we think no one else is going through these things but us…and we forget to call on the Lord…our Rock and our Strength…Luke, Chapter 8, Verses 22 to 25…
Now on one of those days Jesus and His disciples got into a boat, and He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they launched out.
But as they were sailing along the Lord fell asleep; and a fierce gale of wind (the equivalent of a Category 1 Hurricane with70 mph winds) descended on the lake, and they began to be swamped (with water) and to be in danger.
They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And the Lord got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and the wind and the waves stopped, and it became calm.
And the Lord said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?”
Quite often during these times of intense introspection we forget about the Lord…we forget that He is on our side and we forget to place our faith in Him. He is omnipotent…an all-powerful God who cares about you…a God who can do anything for you…a God who is just waiting for you to ask. John, Chapter 16, Verse 23…
Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.
But as we continue to think we have to handle all of our burdens by ourselves, fear grips our souls…in Matthew, Chapter 10, Verses 28 to 31, the Lord tells us what to fear…and He reminds us that we are within His care…
Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father’s permission.
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.
The Lord cares for you…when you go to the Lord with your problems, He handles the problems and He handles the fear. Romans, Chapter 8, Verse 15…
For you believers in Christ have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
We are the children of a King. We are to cry out for our Daddy in times of trouble. We are to be calm in the midst of the internal storms of this life…Hebrews, Chapter 4, Verse 1…
Therefore, (if we believers in Christ fear anything) let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.
We are to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for His deliverance when we ask Him to take our problems from us. Welcome to a place where the Word of God reminds you to value God, to ask God, to have faith in God, to let God cast off our fears, and to let God give us rest.
MUSIC AND REFLECTION
Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ
Enjoy the Singing of His Praises
Fear Not
Let’s listen to June Murphy sing the opening song…FEAR NOT.
OPENING PRAYER
Let us pray...
We’re grateful to you, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…
Thank you for reminding us that you are always with us…thank you for being faithful to us…thank you for being a person we can always count on…take our problems…solve our problems…and deliver us from the trials you place before us…most of all help us to learn from these trials so that we might become strong in our souls through You…
We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit...in Christ’s name...Amen.
TODAY’S STUDY
The Christian Walk is Only Possible Through the Power of the Spirit
So surrender. Say goodbye to do-it-yourself Christianity. Let God do it. Ask Him. So many wonderful messages have emerged from our study of Romans Chapter 6…
We are to take advantage of God…not in a self-centered way…but through a realization of our status with Him as children of a King, and through the realization of the gifts He has given us, so that we can use them in times of trouble…
We have peace with God, which means God has nothing against us…
Sin is more powerful than our will…we are dead to sin, but sin is not dead in us…it is alive and kicking and very much interested in destroying us…therefore we can stop constantly asking ourselves “why” we can’t do the things we wish we could do…we have an inside agent of evil, the flesh, that is much more powerful than our intentions…but it is not more powerful than our God…John, Chapter 16, Verse 33…
“These things I (the Lord Jesus Christ) have spoken to you (My apostles and My disciples), so that in union with Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
There is a proper use of your freedom…and we know that the proper use of our freedom is to live by a set of spiritual principles in obedience to God…and the proper use of freedom is not “license,” the thought that you have formal permission to deviate from the things God wants you to think, to say, and to do…in other words, disobedience.
As a believer in Christ you reign in this life…you are the child of a king and you are to live like royalty.
You are not under law…you are under grace so you are freed from the constraints of the judgmental “right-wrong” life…God holds you to a higher standard…He placed you within the sphere of grace…
Our old relationship with sin is broken…sin is no longer your sovereign… and personal sinning is to be disregarded, knowing that it is not who you are…knowing that you are not the one doing the sinning…but that the evil “flesh” that is present in you is doing the sinning…and the only one who can overcome that evil is God…turn your battle with personal sinning over to Him…
We know that as Christians, we cannot live in sin, because we died to sin…our past relationship “in Adam” is broken forever…our new relationship has us “in Christ” … so we should avoid visiting the cemetery of sin…
Our old man was crucified with Christ…we are a new creature…therefore we do not look to the past for the answers to our lives…Romans, Chapter 8, Verse 9…
However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you (and for believers in Christ it does).
As believers in Christ we have a part of us called the flesh…it is crucified… it is dead…it is buried…it is still rearing its ugly head within us…it is totally antagonistic to God…it is totally antagonistic to you…it is a destructive force and it cannot be controlled or consoled…only God can handle it for you…will you let Him handle it for you?
We believers in Christ are “righteousness” in relation to sin, because at the moment of salvation God the Holy Spirit baptized us into union with Christ, thus identifying us with the Lord Jesus Christ’s righteousness forever.
We are no longer slaves to sin…we have a Liberator in the Lord…who freed us from the power of sin and death…
Thus, all things are new for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ…Galatians, Chapter 2, Verse 20…
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives indwelling me; and the life which I now live in the flesh (my body) I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me unconditionally and who gave Himself up for me.
What a tremendous mouthful of messages and lessons taught to us by our God, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the last few weeks…and if we are letting these messages sink in…if we are letting these messages cleans us…then we will be having quite a bit of upheaval in our lives as God tears down old structures in your soul while building new ones…and as the many wonderful messages emerge from Romans Chapter 6…don’t miss this message…
The Christian Walk is ONLY Possible
Through the Power of God the Holy Spirit
You can’t live the Christian Way of Life in the flesh…Galatians, Chapter 3, Verses 1 to 3…
You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive God the Holy Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing the gospel and responding with faith?
Are you so foolish? Having begun the Christian Way of Life by means of the baptism of God the Holy Spirit, are you now being perfected (in the Christian Way of Living) by the flesh?
Get that believers in Christ! You can’t live the Christian Way of Life with the flesh! You have to live it with the Spirit. Do you now see why you are always down about yourself? You’re trying to perfect the flesh, and it can’t be done! Take a five-minute break.
BREAK
All I Once Held DearKnowing You
Welcome back! Look at Romans, Chapter 6…
What shall we believers in Christ say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
Unbelievers do not understand grace so they are the only ones that would ask a question as dumb as this. Unbelievers reject grace. They don’t understand grace. They can’t understand grace. They have no grace in them. Believers know the answer to these questions in Verse 1...
May it never be (absolutely not)! How shall we believers in Christ (such ones as we… spiritual 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)?
Believers in Christ go back to sin (their comfort zone “in Adam”) and to personal sinning because they fear freedom. Slavery is easier. Believers are uncertain of how to live under the principle of freedom. The principle of our freedom coexisting with God’s freedom begs the question, “What is the Christian Walk?” … or the question, “What is the lifestyle of freedom?”
At the moment of salvation, an unbeliever becomes a believer in Christ. As a result, the unbeliever is saved. Acts, Chapter 16, Verse 31…
“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and everyone in your household who also believes.”
SAVED. At the moment of salvation the unbeliever is placed into union with Christ by the baptism of God the Holy Spirit and is simultaneously transferred by God the Father from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Father’s beloved Son. As a result, the believer is SANCTIFIED. What does it mean to be SANCTIFIED?
SANCTIFIED
To be set apart for a set of privileges…to be made holy…to be prepared for a lifestyle of service.
As a believer in Christ, you are SANCTIFIED. First you are SAVED while an unbeliever, then you are SANCTIFIED…you are placed into union with Christ…and set apart for a series of privileges that are incredulous to the imagination as we learn about them. Being SAVED gives us the privilege of the Christian Way of Life. Being SANCTIFIED gives us the privilege of the Christian Way of Living. Another term for sanctification is the Christian Walk…Romans Chapter 6, Verses 3 to 11 detail the challenge of this walk.
As you think about the next verses…Romans, Chapter 6, Verses 3 to 11…notice how many times the result of our baptism is detailed. We are declared dead to so many things…Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 3…
Or do you not know (are you ignorant of this established and irrevocable fact?) that all of us who have been baptized into union with Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death (as an established and irrevocable fact)?
Our death to sin…and our baptism into union with the Lord Jesus Christ as our new federal head (we are no longer “in Adam”) … is an established and irrevocable fact. But because we still have sin in our members…“the flesh” still rearing its ugly head in us…it makes it hard for us to understand what the Word of God is telling us here. We can’t understand why we can’t live the way we want to live. It’s because “the flesh” is more powerful than your human will. Oops! So we have to believe what the Word of God tells us more than we believe our own experience. We have faith in the Word for SANCTIFICATION just like we had faith in the Word for SALVATION. Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 4…
Therefore we believers in Christ 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 (walk in the new ZOE life).
Through identification with Christ’s death, we have been taken out of our Old Man…and placed into a New Man at the moment of salvation…and we are learning to have a lifestyle in the New Life of SANCTIFICATION, while simultaneously abandoning the Old Life of SIN… so we, too, might walk in the new resurrection life….in the new eternal life…in the new ZOE life. There is now NO IDENTIFICATION with the Old Man or with the Old Man Life. We are new. We are dead and buried to the Old Man and the Old Life. Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 5…
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…
Being united with Him means we have to ask ourselves as believers in Christ…what does it mean to be “in Christ” … en Kristo Iesu … it means we have been grafted into him like a branch is grafted into a vine…John, Chapter 15, Verse 5…
I (the Lord Jesus Christ) am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
The Christian Walk is only possible through the power of the Spirit.
God the Holy Spirit though His indwelling presence provides us with the enabling power that allows us to overcome anything in this life through the use of God’s power, and not through the use of our own.
Experience after experience after experience will prove to you that your human power is worthless…and when you get so frustrated with your lack of spiritual power that you start to realize where your real power comes from, perhaps you will count on God differently. Turn in Your bibles to Second Corinthians, Chapter 12, Verse 1…
Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable; but I (Paul) will go on to tell you about visions and revelations of the Lord.
I know a man in union with Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body (physically alive) I do not know, or out of the body (physically dead) I do not know, God knows—such a man (Me…Paul) was caught up to the third heaven (the residence of God).
And I know how such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows—
…was caught up into Paradise (the Garden of God in the heavens) and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.
On behalf of such a man I will boast; but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in regard to my weaknesses.
For if I do wish to boast I will not be foolish, for I will be speaking the truth; but I refrain from this, so that no one will credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me.
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!
Isn't it fun to see that part of you? Isn’t it more fun when others point it out?
Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.
And the Lord has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for divine power is perfected in human weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
The Christian Walk is only possible through the power of the Spirit. This calls for us to stop the do-it yourself Christianity and to go to God for everything. Matthew, Chapter 21, Verse 22…
“And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
Don't be powerless…start asking!
The Promises of the Lord Jesus Christ
are Guarantees!
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren (other believers) who are in the world.
After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.
CLOSING SONG
I Surrender All
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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