ROM-4-140427 - length: 74:18 - taught on Apr, 27 2014
Class Outline:
Welcome To
BARAH MINISTRIES
a Christian Church
Rory Clark
Pastor-Teacher
Welcome to Barah Ministries…a Christian Church…my name is Pastor Rory Clark. In John, Chapter 11, Verse 25, our Lord and our God, Jesus Christ made a bold and true proclamation…
Jesus said to (Martha), “I am the resurrection (from the dead) and (I am) the (zoe) life (the resurrection life…the eternal life)…”
Indeed the Lord is the resurrection and the life, and as believers in Christ we count on Him, both for resurrection from death and for eternal life. We are grateful that He has conquered death on our behalf by crucifying our sinful flesh at the Cross. Galatians, Chapter 2, Verse 20 says…
“I (Paul) have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in(dwelling) me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me (unconditionally) and (who) gave Himself up (as a substitute) for me.”
By crucifying sinful flesh at the Cross, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are now made new…Second Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 17 says…
Therefore if (1) anyone is in (union with) Christ (and all believers in Christ are), he is a new creature; the (sovereignty of the) old things passed away; behold, new (sovereign) things have come.
…in God’s plan, death is always followed by life! Are you living the life?
We come here to worship the Lord who made us new, and He challenges us not to go back to the old life…Luke, Chapter 5, Verses 37 to 39 say…
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will
burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined.
But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.”
“And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’”
That’s our dilemma as human beings. We think the old life is good enough. Our Lord says the old life is NOT good enough. The old life is the offer of a thief. John, Chapter 10, Verse 10…
“The thief (Satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I (the Lord Jesus Christ) came that (believers in Christ) may have (the zoe) life (the resurrection life), and have it abundantly.”
Is your life reflecting the resurrection and the life to all you meet?
MUSIC AND REFLECTION
Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ
Enjoy the Singing of His Praises
Let Them See You in Me
As God prepares our souls for the celebration, let’s worship our Lord in song. The opening song is LET THEM SEE YOU IN ME.
OPENING PRAYER
Let us pray...
We’re grateful Heavenly Father for the privilege of studying the absolute
truth...the Word of God…
Help us to choose the new life You have given us and to discard the old life…give us the courage to be different…give us the desire to follow the path You are laying for us…
We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit...in Christ’s name... Amen.
TODAY’S STUDY
Romans 2
There is “The Life” Beyond Right and Wrong
First, a few announcements…
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Prayers
Denny and Emilie Goodall
Mark Your Calendars!
The next Lord’s Supper Celebration is May 11, 2014
Mother’s Day!
We’re in Our New Location!
1220 S. Alma School Road
(Alma School and Southern)
Suite 201
Mesa, AZ
Thank you to everyone who had a hand in the details of this move. This will be our home until God provides our new building. The plan is to be here for three years…let’s pray that it is no more than that. We’re looking forward to seeing the great things we will create for our community through this new location. We’re glad to settle into one place that we can call our own for a while.
Now let’s take the offering.
Let’s remember to give with the motivation suggested in Scripture
Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful (grace oriented) giver.
Let’s welcome up Deacon Denny Goodall.
TODAY’S OFFERING
Deacon Denny Goodall
Barah Ministries Financial Policy
Even though we are sanctioned by God to charge for the things we provide so you can worship God, we choose not to exercise our right. Therefore no price appears on any material from Barah Ministries so that anyone who desires biblical teaching may have it free of charge.
Barah Ministries Financial Policy
Even though the materials we provide are free of charge, they are not free of cost. We appreciate it when the Word of God motivates you to give financial support so as to provide biblical teaching, both for yourself and for others.
OFFERING VERSE
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
OFFERING
Draw Me Close
TODAY’S STUDY
Romans 2
There is “The Life” Beyond Right and Wrong
God the Holy Spirit put it on my heart a few years ago that there is life beyond right and wrong. Truly, I didn’t know what He meant. This week it dawned on me what He meant. The life of ungodliness and unrighteousness that we came from, our life from physical birth is a box.
<THE LIFE BEYOND SLIDE>
We slide up and down the pole…we vacillate between right and wrong…we obsess about our rightness and we dread our wrongness. For many of us this is a lifestyle. We spend most of our waking moments defending our
rightness and covering our wrongness. We’ve seen this life before in the Garden of Eden. Genesis, Chapter 3, Verses 6 and 7…
When the woman saw that the tree (of the knowledge of good and evil) was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
An interesting thought…the eyes of both of them were opened…I don’t see it that way…of course their eyes were opened in that they now saw things they did not see before…I think what really happened is that they invited themselves into a box.
<THE LIFE BEYOND SLIDE right-wrong-life>
They invited themselves into a lifestyle of right and wrong. Now their worry was, “Am I right or am I wrong?” You can see this dynamic at play in relationships during arguments. Blame is flying…each person in the relationship wants to make it clear to the other, and to anyone who will listen, that they are right and that the other person is wrong. And when blame is levied, if rightness were established, which it seldom is, where do the two of you stand then? No one likes to be wrong, and certainly no one is going to give you a “sticker for the refrigerator” for your rightness. That dynamic is destructive to a relationship.
That dynamic is also destructive to the spiritual life. In the next chapter of Romans, Paul is going to be talking to the people who have put themselves in that right wrong box…the self-righteous and the religious. A preview of his message to them, a message straight from the thoughts of God, is that there is a life beyond right and wrong. That’s how God the Holy Spirit first revealed it to me. The bible says there is “The Life” beyond the right and wrong life. Here’s how the bible puts it…John, Chapter 10, Verse 10…
“The thief (Satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I (the Lord Jesus Christ) came that (believers in Christ) may have (the zoe) life (the resurrection life), and have it abundantly.”
John, Chapter 11, Verse 25…
Jesus said to (Martha), “I am the resurrection (from the dead) and (I am) the (zoe) life (the resurrection life…the eternal life)…”
The Resurrection Life is “The Life” beyond right and wrong. Are you living it? “The Life” beyond right and wrong is a life of freedom. Are you living it? Or are you trapped in a self-righteous and religious mentality, or worse yet in a lascivious mentality, that has you circuiting a box like a rat in a maze, trapped in the right-wrong life? As we study the next passage of Romans: Romans, Chapter 2, Verses 1 to 16, we take on the life in a box that we must allow God to break us out of if we are to live the life that God has called us to. Take a five-minute break.
BREAK
When I Think About Home
Welcome back!
What is self-righteousness?
SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS
Smugly moralistic conduct which is often intolerant of the opinions and behavior of others…having or showing an exaggerated awareness of your own virtue…the thought that you are better than others, and due a set of privileges because of it.
What does it mean to be religious?
RELIGIOUS
Extreme conformity to a set of practices that provide a delusion of righteousness.
What is lasciviousness?
LASCIVIOUS
Inclined toward lust, sexual interest, and sexual desires.
In the last passage of study, Romans, Chapter 1, Verses 18 to 32, Paul was talking to the Gentiles. They were lascivious. They broke the law, and they knew they were breaking the law. They had a lifestyle of lust, an insatiable desire for “the pleasures” of life. Rome at the time of the writing was a study in perversion in just about every facet of life.
In chapter two of the book of Romans, Paul turns his attention to the self-righteous and the religious…to the group who is certain they never do anything wrong…to the group that smugly look down their noses at others. Turn to Romans, Chapter 2, Verse 1…you’ll remember my warnings as we studied Romans, Chapter 1, Verses 18 to 32…even though many of you are now believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and even though this passage is directed to unbelievers, to the ones God is storing up wrath for, I warned you to not “forget where you came from.” When you were an unbeliever, dead in your trespasses and sins, you were in the same state as these. I warned you because it is easy for us to slip into an attitude of self-righteousness, and to be smugly intolerant of the plight of others…these are the people Paul addresses next…the self-righteous and religious unbelievers.
Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge (condemn) another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge (others) practice the same things (things just as bad, perhaps worse).
In other words, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, so don’t forget where you came from. If we are to label the people under discussion in Romans, Chapter 1, Verses 18 to 32 as immoral, we’d have to label the people Paul is now talking to as moral. That life in a box, the right wrong life, traverses from right to wrong, from self-righteous and religious to lascivious, from moral to immoral. Yet all of these lifestyles live in the box. They are the product of the ungodly and unrighteous life…they are the product of sinners, the lifestyle of unbelievers…it is the manufactured product of the sin nature. As believers in Christ, we no longer live that life, but we mustn’t forget where we came from. Galatians, Chapter 2, Verse 20 says…
“I (Paul) have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in(dwelling) me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me (unconditionally) and (who) gave Himself up (as a substitute) for me.”
Yet we must never forget where we came from lest we go back into the box of living the self-righteous life.
The Christian Way of Life is not a lifestyle of morality. It’s a lifestyle of freedom. How do you condemn others?
How about the guy lying in his bed watching the news? He sees a story about the indiscretions of Tiger Woods. He rolls over onto his side and says to his mistress, “Can you believe a guy like him would do something like that?” Alas. We always see the faults of others, even when we refuse to see it in ourselves. Turn to Matthew, Chapter 7, Verse 1…do you have a giant dose of self-righteousness? This is the Lord Jesus Christ calling out Pharisaical practice…
“Do not judge (others) so that you will not be judged.”
“For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”
“Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
“Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?”
“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
Alas. We don’t. We live the right wrong life. Everything I do is right.
Everything everyone else does is wrong. Often, those thoughts come to our
mouths in the form of gossip.
This is not to say that we should not use sound judgment as we witness the sins of others. Often the sins of others provide great instruction for us. And when we talk about them, often we are not judging…we are merely using discernment to assess a situation and to decide how we will proceed with our own lives. Let’s not be childish about this. Let’s not use this as a license to gossip. Let’s not start calling gossip discernment.
We are being self-righteous when we are using our own standards to judge others. Our standards indicate self-righteousness. God judges us based on His standards.
What is God’s standard in this age? Grace. Turn to Ephesians, Chapter 3, Verse 8…
To me (Paul), the very least of all saints (the worst believer in Christ to ever live), this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ…
…and to bring to light what is the administration (dispensation) of the mystery (the Church Age) which for ages has been hidden in (the) God (the Lord Jesus Christ) who created (the) all things…
…(and this grace was given to me) so that the manifold wisdom of God (the Father) might now be made known through the church (the Royal Family of God…the body of Christ) to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord…
…in whom we (believers in Christ) have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.
The Promises of the Lord Jesus Christ
“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”
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.
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
CLOSING SONG
Take My Hand
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!
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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