Archive for the ‘Sin’ Category

Who’s Got Your Body?

Posted: June 14, 2010 in Flesh, Grace, Holiness, Journey Through the Cross, Sanctify, Service, Sin
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Most  people have seen “Achmed the Dead Terrorist” with comedian Jeff Dunham

  • He is known for yelling, “Silence! I kill you!” to Dunham and people in the audience
  • His favorite Christmas song is “Jingle Bombs”.
  • When Jeff mentions that Achmed appears to be dead because he’s a skeleton, Achmed responds, “It’s a flesh wound.”
  • When Dunham inquires as to how he died, Achmed explains his incompetence with explosives, by saying that they both suffer from “premature detonation.”

Achmed went to a Doctor for an examination. The Doctor examines Achmed and says it looks like he has scoliosis, and orders an X-Ray. Achmed says, “why don’t you just take a Polaroid?”

Paul wants us to see the Polaroid of our Body the way God Sees it: And He wants us to answer this question – Who’s Got  Your Body? Paul presents foundational truth about our body and we must allow that truth to replace our experience.

Whatever contradicts the truth of God’s Word is to be  regarded as the Devil’s Lie, not because it may not be in itself a very real fact to our senses, but because God has stated a greater fact before which the other must eventually yield. Nee NCL p 75.

The body (flesh) is sin’s special sphere of operation. Man is a slave to sin because his body is sin’s puppet. The moment the body is disengaged or disemployed from sin, we cease to be sin’s slave. Our body is liberated from sin’s power and influence. The old man is crucified to release the body from the dominion of sin. With sin’s partner, the old man, crucified, and the new man taking its place, sin’s power over the body is broken.

Let’sl look at what God wants us to do with this body, this flesh. He wants us to believe what His Word says is true. If you recall, we looked at Romans 6 verse 6 and discovered that is our old man was crucified with Christ. Then we looked at Romans 6:11 and saw how we are to count (or reckon) on our old man being dead. The Christian life is not to be a life of following rules, or fleshly struggling to overcome sin. The Christian life is lived in the Grace of God and in His power. God has provided our deliverance rom sin, not by abolishing it, not by removing our flesh, but by removing the old man!

Now we continue on in Romans starting at verse 12, and we discover a new command:

1. COMMAND…

(6:12) Believer’s are commanded to not let sin rule over their bodies. This is a forceful command.

  1. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Romans 6:12

1. We Must Not Let Sin Reign

(basileuetō): have authority, rule, control, occupy, hold sway, prevail over him. The present tense is used, so the idea is a continuous attitude and behavior.

  • “Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Cor. 15:34).
  • “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

Our bodies are dying (mortal-thnetos). Our bodies are unemployed (body of sin annulled Rom 6:6)

2. We Must Not Obey (To yield to a superior command or force) sin in its lusts (epithumiais).

The word means strong desire or craving and passion. The pull of sin is sometimes strong, very strong. All men know what it is to lust after things, after more and more, whether it be money, property, security, position, pleasure, fun, or fleshly stimulation. The true believer must not yield to these pulls. He must not let the lusts of his eyes and flesh rule and regulate his mind and behavior. He must not let lust order his life. He must not obey sin in its lusts, in its cravings and desires and passions. He must resist the lusts of his “mortal body.”

  • “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:29).
  • “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8:13).
  • “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14).
  • “That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God” (1 Peter 4:2).

2. PRESENT…

vs 13: Present yourselves to God

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Romans 6:13

1. (6:13)  Body is an instrument (hóplon)

The body is not the source of sin, but the Bible says and man’s experience proves that the body is the instrument of sin, the organ which sin uses to manifest and satisfy itself. But Romans 6:6 says our body is unemployed, it is annulled, put out of action when it comes to the power of sin. Now our bodies are free to be instruments fit for the Master!

2.  (6:13) We Must Not Present The Members Of Our Body To Sin.

The word “present” (paristēmi) means to offer; to put at the disposal of; to give; to grant; to turn over to. Some translations use yield, but that implies a passive action. The idea is much more active in its intent. You are to present your bodies to God as instruments for His use. The believer is not to allow the members of his body to be instruments or tools of unrighteousness. If he takes a member of his body and uses it as an instrument or tool of unrighteousness, he sins.

“Do Not Present” is in the imperative, which means it is a command, a command in the present, which means we must always be aware that we do not present ourselves as instruments of sin. Therefore, we must be vigilant in watching who we serve.

But the “present yourselves to God” is in the aorist tense, which means a onetime action that you make. It is not something you do over and over. Just as the golden vessels were presented to the Lord one time, just as Samuel was presented by his mother one time, so you must at one time present your members unto God, for Him to use as He sees fit. God will then be responsible for your body. From that day we must watch who we are yielded too, and lest we forget, God will constantly remind us.

3. We Present Ourselves To God.

Note a significant fact: in the Greek this is not written in the present tense, but in the aorist tense. This simply means the believer is to make a one-time decision for God, a once-for-all dedication of his life to God. We do not just yield- that has the idea of ‘passive surrender’! No, we actively present ourselves to God as His New Creation!

The presentation of your life to God is to be sincere and genuine—a one time decision. You are to yield yourself—your body, your life, all that you are—to God; and your decision is to be a permanent, one time decision.

We present our members to God as instruments of righteousness. Turn the members of your body over to God: your eyes, ears, mouth, tongue, hands, feet, mind—all your members. Every part of your body is to be given over as an instrument or tool to do righteousness.

Present to God as one who has passed from death to life. God doesn’t want the old man, God wants our new life! Our flesh is unemployed, so He wants to employ it, but We must consciously present it to Him!

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1-2).

3. LEARN…

(6:14-15) Sin does not dominate true believers. We are under grace and not under the law.

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Romans 6:14-15

1. Struggling to Keep the Law is an act of the Flesh

The believer is constantly aware that he fails and comes short of the law. He struggles and strives, wrestles and grapples, works and labors to obey; but his experience is full of tension and pressure, disappointment and discouragement. The person under law never lives a victorious life, for he is constantly coming short of God’s glory and perfection. The defeated Christian is relying upon his flesh and self-will to overcome sin.

  • This is not God’s Way!

God’s way is the power of His Grace!

  • “For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me” (Psalm 38:4).
  • “For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me” (Psalm 40:12).
  • “For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:3).

2.  We Are Under Grace, Not Under Law.

God is not a legal judge hovering over you to punish you every time you sin by breaking a particular law.

What does being under grace mean? It means that the believer accepts the grace of God demonstrated in Jesus Christ. The believer accepts the righteousness, the sinless perfection of Christ as his own righteousness. The believer identifies his life with the life of Christ,

God counts the faith of the believer as the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

  • How do we keep from serving sin and from living under sin and from displeasing God?
  • How do we live under grace day by day?
  • How do we live under God’s favor all of the time?
  • How can we please God and receive His approval and acceptance?

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:30-31

We must constantly keep before us the glorious truth that we are under God’s grace.

God is our Father, and we have become true children of God’s. We are only accepted and beloved in Jesus Christ. We abide in Jesus Christ. As long as we abide, we bear fruit. If we fail to abide by faith, we do not bear fruit.

We have need of daily cleansing. There are presumptuous sins, there are sins of omission and commission. Jesus said we will need our feet washed as we travel this earth. Sin will be around us, but sin does not have control over us.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

3.  Are We Allowed To Continue In Sin?

Can we sin and sin and keep on expecting God to forgive and forgive? Scripture shouts: God forbid! Then Scripture argues that a true child of God must not continue in sin. Why does the true child of God not sin? Why does he keep away from sin?

⇒  Because the grace of Christ indwells us!

“For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee” (Psalm 5:4).

⇒  Because we turned to God in order to get away from sin and its shame and destruction.

He did not turn to God in order to have the freedom to sin, but to be set free from the enslavement and habits of sin, to break the bondage and consequences of sin.

  • “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death” (Romans 6:21).
Sin is not to dominate the believer

We as Children of God must learn something: sin will not and does not dominate the true believer. There are three reasons.

1.  God is not a legal judge hovering over the child to punish him every time he sins by breaking a particular law. The child is not under such frightening dominion.

2.  God is a gracious and loving Father. He cares and suffers long with growing children. When His child falls into sin, God is long-suffering, ever willing to forgive His erring child—if the child will only come and ask forgiveness and turn from his sin (Luke 17:3-4; 1 John 1:9).

3.  God is a teaching Father who disciplines. He exhorts His child not to fall into the dominating trap of sin (cp. Hebrews 12:5-11; 1 John 2:1-2).

The truth of our NEW LIFE in Christ is that we live in and experience the power of grace!

4. KNOW

vs 16: Know that you can only serve one master

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? Romans 6:16

1.  You Can Serve Only One Master, Sin Or God.

The word “servant” (doulos) means slave. A person is either the slave of sin or of God, and there is a very simple test to tell which master a person serves. Do you yield to sin, that is, serve sin? or do you yield to God, that is, serve God? Either sin is your master or God is your Master. You either yield to sin or you yield to God. This does not mean that you become sinless and perfect, but that…

  • you do not plan to sin.
  • you depend upon the life of Jesus
  • you diligently seek to make God the Master of your life by obeying Him.
  • you study God’s Word so that you will know His commandments and can obey Him.
  • you walk in open confession before God, talking to Him all day long, ever gaining an unbroken fellowship with Him as the Master of your life.

2. You walk in the flesh, or you walk in the Spirit!

You either walk by sight, or your walk by faith!

  • “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Matthew 6:24 .
  • “Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34).
  • “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8).
  • “While they [the carnal or fleshy] promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage” (2 Peter 2:19).

5. REMEMBER…

vs. 16-17 Remember your decision to obey

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Romans 6:17-18

1. Remember Your Decision. You Chose Righteousness.

  • Note the stated fact: believers “were the servants of sin.”

You used to yield to sin, all kinds of sin ranging from…

⇒ language and media
⇒  immoral thoughts to adultery.
⇒  simple thoughts of pride to drunkenness.
⇒  simple acts of selfishness to stealing.
⇒  self-centeredness from eating to what you buy and what you do.
⇒  hurting and using people

You obeyed God! Not in your flesh, not just obedience to a bunch of rules, but you obeyed from your heart!

  • “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment” (1 John 3:23).
  • “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

2. Note The Result: We Are Freed From Sin.

They are counted righteous by God, not sinful. God sees believers as righteous people, not as sinners. Therefore, believers are freed from sin and its consequences. God does not charge believers with sin; He does not lay sin against them. Believers are freed from the accusation of sin, and they shall never be charged with sin. God has freed them from sin through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (cp. Romans 8:33-34).

We become the servant of righteousness. Once we truly know God’s glorious love, we are driven to serve God in appreciation for what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. We are driven to be the servant of God by living righteously and godly in this present world.

6. DO…

I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. Romans 6:19-20

1. Do Serve God With The Same Fervor That You Served Sin.

Your body was a slave to sin because your old man was very much alive. All the old man could do was influence your body to sin. Sin held sway over our old man, so our dress, our attitudes, our speech and our thoughts all give way to the bondage of sin. Our thinking gets so upside down that we think everything we do is OK! We ‘justify’ ourselves, our actions, our attitudes and our words. But we are enemies of God.

Sin always produces more sin. As Romans 1 illustrated, sin is a downward spiral that results in our world being turned opposite of what God’s view is. Sin enslaves. Sin becomes a binding chain that produces habits that we simply ‘tolerate’ and even accept. “iniquity unto iniquity” – Iniquity issuing in an abiding iniquitous state

2. Present Your Members As Slaves To Righteousness That Work Holiness

“Let righteousness work holiness” (hagiasmon). The word means sanctification or holy. The believer is to yield the parts of his body to serve righteousness, and he is to let righteousness sanctify him more and more. He is to live righteously and become more and more holy like God.

When you served sin, you were free from righteousness: you were not credited with righteousness. You did not have the opportunity to live righteously before God. But now you have obeyed God; you have believed. Now you have the opportunity to live righteously, so begin to serve God with the same fervor and energy with which you were serving sin. Let righteousness enslave you and become the bondage and habit of your life.”

  • “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14).
  • “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).
  • “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24).
  • “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col. 3:2-5).
  • “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11).
  • “That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God” (1 Peter 4:2).

7. QUESTION…

What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. Romans 6:21-22

1.  Question if there is any fruit in sin. (Of Course Not!)

The true believer is ashamed of his past sin.

  • “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Genesis 3:10).
  • “And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens” (Ezra 9:6).

The fruit of sin is death. The fruit of sin is not good; there is nothing good about it. Sin corrupts, destroys, and dooms all who seek its fruits. This should always be remembered by men.

David struggled with this:

Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! Psalms 73:12-19

2.  Real Fruit Belongs To Believers Who Are Slaves Of God.

We are “set free” from the corruption of sin by justification in Jesus Christ. Through the blood of Jesus, we are justified in God’s sight. We are declared as righteous as Jesus Christ because we are IN Christ the glorious love of God. We now owe our new life to God himself. Our members are His, set apart as Holy just as the Temple vessels were.

We now bear the fruit of that leads to sanctification and eternal life.

  • “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5).
  • “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).
  • “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).
  • “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: to the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints” (1 Thes. 3:12-13).

Bearing The Glorious Hope And End Of Eternal Life.

  • “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).
  • “And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together” (John 4:36).
  • “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

8.  CONSIDER…

v 23: the wages of sin vs. the gift of God, of eternal life.

Death (thanatos): the basic meaning of death is separation. “Death never means extinction, annihilation, non-existence, or inactivity.”

Sin deserves death for two very clear reasons. Sinners Live their lives without God, so they will Live their Eternities without God.

1.  Sin ignores and denies God

  • Acts against His nature.
  • Acts in the interest of man.

2.  Sin is rebellion against God.

  • It is rejecting God, ignoring God, disobeying God, denying God,
  • It refuses to Give God His proper place in our life.

They have no part of God.  They are to be banished from God’s sight.They are to be separated from God’s presence forever. They will experience the wrath of God that Jesus experienced for them on the Cross.

As a laborer receives his wages, so sinners shall receive their wages. Each and every day you ignore God and refuse Jesus Christ, you are storing up God’s wrath upon your life. Just as it would be unjust not to pay the laborer, it would be unjust not to pay sinners for their work.

In fact, if sinners did not receive their just punishment, it would be the most gross injustice to His Son, Jesus Christ. Why? Because God would be saying to His Son; your death didn’t mean a thing. Your pain, your suffering, your very life was all a waste. When you experienced Hell for the sake of sinners, it did not mean a thing, becasue I’m going to let them into heaven anyway! Ghastly thought!

Sinners must receive their just wages. Sinners must die; They must be banished forever from the presence of God.

  • “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).
  • “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15).
  • “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thes. 1:9).
  • “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. (Ezekiel 18:20).

3.  The gift of God is eternal life.

Note that eternal life is not the payment of wages. A man cannot work for and earn eternal life. It is the gift of God, and it is only through Jesus Christ our Lord

  • “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
  • “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7).

Have you Presented Your Body to God?

Consecration begins when we realize the old man is dead-knowing, reckoning, presenting.

When we know our old man is crucified, then we reckon ourselves dead to sin, and alive unto God. Giving myself to Him naturally follows, for we realize that my newness of life is based upon His resurrection, and indeed my very life is in Him! When we realize that Jesus is our very life, then we naturally give Him everything!

Unless I pass through death, there is nothing to consecrate to Him, there is nothing God can accept, for God has condemned my old man to the cross.

Consecration (presenting) means that I consider my whole life as belonging to Him.

Money in my pocket -if it is mine, I can do whatever I want. If it belongs to another, then the money is in my trust, and I cannot buy what I please.

How many of us realize that because Christ is risen, we are alive “unto God and not unto ourselves.

We belong to another, and we dare not squander a cent of our money, a second of our time or any of our mental or physical powers on anything other than what the Lord wants!

What is Holiness?

When we give ourselves wholly to Christ, that is holiness. We do not become holy by the eradication of something evil within. We become holy by being separated unto God! We have gone to the Cross and discovered not only must we kneel at the feet of Jesus and let His blood cover our sins and cloth us with His righteousness.

Our Journey does not end there, it only begins. For the next step is to join Him on the cross and realize that our old man was crucified with Him that we should no longer serve sin. Once we know that our old man was crucified, we count on it, we reckon it to be true in our life.

Then we present ourselves to Jesus. We don’t give Him any of the old man, that is dead. We give him our unemployed body, our hands, our feet, our face, our self, and we say, put these to work as you see fit. All the old Jim Tompkins is dead, and the life I now life is Jesus living through me.

I give myself to you alone, with my one desire being to know you and to walk with you on the course you have chosen for me. I want nothing for myself! I want everything for God!

Then you can say with Paul, I have finished my course (2 Tim 4:7)

You can say “I know that the will of God is good and acceptable and perfect for me!” (Rom 12:2)

  • How can a tailor make you a suit without the fabric?
  • How can a builder build you a house without the building materials?

We cannot expect the Lord to live out His life in us if we do not give Him our lives in which to live!

Will you present yourselves to God?

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What are you Counting on to Overcome Sin?

Posted: May 24, 2010 in Faith, Journey Through the Cross, Justification, New Life, Resurrection, Romans, Salvation, Sin, Uncategorized
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One day, an out-of-work man knocks on the door of a home in an upper-class neighborhood. The lady of the house answers. “Pardon me Ma’am; I’m out of work and looking for any odd jobs that people need done. I’m very handy with everything from repairs to yard work, to painting…”

“Painting?” the woman jumped in.

“Oh, yes, Ma’am! I’m a very careful painter,” the man replied, his face brightening at the realization she could provide him some work.

“I’ll tell you what. My husband just bought some green paint last week to paint the porch out back with, but we haven’t had any time. If you can do a good job, then you can paint it before he gets home and surprise him.

“Now, do a particularly good job and paint the trimmings white also, and I’ll pay you an extra bonus.”

“Oh yes, Ma’am, I’ll do an excellent job!” He was told the paints were also around back in the garage.

A few hours later, the man returns to the door.

“That was quick, did you do a good job?” the woman inquires.

“Oh yes Ma’am, two coats! But there’s something you should know,” the man says.

“That’s not a Porsche, that’s a Mercedes!”

Paul Paints Pictures for us In Romans 6

In Romans 6 Paul is painting a picture, a picture of the present that is based on the past. In verse 5 the painting is of two scenes:

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united (planted as one) with him in a resurrection like his.

1. The first painting is of our being united with Christ in His death.

Because of that fact, we see a painting of the future-our resurrection with Jesus! The reality paints the future! Because we KNOW we have died with Christ, we KNOW we shall be resurrected just like Him!

Paul is picturing our union with all that is Jesus Christ. Everything He experienced, we experience by faith. But Paul wants to drive this picture home to the reality of our daily living, not just our future eternity.

2.In verse 6 He pictures a truly unbelievable truth…

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Paul says that our old man, our old ‘Adamic’ self, was actually crucified with Christ, with the result being that we are no longer in bondage to sin. Paul says our fleshly body of sin is rendered powerless, brought to nothing, put out of business, unemployed.

This truth transcends our ‘fleshly’ comprehension. This truth runs contrary to our real-life experience. Sin is very much alive, and something that most of us tolerate, deal with, cope with, resent, you name it, we do it when it comes to this sin nature that plagues our Christian walk. Even Jesus told his disciples that when they pray they should say “Father, forgive our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Jesus even acknowledged that we should daily ask forgiveness of our trespasses.

Paul wants to drive this truth further into our hearts and into our daily walk! He paints a beautiful picture of the reality of our New Life in Christ in verse 7:

For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Set free is (dedikaiōtai)-perfect passive indicative of dikaioō, a word we have seen before in Romans 5. It’s the word we translate “justified”. The word means that because of the blood of Jesus and our faith in what He did, God can declare us righteous. He doesn’t just overlook our sins, He declares there is no sin, we are Holy and Righteous just as God is Holy and Righteous. As Paul wrote in Romans 5:1:

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our faith in the finished work of Christ on our behalf places us before God as sinless and Holy as He is. Why, because we are placed ‘in Christ’ (we are planted as one), His Holy and Righteous Son. Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness!

A. Paul wants us to realize that if by faith, we can believe that the blood of Jesus covers our past sins, and our New Birth makes us justified before God,

B. then by faith, our death with Christ justifies us (makes us righteous) and thereby frees us from this sin nature!

  • By faith we are brought into a new birth,
  • By faith we are brought into a new walk, a walk that is freed from the power of sin!

One painting is of the crucified Christ, shedding His blood upon our sins, and making us white as snow. The other painting shows our “old man” hanging with Christ on the cross, and our New man walking free from the chains of sin as we walk hand in hand with our risen Savior!

This is what Paul paints in verse 8:

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

A cartoon read – “Well, I haven’t actually DIED to sin, but I did feel kind of faint once.”

This is not speaking of our life after death with Jesus. This is talking about our lives right now! If this is true, then this will be the reality. If your old man is dead, your new life will be entirely with Jesus Christ. There are no ifs ands or buts.

The Christian walk is not a fleshly or a self-willed walk. Our walk with Christ is to be totally with and by and through the means of Jesus Christ!

PUT ON THE NEW SELF

The believer’s new life imparted to him at the moment of believing is the life of Jesus Christ. We don’t get a piece of Him, we receive His Life!

We live by means of Him. We get every bit of our spiritual life from Jesus Christ!

Paul is not speaking of fellowship with Jesus, he is not speaking of our eternity with Jesus. He is speaking of our LIFE, our LIVING!

If God paints a picture of our eternal life with Him through the Blood of Jesus, why can’t we see the painting of our Living as Jesus because we were crucified with Jesus on the Cross?

Why do we doubt the truth that we have been freed from the power of sin? Why do we doubt that our body (of sin) is unemployed, powerless? Why do we doubt that our old man is really dead?

It is as if Paul is reading our minds as He writes verses 9-12:

9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

Today we will look at Romans 6:7-12 and will seek to understand the first two steps of deliverance from sin. We will look at Knowing and then we will look at reckoning (or counting upon), and then we will look at the practical way this works in our daily walk.

1. KNOWING THIS

In verse six we read: knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him.

Knowing is from the greek word “ginosko” which is objective knowledge. The knowledge you learn at school, who the President’s have been, facts about the Civil War, Vietnam War. If someone is acquanted with someone, they know that person

The other word for knowing is “oida”, which is knowledge of a more personal, intimate nature. It is an inward consciousness. It is intuitive knowledge not necessarily known from external sources. You have a gut feeling about someone. A Mom has an intuition about a hurting child.

  • John 8:55 illustrates: But you have not known (ginosko) him. I know (oida) him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word.
  • John 13:7 illustrates: Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest (ginosko) not now; but thou shalt understand (oida) hereafter.
  • Hebrews 8: 11: And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know (ginosko) the Lord,’ for they shall all know (oida) me, from the least of them to the greatest.

In Romans 6 verse nine, we find another Knowing, but this time it is from “oida”, meaning an intimate, personal knowledge.

Paul writes that we know personally, intuitively, that Jesus is rasied from the dead, and therefore He will never die again. We know within that Jesus conquered death!

So what we must know personally and intuitively, is that if Jesus conquered death by His resurrection, He also conquered sin by His death! So verse 11 says, when you know this personally, you will know and see that your old man is dead to sin. The King James says you must reckon, others count, others consider.

So, living the new life starts with:

  • Knowing that He died to set us free from sin.
  • Knowing that our old self was nailed to the cross w/Him.
  • Knowing that just as Jesus rose from the dead & will live forever, we have been raised to a new life in him that has no end.
  • Knowing that we live no longer by the tyranny of sin.

Bottom line: Once we know in our heart of hearts (as revealed by the Holy Spirit) that our old man was crucified with Jesus and buried with Him, then we must count on our old man being kept dead to sin. We reckon the old man dead!

The Four Steps of Deliverance

Last week I mentioned there were four steps of deliverance from sin. These are in our Journey in Romans 6, 7 and 8.

  1. Knowing
  2. Reckoning
  3. Presenting ourselves to God
  4. Walking in the Spirit

Here is the connection between believing and knowing. When you read the Word of God, you have a choice: believe or not believe.

“but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:31

Once you believe, by faith in Jesus Christ, you inwardly KNOW you have eternal life. No matter the doubts, no matter the feelings, no matter what the Devil says, you KNOW Jesus is your Lord and Savior.

“These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” 1 John 5:13

Believing becomes KNOWING! KNOWING turns into a life – long Believing Jesus Christ.

You don’t leave Jesus at the Cross. You don’t get up from the altar and walk away in your own strength. Your NEW LIFE is Jesus Christ! Your daily walk is a daily walk of BELIEVING JESUS!

Our Belief in the Blood of Jesus results in our KNOWING we are justified before God.

Our Belief in our crucifixion with Jesus Christ results in our KNOWING that our old man is dead to sin, and that we are (JUSTIFIED) freed from the power of sin.

Both Paul and John knew this truth:

  • I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:-20
  • For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3
  • We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:18-20

When our belief in Romans 6:6 becomes the inward knowing of Romans 6:9, we are ready to go to the second aspect of deliverance form sin, from verse 11:

2. Count on this (Reckon)

NIV: In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11

KJV: Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:11

Phillips: In the same way look upon yourselves as dead to the appeal and power of sin but alive and sensitive to the call of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:1

ESV: So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11

The point is, that if we believe that our salvation is because Jesus is alive, and since He is alive in God, then we must see ourselves as alive in God as well. God would not have us alive in Him if we were still under the power of sin! We are alive in God, and sin has no power over God! Therefore sin has no power over us, because we died to sin and are now alive IN GOD!

How Does Reckoning Work? Reckoning Is Faith In Action!

“You Count Upon Something”

  • This doesn’t just happen! – It is something the believer can & must do daily.
  • Christ’s’ death & resurrection has altered their position & they should live in accordance w/the new reality.
  • He doesn’t say that sin is dead! But that we are to count ourselves as dead to it!

Faith accepts God’s fact. Faith is always founded upon the past. Hope relates to the future. Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for. Because we have faith in what God did in the past, we can have hope in the future.

Jesus said this about faith:

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:24

Faith believes God has already done it! If you pray hoping God will do something, that is not faith! Faith always relates to the past, that God has already done something. If you say God can, God may, God will, God must, you do not have faith. Faith always says GOD HAS DONE IT!

So when do we have faith in our crucifixion? Not when you say God can, God will, God must crucify me. You have faith in what God has done when you exclaim “Praise God I am crucified!”

Reckoning makes real that which you accept by faith! Because I believe I am crucified with Christ, I am now count myself dead to sin!

The Two greatest facts in history are:

  1. All Our Sins Are Dealt With By The Blood
  2. We Ourselves Are Dealt With By The Cross

Barriers to Reckoning

  • Doubt of the divine facts

The devil comes to us and says, there is something stirring inside you. How can you say you are dead to sin? God deals directly with our sins by blotting them out with the blood of Jesus. But God deals with our sin nature in an indirect way. He doesn’t remove the sin nature, he doesn’t remove this sinful flesh, he simply kills the go between, our “old self.”

We don’t have victory over sin, wed on’t overcome our sin, only Christ has done that. What we do have is the power to be delivered from sin. That power is by reckoning what God has done in the past as true in our present.

Our daily choice is what facts to count on and live by: the facts of our daily experiences or the mightier fact that we are “IN CHRIST” and our old man is crucified in Him.

What facts are you placing your faith in?

Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the vidence of things unseen! How do you substantiate something? We substantiate things everyday.

I hold up a white towel. It is already white, but my eyes look at it and communicate with my brain to substantiate that it is white. Now if the socks are navy blue I may have to go outside in the sunlight to substantiate that they are not black, but indeed are navy blue.

You cannot substantiate divine things with your fleshly sight or touch.There is only one way to substantiate the invisible things of God – by faith. Faith makes the real things (even though they be invisible) of God become real in my experience!

Faith substantiates to me the things of Christ!

To faith, God’s Word is true, to a doubting mind not illumined by the Holy Spirit, it is not true, but a lie!

Whatever contradicts the truth of God’s Word we are to regard as a lie of the devil.

The devil will work overtime to convince you that you are not dead to sin, and that God’s Word is a lie. Reckoning is done not based on experience but on the basis of what God says!

  • 2 Cor 5:7 for we walk by faith, not by (appearances) sight.

Fact, Faith and Experience are walking on top of a wall. Fact walked steadily on, turning neither to the right or the left, and never looking behind. Faith followed, and all went well as long as he kept his eyes focused upon Fact.; but as soon as he became concerned about Experience and turned to see how he was getting on, he lost his balance and tumbled off the wall, taking Experience with him.

The same thing happened to Peter. As long as he focused on the fact that Jesus Christ was walking on the water, he was fine. When he started to feel the wind and the waves, he took his eyes off the fact of Jesus Christ and let the experience of the wind blow him over into the water. That is why Jesus said, “O ye of little faith!”

3. Let the Knowing be Applied by Counting

God doesn’t remove the sin nature that we inherit from Adam. He doesn’t remove our flesh. God removes the intermediary, the catalyst, our old man. If we do not know this, if we do not reckon this, then we will attempt to handle our sin nature in the wrong ways.

We Focus on sin nature

If we focus our attention on the sin nature, or the devil, or evil, or whatever we want to call it, we will constantly trying to resist sin in our own strength.  Our focus on trying to resist sin will just further enslave us to it. It like trying to break a bad habit; the more you try to quit or overcome, the more you end up doing it. So your guilt emotions run back and forth between saying you’re sorry to doing the sin, and at some point you either give up trying to quit, or you get hardened and say well that’s just me, why fight it?

Either way, sin wins. The sin nature cannot be overcome. That is not God’s way!

We Focus on the Flesh

Some people focus their attention on the flesh. These are the folks who set up a system of rules. These are your “legalistic” Christians. These are the ones who don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t dance, don’t chew and who don’t go with girls that do. Their constant attention is upon conquering the desires of the flesh. These are the Christians who see their walk as a struggle between the black dog and the white dog.

This is not God’s way either. Either way of fighting sin will produce failure, defeat, legalism, pride, a fleshly walk. If you overcome a sin or a bad habit, then you say look what I did. You may throw in a “by the grace of God”, but inwardly you are thinking “I beat this!”

So for most Christians who walk in the flesh, the Christian life is one of constant battles with what you think you must do to be a Christian.

You force yourself to do this or that, read your Bible, go to church, maybe even get on your knees once in a while and pray. You are not living the Christian life. You are not living the LIFE that Jesus died to give you. You are doing the best that you can to look like a Christian.

God neither eradicates the root of sin within nor suppresses the body without!

We Focus on Christ

  • What is true of Christ is to be true of us.

The divine principle is that God has done the work in Christ and not in us as individuals. The all-inclusive death and the all-inclusive resurrection of God’s Son were accomplished fully without us in the first place.

The history of Christ is to become the experience of the Christian. We have no spiritual experience apart from Him. We were crucified with Him, we were quickened, raised, and set by God in the heavenlies “in Him” and we are complete “in Him” (Rom 6:6, Eph 2:5,6; Col 2:10)

God purposed to include us in Christ.

To think you can experience anything of God apart from Him is wrong, and self-focused. Your spiritual experience is only entering into His history and His experience.

At a couple of points in my life I felt that I died to my old man.  The experience I had gone through was earth-shattering, stripping me of any self-esteem, of any dreams, any self-respect. On a couple different occasions my world came to an end. Through God’s grace I accepted what God was doing and died to what I wanted. I willingly accepted my execution.  But my spiritual experience was not unique to me. God had simply brought me to a point where I shared what Christ had already done.

None of us can boast in our experiences, because we have simply entered into what Christ has already done.

Even our salvation is not given to us apart from what He has done in Christ.

“He that hath the Son has life”

Your spiritual growth, your spiritual walk, your spiritual deliverance from sin, nothing is yours alone. It is all as you enter into what Christ has already done!

Since salvation has crucified our old man, sin is annulled, it has no power over our old man, and therefore, the body of sin is unemployed. We have a new King reigning in our body, the Grace of Jesus Christ:

Romans 5:21 (ESV) so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

When you are born again, the Holy Spirit places a NEW KING on the throne of your heart and life. King Jesus comes into your life, removes the power of the old self, and brings you new life in HIM!

  • Doe Jesus always stay on our throne? No, He does not !By our choice!
  • Does He want to always be on your throne? Yes He Does! And we will see from His Word how this can be possible!

A floor lamp is connected to a wall outlet. The light is possible because of the electricity that flows from the outlet up through the cord into the light bulb. Just so, a sinner has this old man, this nature of Adam that is under the domination of Sin. Remove the old man, and Sin no longer has a conduit to appeal to the man’s flesh! When a new believer understands that the old man is truly dead, that he has been crucified on the cross, it presents an entirely NEW WAY of praying when faced with the temptation of sin!

Our prayers should confess confidence in the fact that the old man is dead, that he was crucified and buried, and that now we are in Christ.

Is your every breath an expression of the fact that your new life is totally dependent upon Jesus Christ? Or do you depend upon this dead old man, have you got him on life support and are dragging him around with you?

The Christian walk is not a weekend with some guy named Bernie. You are dead. The old man is dead. Now everything you have is in Jesus Christ! Every spiritual experience He has experienced. He has already overcome sin, and if you die to the old man, whatever He has experienced will be your experience.

You simply believe. Let your faith in what He has accomplished rule your walk. Don’t walk by sight. If you do, you will allow your experiences to dictate what you believe. You’ll be like the scientist that sees the fossils, sees the rock strata, and conclude that God could not have made the world in six day.

But God said He did. Who will you believe? Will you place your faith in the facts as God has stated them, or will you walk by sight?

Faith in the facts becomes the substantiating of the unseen.

As you believe what God has said, you will see that indeed, that sin that always bothered you, all of a sudden, it has no effect upon you. You simply saw that Christ had already overcome it. You entered into the experience of Jesus Christ. By faith, you substantiated that what is unseen is definitely true.

You first knew it, then you really knew it, then you counted on it! He is faithful!

God’s way is to get us weaker and weaker until we finally see that Jesus has put our old man to death on the cross. God delivers us from sin, not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying him; not by helping him do anything but by removing him from the scene of action.

For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— Philippians 3:3

That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:  That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:29-31

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

Do you want the power of Christ in your life? Do you want to experience deliverance from sin? Count on what He has already done for you. There can be no confidence in your flesh or your abilities. There can only be a counting upon His strength. In fact, glory in your weaknesses, and know His power!

Your old man is dead. This you must come to know deep in your heart and spirit. Once you see it, then count on it, and by faith enter into the spiritual victories that have already been won by Jesus Christ. His life must be your life. Your life is dead. Jesus lives in your stead!

Do You Really Know the Value of the Blood?

Posted: April 13, 2010 in blood of Jesus, Blot Out, Confidence in God, Faith, god, Gospel of Christ, Jesus Christ, Journey Through the Cross, Righteousness, Romans, Sin
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Miss Armstrong was feeling especially frustrated by the attitudes of her fourth grade class. She felt that they simply thought they were too dumb to learn. SO she thought she would try something different. As she stood at the front of the class, she asked for everyone who thought they were dumb to simply stand up. There was an awkward pause for several moments, and finally little Johnny stood up.

Miss Armstrong asked him if he thought he was dumb.

Little Johnny said “Why, no ma’am.” “I just didn’t want you to be the only dumb person in class.”

None of us would admit we are dumb, but most of us would admit we are sinners. That’s because we are bothered by our sins. They seem to be ever before us. In Romans 3:21-26 and we saw how Jesus Christ revealed the righteousness of God to mankind. He not only revealed it, he made it available as a free gift to all who believe in Him. He did so by three distinct but interconnected things: Jesus was our Propitiation, He is our Redeemer, and as a result, God is our Justifier.

Justify means that God did not merely ignore our sins, He declares we are Righteous, like Him, as if we had never sinned. In order for God to be able to justify us, something had to be done with our sins. Romans 1-5:11 explore all that God has done to deal with our sins. Romans 5:13-8:37 explores how God deals with our sin nature.

It is because in the first section of Romans, it is a question of the sins I have committed before God, which are many and can be enumerated, whereas in the second it is a question of sin as a principle working in me. The first 4 1/2 chapters of Romans deal with our sins and the Salvation we have in Christ. The next 3 1/2 chapters deal with the Law of Sin and how we have Sanctification through Christ.

No matter how many sins I commit, it is always the one sin principle that leads to them. I need forgiveness for my sins, but I need also deliverance from the power of sin. Sins touch my conscience, the principle of sin affects my living. I may receive forgiveness for all my sins, but because of my propensity to sin, I still have no peace of mind.

When the light of God’s Word first shone into my heart, my cry was for forgiveness, for I realized I had committed sins before Him. Once I have been forgiven and born again I make a new discovery, the discovery of a principle or law of sin that drives me to keep sinning, even though I am a new creation. I realize there is something wrong within me. I have an inward inclination to sin, to put myself first, to lean on my own understanding. I still have this nature that desires to sin.

I may seek and receive forgiveness, but then I sin once more. So life goes on in a vicious circle of sinning and being forgiven and then sinning again. I appreciate the blessed fact of God’s forgiveness, but I want something more than that: I want deliverance. I need forgiveness for what I have done, but I need also deliverance from what I am.

The next few weeks we will discover together the means of deliverance, but today we must lay the foundation for that deliverance, and then continue the foundation next week. We need to wrap our hearts around the significance of two things which are found prominently in Romans 4 and 5. The most important truth we must learn this morning is the truth about the Blood of Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:25-26 (KJV) Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Romans 3:25-26 (Phillips NT) God has appointed him as the means of propitiation, a propitiation accomplished by the shedding of his blood, to be received and made effective in ourselves by faith. God has done this to demonstrate his righteousness both by the wiping out of the sins of the past (the time when he withheld his hand), and by showing in the present time that he is a just God and that he justifies every man who has faith in Jesus Christ.

The Power of the Blood is that it allows God to be both Just and our Justifier

God is both Just and the Justifier. (δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα)

Just= díkaios; fem. dikaía, neut. díkaion, adj. from díkē  right, just. Righteous, just. Used in the neut. tó díkaion, that which is right, conformable to right, pertaining to right, that which is just.CWSD.

Justifier= dikaióō in the act. voice means to recognize, to set forth as righteous, to declare righteous, to justify as a judicial act.

Only God can justify a sinful man. Only God can declare we are righteous. And the Blood of Jesus allows Him to do just that! But how often do we try to justify ourselves?

This is clear from Luke 10:25 in which a lawyer who came to Jesus asked Him how he could inherit eternal life. “Willing to justify himself” (But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”( Luke 10:29)  The Pharisees to whom the Lord said in Luke 16:15, “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men,” i.e., you have set yourselves forth as righteous, as if there is nothing wrong with you if you were to stand in a court of justice.

No matter what efforts you take to try to justify yourself, God says it is not enough. Only just God has the power to declare you righteous. And only the Blood of Jesus has the Power to allow Righteous God to declare us righteous.

The meaning of that phrase is God righteous and making believers righteous. It is of the essence of divine righteousness to bring men into perfect harmony with Himself. Paul’s object is not to show how God is vindicated, but how man is made right with the righteous God. (Wuest)

God being righteous can look at sinful man and declare him as righteous as He is! And He can still be righteous! In fact He does it because of His righteousness! Now this to me is an impossible task, and worthy of our examination! I wonder “how can this be?”

Consider the heavy indictment against you and me:

  • ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one’ (Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20).
  • ‘Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit’ (Psalm 5:9);
  • ‘the poison of asps is under their lips’ (Psalm 140:3),
  • ‘whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness’ (Psalm 10:7).
  • ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known’ (Isaiah 59:7,8).
  • ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes’ (Psalm 36:1).

The NEED of the Blood of Christ

whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness… Romans 3:25 (ESV)

A.  God put Christ forward

God is the One who “set forth” (proetheto) Christ to be the propitiation for man’s sins. God purposed to “set forth” Christ: God determined, resolved, ordained Christ to be the propitiation or the sacrifice for man’s sins. God set Christ “before” (pro) the world as the propitiation for the world’s sins. The pro in the Greek word proetheto indicates this fact.

  1. God set Christ before Himself,
  2. God set Christ publicly before the world
  3. God set Christ before Satan.

This setting forth revealed Christ as the propitiation for the sins of mankind, the propitiation that satisfied the righteousness of God, and rebuked the accusations of Satan.

B. It is Christ Himself who is the propitiation for man’s sins.

It is not His teachings, power, example, or life that make Christ the propitiation. It is the blood of Christ that God accepts as…

  1. the sacrifice for our sins.
  2. the covering for our sins.
  3. the satisfaction for our sins.
  4. the payment for the penalty of our sins.
  5. the appeasement of His wrath against sin.

C.  Sin is Lawlessness

Romans 1-3 sets forth the sins of mankind, the lawlessness of mankind. Mankind is bedeviled by the disease of lawlessness and sins. Not only is God’s wrath upon man because of his sins, but man’s conscience accuses him, and to top it off Satan himself is man’s accuser.

1.  Hamartia Is Anomia

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 1 John 3:4 (ESV)

  • For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. Romans 2:12 (ESV)
  • What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, Romans 3:9 (ESV)
  • for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23 (ESV)

2.  Lawlessness afflicts our conscience:

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them Romans 2:15 (ESV)

By implication, therefore, anomía is sin, iniquity, unrighteousness He who works or does iniquity (anomían) is a worker of iniquity, meaning a wicked, impious person, yet they can think they are being religious and holy, even pleasing to God:

  • (Speaking to Pharisees) So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Matthew 23:28 (ESV)
  • And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:23 (ESV)
  • And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. Matthew 24:12 (ESV)
  • Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 2 Corinthians 6:14 (ESV)
  • who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Titus 2:14 (ESV)
  • The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 13:41-42 (ESV)

3.  The Cure for Anomia

“Blessed Are Those Whose Lawless Deeds Have Been Forgiven, And Whose Sins Have Been Covered. “Blessed Is The Man Whose Sin The Lord Will Not Take Into Account.” Romans 4:7-8 (Nasb)

D.   The Blood of Christ Alone Deals with our Sins

  • There is only one thing in this world powerful enough to deal with the sin and lawlessness that we are diseased with!
  • The blood can only be powerful for us if it is powerful for God!

The Blood and the Satisfaction of God

The Blood Is Primarily For God

A.  The Blood is for atonement – Deals with our standing before God.

We need forgiveness for the sins we have committed,for the wrath of God hangs upon us because of our lawlessness. John 3:36 (ESV) Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

We are forgiven, not because God overlooks what we have done but because He sees the Blood. What we need the Holy Spirit to reveal to us is how God sees the Blood of His Son. If I am to appreciate fully the value of the Blood of Christ, I must understand God’s valuation of it.

1.  The Blood is first of all God-ward

Throughout the Old and New Testaments the word ‘blood’ is used in connection with the idea of atonement, over a hundred times, and throughout it is for God. In Leviticus 16 we find that on the Day of Atonement the blood was taken from the sin offering and brought into the Most Holy Place and there sprinkled before the Lord seven times. On that day the sin offering was offered publicly in the court of the tabernacle. Everything was there in full view and could be seen by all. But the Lord commanded that no man should enter the tabernacle itself except the high priest. It was he alone who took the blood and, going into the Most Holy Place, sprinkled it there to make atonement before the Lord.

The high priest was a type of the Lord Jesus in His redemptive work

Hebrews 9:11-12 (ESV) But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent ( not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption

The High Priest/Jesus was the one who did the work. None but he could even draw near to enter in. There the only thing the High Priest did was present the blood of the sacrifice to the unseen God. If God was satisfied with the sacrifice, the Priest lived. If not, he died.

2. The Blood is therefore in the first place for God.

Exodus 12:13 describes the shedding of the blood of the Passover lamb in Egypt for Israel’s redemption. The blood was put on the lintel and on the door-posts, whereas the meat, the flesh of the lamb, was eaten inside the house; God said: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you”

3.  The Blood Satisfies the Righteous Demands of God

It is God’s holiness, God’s righteousness, which demands that a sinless life should be given for man. The sacrifice had to come from that which met God’s strict demands. There is life in the Blood, and that Blood has to be poured out for me, for my sins. God is the One who requires it to be so. God is the One who demands that the Blood be presented, in order to satisfy His own righteousness, and it is He who says: ‘When I see the blood’, I will pass over you.’ The Blood of Christ wholly satisfies God.

B.  We Must See the Value God places on the Blood of Christ

Once we are exposed to the Law of God, and grow in our knowledge of HIs Word, our awakened conscience may have become super sensitive, and this can constitute a real problem to us. The sense of sin and guilt can become so great, so terrible, as almost to cripple us by causing us to lose sight of the true effectiveness of the Blood. At times our sins are so real, and some particular sin may trouble us so many times, that we come to the point where to us our sins loom larger than the Blood of Christ. We try to feel forgiven! It does not work that way! We must accept God’s valuation of the blood by faith! You can’t feel forgiven, you can’t cry yourself forgiven.

We must see God’s valuation of the Blood

1.  Have Faith in God’s Word.

We have to believe that the Blood is precious to God because He says it is so! The Truth will set you free! Only as you learn to walk in the truth that the Blood means you are Righteous and Justified, will you be set free from the guilt of your sins!

2.  His Satisfaction with the Blood means the Just can be our Justifier

To God, the blood means we have been redeemed, our sins have been blotted out, and because there is no more need for His wrath. He can righteously declare that we too are righteous. The blood enables the just to be the justifier!

(knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 1 Peter 1:18-19 (ESV)

Know that God is Satisfied for He alone is Just!  If God can accept the Blood as a payment for our sins and as the price of our redemption, then we can rest assured that the debt has been paid. If God is satisfied with the Blood, then the Blood must be acceptable. Only God has the right to say that the Blood is acceptable in His eyes and has fully satisfied Him.

The Blood And The Believer’s Access

The Blood has satisfied God; it must satisfy us also.

A. The Blood is Man-ward in the cleansing of our conscience.

1.  The Blood is the Foundation of our New Covenant

1 Corinthians 11:25 (ESV) In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Ephesians 1:7 (ESV) In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,

Ephesians 2:13 (ESV) But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Colossians 1:20 (ESV) and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

As Justified, we are “born again”, and God himself lives in us. We are “new creations” not merely improved versions.  The Blood is the “sign” of our new relationship.

Exodus 12:13 (ESV) The blood shall be a sign (mark, as when Cain received a mark upon his forehead, also a beacon, standard) for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

We are Redeemed from sin, We are forgiven for our sins, We are brought near to God, We are reconciled to God-all because of the Blood of Jesus Christ.

None of this would be possible if the Blood did not satisfy God’s Righteousness.

B.  The Blood is the Means of our Access to God.

We know that the Blood is the means of our forgiveness, but if we do not really see the value of the Blood, we will have difficulty approaching God. The reason is our ongoing sinfulness. God has a means of dealing with our sin nature as we will learn, but until that is done, our conscience will continue to accuse us and keep us from the sweet Joy of realizing how near we are to God’s presence. In fact, if we don’t understand the true power of Christ’s blood, we will live out our Christian lives as cold-hearted, fleshly-living, back-slidden children of God.

1.  The Blood is Sufficient to Cleanse our Conscience.

The blood of Christ is better than any drug that people take to “cope” with their failures! We are to have “hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience” (Hebrews 10:22).

Hebrews 9:11-14 (ESV) But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent ( not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 10:19-23 (ESV) Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

2.  Our sins cloud our Conscience and soul so that we believe there is a barrier between us and God.

3. The Barrier has been removed by the intervention of the Blood of Christ.

4.  Something new has been effected before God which has removed that barrier

5.  God has made that fact known to me in His Word.

6.  When that has been believed in and accepted, my conscience is at once cleared and my sense of guilt removed, and I have no more an evil conscience toward God.

Faith and a clear conscience are interdependent. Your sins will cloud your faith, your ability to see God. As soon as we find our conscience is uneasy our faith leaks away and immediately we find we cannot face God. In order therefore to keep going on with God we must know the value of the Blood. God keeps short accounts, and we are made nigh by the Blood every day, every hour and every minute. It never loses its efficacy as our ground of access if we will but lay hold upon it. When we enter the most Holy Place, on what ground dare we enter but by the Blood?

C.   Our Mistaken Approach to God

1.  The Wrong Basis for Approaching God

We Think it is up to us. ‘Today I have been a little more careful; today I have been doing a little better; this morning I have been reading the Word of God in a richer way, so today I can pray better!’ ‘Today I have had a little difficulty with the family; I began the day feeling very gloomy and moody; I am not feeling too good right now; it seems that there must be something wrong; therefore I cannot approach God.’

What is your basis of approach to God? Your Feelings or your Accomplishments? (which are up and down). The fact of the Blood of Jesus Christ, which alone satisfies God? (Which will never change). The Blood has never changed and never will.

2.  Your approach to God is always in boldness.

  • Ephesians 3:12 (ESV) in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.
  • Hebrews 10:19 (ESV) Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,

Boldness is yours through the Blood and never through your personal attainment. Whatever be your measure of attainment today or yesterday or the day before, as soon as you make a conscious move into the Most Holy Place, immediately you have to take your stand upon the safe and only ground of the shed Blood. Whether you have had a good day or a bad day, whether you have  consciously sinned or not, your basis of approach is always the same—the Blood of Christ. That is the ground upon which you may enter, and there is no other.

3.  Our Access to God has two phases, an initial and a progressive one.

Our standing with God was secured by the Blood, for we are “made nigh in the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13). Our ground of continual access is still by the Blood, for the apostle exhorts us: “Having therefore… boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus… let us draw near” (Heb. 10:19,22). To begin with I was made nigh by the Blood, and to continue in that new relationship I come through the Blood every time.

We Must Be Satisfied with the Blood! It is there and that it is enough. We may be weak, but looking at our weakness will never make us strong. Trying to feel bad and doing penance will not help us to be even a little holier. There is nothing else that will clear our conscience and give us boldness before God. “Lord, I do not know fully what the value of the Blood is, but I know that the Blood has satisfied You; so the Blood is enough for me, and it is my only plea. I see now that whether I have really progressed, whether I have really attained to something or not, is not the point. Whenever I come before You, it is always on the ground of the precious Blood of Christ.”

D.   No conscience can ever be clear apart from the Blood.

“No more conscience of sins”: these are tremendous words of Hebrews 10:2. We are cleansed from every sin; and we may truly echo the words of Paul:“Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin” (Romans 4:8).

The Blood and Satan

A.  Satan is the accuser of the brethren

Revelation 12:10 (ESV) And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

B.  Jesus Christ Confronts Satan “through his own blood” (Hebrews 9:12).

Hebrews 9:12 (ESV) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

Jesus Intercedes for us: Romans 8:34 (ESV) Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Jesus is on Our Side!: Hebrews 7:25 (ESV) Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

C.   The Blood Puts God on the Side of Man against Satan.

The Fall brought something into man which gave Satan a footing within him, with the result that God was compelled to withdraw Himself. Man is now outside the garden—beyond reach of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)—because he is inwardly estranged from God. Because of what man has done, there is something in him which, until it is removed, renders God morally unable to defend him. But the Blood removes that barrier and restores man to God and God to man. Man is in favor now, and because God is on his side he can face Satan without fear.

D.  The Blood Cleanses from Every Sin

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (the blood of Jesus His Son keeps continually cleansing us from every sin.  1 John 1:7 (Wuest)

God is the light, and as we walk in the light with Him everything is exposed and open to that light, so that God can see it all—and yet the Blood is able to cleanse from every sin. What a cleansing! It is not that I have not a profound knowledge of myself, nor that God has not a perfect knowledge of me. It is not that I try to hide something nor that God tries to overlook something.  No, it is that He is in the light and I too am in the light, and that there the precious Blood cleanses me from every sin. The Blood is enough for that!

E.   There is No Sin that is Unforgivable

In our human weakness, we think some sins are so great as to be unforgivable. Our conscience, even Satan continues to accuse us.  God says every sin, big, little, becasue the Blood satisfies Him. Even though He sees them in His perfect light, He can forgive!

F.   What Ground of Accusation Does Satan Have?

Satan may accuse us before Him, but, “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). God points him to the Blood of His dear Son. It is the answer against which Satan has no appeal. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Romans 8:33,34).

G.  We Give Satan Ground When We don’t Realize the Absolute Sufficiency of the Blood

“Christ having come a high priest… through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11,12).

He was Redeemer once. He has been High Priest and Advocate for nearly two thousand years. He stands there in the presence of God, and “he is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1,2). Hebrews 9:14: “How much more shall the blood of Christ…” They underline the sufficiency of His ministry. It is enough for God.

What then of our attitude to Satan? This is important, for he accuses us not only before God but in our own conscience also. ‘You have sinned, and you keep on sinning. You are weak, and God can have nothing more to do with you.’ This is his argument. And our temptation is to look within and in self-defense to try to find in ourselves, in our feelings or our behavior, some ground for believing that Satan is wrong.

Alternatively we are tempted to admit our helplessness and, going to the other extreme, to yield to depression and despair. Thus accusation becomes one of the greatest and most effective of Satan’s weapons. He points to our sins and seeks to charge us with them before God, and if we accept his accusations we go down immediately.

Now the reason why we so readily accept his accusations is that we are still hoping to have some righteousness of our own. The ground of our expectation is wrong. Satan has succeeded in making us look in the wrong direction. Look to the BLOOD!

Thereby he wins his point, rendering us ineffective. But if we have learned to put no confidence in the flesh, we shall not wonder if we sin, for the very nature of the flesh is to sin.

H.   God is well able to deal with our sins

God cannot deal with a man under accusation, because such a man is not trusting in the Blood. The Blood speaks in his favor, but he is listening instead to Satan. Christ is our Advocate but we, the accused, side with the accuser. We have not recognized that it is God alone that can answer the accuser, and that in the precious Blood He has already done so. Our salvation lies in looking away to the Lord Jesus and in seeing that the Blood of the Lamb has met the whole situation created by our sins and has answered it. That is the sure foundation on which we stand. Never should we try to answer Satan with our good conduct but always with the Blood. Oh, what an emancipation it would be if we saw more of the value of God’s eyes of the precious Blood of His dear Son!

Do You See the Value of the Blood this Morning? If you do, it will affect the way you think, the way you pray, the way you serve.

I once talked to a teenage girl who dad had an unusual way of disciplining her. She said he kept a stick handy. When she misbehaved to the point of needing discipline, he would get the stick. Her dad would tell her how much it hurt him for her to do wrong. He would then tell her that what she had done deserved to be punished. But he told her he couldn’t stand to punish her, so she would have to give him her punishment.

So he gave the stick to her and then tell her how many times she was to strike him.

I was concerned that that had left psychological scars on the little girl.

Knowing what I was thinking, she smiled, and with a quiver in her voice told me: “I couldn’t stand it when Daddy would make me hit him with the stick.”

He would turn to me with tears in his eyes and reach out his arms to hug me and let me know I was forgiven. I know he loves me. And I’ll never do anything to hurt him if I can help it.”

The Prodigal God – Jesus Seeks and Saves the Lost

Posted: September 21, 2009 in Elder Brother, Prodigal God, Religion, Salvation, Shepherd, Sin
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Prodigal GodThen drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. Luke 15:1-10

Luke 15 begins with the religious leaders noticing something—that Jesus seems to attract and befriend “tax collectors and sinners,” moral outcasts of respectable society.

In the Lord of the Rings we find a weird creature named Gollum. He is always offering riddles for the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins to solve. One of them I will offer for you:

Voiceless it Cries
Wingless it flutters
Toothless it bites
Mouthless it muttters

(Answer – the Wind)

We read in verse 2 that they “murmur” to one another about this. “to mutter, murmur, grumble, say anything in a low tone” The air was stirring with their murmurings! We can almost hear them saying: “He welcomes sinners! This kind of person never comes to our meetings. This must be because he is telling them what they want to hear. He is not calling them to repent or change.”

This murmuring prompts Jesus to tell the three parables of Luke 15.

  • Parables of the Lost Sheep
  • Lost Coin
  • the Lost Sons.

Jesus Seeks the LostBy listening carefully to all three parables, and especially to the last one, traditionally called The Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus challenges his listeners’ fundamental assumptions about God, sin, and salvation. He gives them an entirely new way of thinking about God, themselves, and the whole world.

Most people think of religion as “humanity’s search for God.” We like to think of ourselves as spiritual seekers, as honest inquirers. We look at the religions of the world and, while giving somewhat different directions about how to do so, they all seem to agree that if we sincerely search for God we will find him. Millions of people the world over believe that by believing and obeying God’s law in the Bible, they can find God.

The problem is that anyone who feels they have searched for and found God will naturally disdain those who seem to be making no effort at all. They will look at “sinners” and say, “I found God! If you try, you can. I did.”

And here is the first great blow to the “religious” people of the world. Religion and religious behavior is NOT the way to God! Jesus is telling us that God had to come down into the world to seek and save us. Salvation must be by His grace, not our achievement.

The end of each parable challenges not just the categories of the Pharisees but their heart and attitude. A theme through all three parables is the joy of finding the lost. God does not look at spiritually lost people the way the Pharisees do. Because the Pharisees do not see themselves as lost sinners saved by grace, they disdain “sinners”. They feel superior to them. But heaven rejoices when “sinners” are reached and found.

Jesus New CommunityJesus is declaring to the religious establishment that He is creating a New Community of People. A Community of People bonded together by the experience of Death & Life. To Understand this New Community, we will look closely at the first two parables. In the next four weeks following we will examine the Parable of the Lost Sons.

This week we look at the first two of these parables. Let’s notice three sets of characters:

  1. the listeners
  2. the lost things
  3. the joyful seekers.

1. The listeners—verses 1-3.

Jesus and the ListenersThere are two groups of people around Jesus—“tax collectors and ‘sinners’”, and “Pharisees and the teachers of the law.” The ‘religious’ group is especially offended that Jesus eats with sinners. In the Middle East an offer of a meal is an offer of Friendship. It is an offer of Community. Table fellowship was considered a sign of acceptance and friendship. How, they thought, can he be so open to them? Doesn’t he realize that they are the “bad people”— who are the real trouble with the world? (And, therefore, that we are the “good guys”?)

jesus with sinnersJesus does not give a direct, compact answer. Instead, he responds with three stories or parables.It is important to realize that these parables were not spoken in a vacuum. The purpose of all three parables was to challenge the “Religious Peoples Point of View” of what Jesus was wanting to do.

When we get to the final parable, we will realize that BOTH groups of people—“sinners” and “religious people”—are actually in the parable. That is why the last story, the story of the prodigal son, is Jesus’ final answer. But that is to come later. For now, let’s notice how he begins to challenge our attitudes and categories of thought in the first two parables.

2. The lost things—verses 4-5, 8.

The Lost SheepJesus uses these “Lost” things to teach us religious types what He is all about. Why He came to this planet, and what He is accomplishing. The impact of these parables is lost on us because we do not look at them from a Middle Eastern viewpoint. These teach us about the community that Jesus want to build within His body – the church.

In order to understand and grasp the meaning of parables, I find it helpful to meditate on the visual images Jesus uses. People of the middle east are very visual in their thinking. It comes from a long line of oral history. That is why God painted very visual images of His miracles in the hearts of His people. That is why all the Jewish feasts and Holy Days are very visual.

The Sheep, the Search, & the Shepherd.

First, Jesus confronts their View of themselves and their Righteousness. The Pharisees thought they had it made. They were children of Abraham. They were children of the Covenant. They were chosen. They followed the Law. But Jesus says none of that is important to him. If we are to be important to Jesus, we must realize we are sheep.

In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves the 99 sheep to go looking for the one lost sheep. We think that being a sheep is a warm fuzzy huggy type of description. We think of Mary and her little lamb, or Little Bo Peep. Being called a Sheep is an INSULT!

Sheep are StupidA Sheep is a stupid animal. It loses its direction constantly, in a way a cat or dog never does. Even when you find a lost sheep, the sheep will rush to and fro, but will not follow you home like a dog or cat might. So when you find it, you must seize it, throw it to the ground, tie its feet together and carry it over your shoulders.A sheep is a stupid animal that is completely helpless when lost. We need to view sheep like these people did.

  • Sheep will go after grass no matter how impossible the place is.
  • They will go onto the most dangerous place to eat grass.
  • They will need to be rescued, or they will fall to their death.
  • In the second parable the lost object is a coin, even more incapable of finding its way home.

The three lost “objects”—the sheep, the coin, and (in vv. 11-32) the son—all represent people who are spiritually lost, far from God. This is Jesus characterizing the people the Pharisees view as “sinners.” They are lost, yet they are lost in quite different ways. The sheep is lost through foolishness, the coin through thoughtlessness, and the son through willfulness.

But no matter the ‘Lostness’, they are each valued by Jesus, because of their condition.To have value to Jesus, we must realize to the depths of our soul that we are LOST, with NO HOPE of ever being saved.

The Sheep Teaches us We Need to be rescued

Communion2In liturgical churches sometimes the Pastor will administer the Lord’s Supper by saying this:

May the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for you, preserve your body and soul to eternal life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving.

It implies that your soul is feeding on something. And of course, this is true, no matter your spiritual condition. We all cling to something.The deepest hopes of your heart for security and love are resting on something. It can be image, status, wealth, career, position, family, Mr X or Miss Y.

If you are feeding on anything but Jesus for your peace, well being, satisfaction; You are like a sheep feeding on the ledge of a mountain. Say you are dating Mr. X, and decide he is the “one”. You rest your hearts deepest hopes on that person or that relationship. You believe you are valuable because this person loves me.

The truth is that if you are relying on anything or any person other than Jesus, you are in danger of an emotional and spiritual plunge off the mountain side.

You are like a stupid sheep, searching for sustenance in dangerous places, without any sense of your impending doom. You are headed for a spiritual and emotional plunge.

You will have no self worth, no hope left, for you have fed your soul on the wrong person, the wrong things.

We are all like sheep, we have all gone astray

Sheep need rescuingWe all need to be rescued. We can contribute nothing to our salvation. The shepherd has to walk the sheep all the way home. We are utterly lost in sin. We must be saved totally by the grace of God.

Salvation is not a process of cooperation. Our shepherd is not telling us how to live, not giving us self-help pointers. Being a Christian is not trying to live like Jesus. Not wearing a wrist band “What Would Jesus Do?” We must be asking ourselves What is Jesus Doing for Me at this very moment? Jesus must be our life!

We try to be a dog or a cat, but we are sheep. A Teacher is not enough, we need a Savior. We need someone who is able to do everything that we have to do, but are unable to do. He lives the life we should have lived, He dies the death we should have died. Everyone is utterly lost in sin.

The Search Teaches Us:

The Search for the LostJesus is friends with those who need rescuing. The community of Jesus is with the broken, the lost, the sinners, the failures of society. Jesus is building a faith community with these people in it. Normally these people are excluded-they can’t be included.

The Pharisees shake their fingers at them and say “These are the type of people we are NOT supposed to be like! But Jesus says these are the very people I want in my community. Jesus is creating a new faith community that includes publicans and tax collectors.

No Matter the Source of your sin, You Must realize your Lostness.

Here’s an example. Mr. Smith has a problem with abusive anger—he often flies off the handle and is verbally abusive and sometimes physically so. Why? Is his problem genetic? Is it a matter of brain chemistry? Is it just part of his inborn nature, as in the example of the sheep? Or is his problem the result of a bad environment? Perhaps the result of poor parenting and family life? Was he, like the coin, mismanaged by his “supervisors”? Or does his problem stem from selfishness and pride, as with the prodigal son?

We Have ALL Gone AstrayThe answer is that usually, in varying degrees, it is all of the above.

Sin is deeply complex. It is inborn in you, it is magnified by sinful treatment, and it is deepened and shaped by your own choices. Jesus’ view of sin is more comprehensive and multi-dimensional than that of many psychologists, sociologists, and many religious leaders. It is certainly more comprehensive than the view held by the Pharisees listening to him.

Jesus’ view is that no matter your sin, you must realize it is sin, that you are lost and you need saving, or you will die out on a ledge somewhere.

The Shepherd Teaches us

He is the only one who can rescue the lost. The lost are worth rescuing. The coin was the woman’s dowry, livelihood. The shepherd is not complete til he finds all of his sheep.

3. The Joyful Seekers—verses 6-7, 9-10.

The Joyful ShepherdJesus confronts their categories about salvation. He reveals that He comes from a community in heaven that is this way. “I come from a community in heaven that celebrates sinners saved by grace” It does not celebrate righteous people who don’t realize their lostness. I am creating a community like this here.

Community – bonded into a body through an intense common experience.

The more intense the experience, the stronger the bond. The Karen People are being brought into the United States by our State Dept. They have suffered persecution and death at the hands of the Myanmar Military Junta. No matter where they are placed in the United States, they quickly form a close-knit community with fellow Karen. What is the bond-it is their shared death and life experience. The persecution and killing has created an intense bond amonst the Karen in the US.

We all have “identity” factors that create bonds with other people. Black, white, College, No, Good school, acheivements, all come to represent our identity in the world. This identy is our self worth, self image. It is hat makes us distinctive. It is the foundation of who we are.

Christians should have an intense bond that forms the basis of our identity and how we relate to one another. Ephesians 2 begins with Christians who are dead in trespasses and sin, but who share the bond of being made alive by Jesus. Ephesians 2 ends stating we are all like living stones that are fitted together to build a temple in which God’s spirit will dwell.

Other religions aspire to make you better so that you might be like God. In otherwords they treat you like a dog or a cat. Take you to the groomers, to obedience school. You’ll be fine.

The Gospel is for sheep-we must realize we can do nothing to be saved.It is a life and death experience. I am infinitely lost, but I am infinitely loved and infinitely treasured. I am infinitely valued. The Shepherd will do anything to bring me home. It blows your complete identity factor away.

WHO I THINK I AM DOESN’T MATTER

I can be from an IVY league college, be moral, come from a big family. I can derive joy from these things and even feel superior to others. Certain things automatically make us feel better than other people. That joy excludes people who are worse off than we are. It excludes publicans and tax collectors.

Jesus declares that these things don’t matter, that TRUE JOY comes when these Lost people are FOUND! His community doesn’t look down on people, but welcomes all with open arms!

This community has the common bond of death and lostness, but now we are found and saved!

THE QUARRY

quarry rocks for templeThis is the Community of “1 Kings 6”. When building the Temple, the Quarry masons worked so well preparing the monstrous stones for the Temple that on the Temple Mount the stones needed no further hammering, the stones fit together perfectly. So the temple went up in silence-no need for hammering, no need for mortar!

If you have been to the quarry, if you have been through life and death, nothing matters, not your pedigree, your accomplishments, your wealth, nothing matters. You have a bond – a Life and death bond.

Jesus knocks down all barriers to seek those that are lost.

Shepherds aren’t consultants, they aren’t trying to improve the sheep. Sheep are absolutely dependent upon the shepherd.Sheep should give themselves to the Shepherd COMPLETELY!

Jesus New Community1Jesus desires to do two things with His Church:

  1. Build a community that is filled with His beautiful, unified difference – acceptance for sinners!
  2. Provide a place where sinners are free to admit they are sinners.

Christians need to stop eating their wounded. We need to be able to confess our faults one to another without fear of condemnation. Religiousity permits no one to be a sinner, but Jesus welcomes all sinners. Masks will do no good before Jesus. He knows, so we all should know. We are all sinners.We are all lowly sheep who have been rescued by our loving shepherd.

Jesus our ShepherdJesus is the Great Shepherd, even more intent and joyful than the shepherd of the parable. For Jesus knew that he would have to die to bring the lost home, but “for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame” (Heb. 12:2). The joy he had in doing his Father’s will, and the joy he had in finding us, was so great that he was willing to endure the cross.

Now That I’m A Christian…What Now?

Posted: August 25, 2009 in Abide, Abundant Life, Commitment, Confidence in God, Conviction, Cross, Gospel, Gospel of Christ, Holy Spirit Power, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus is My Life, Life, light, power, Power of God, Power of Holy Spirit, Power of the Holy Spirit, Prayer, Relationship with God, Revival, Salvation, Sin, Trials, Victory, World, Worship
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Congratulations! You have made a life-changing decision! Perhaps you are asking, “Now what? How do I begin my journey with God?” The Six steps mentioned below will give you direction from the Bible.

1. Make sure you understand salvation.

1 John 5:13 tells us, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”

God wants us to understand salvation. God wants us to have the confidence of knowing for sure that we are saved. Briefly, let’s go over the key points of salvation:

  • We have all sinned. Our sinful nature means we are separated from our Holy Righteous Creator God. (Romans 3:23).
  • Because of our sin, God has declared us “guilty” and the punishment for our sin is eternal separation from God in Hell. (Romans 6:23).
  • Because God loved us, He sent His only son Jesus to die upon the cross to pay the penalty for our sins (Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus died in our place, taking the punishment that we deserved. His resurrection proved that Jesus’ death was sufficient to pay for our sins.
  • God grants forgiveness and salvation to all those who place their faith in Jesus – trusting His death as the payment for our sins. Faith means that we have opened our heart to believe that which is unseen, yet we know in our hearts is true. (John 3:16; Romans 5:1; Romans 8:1).

Jesus-Salvation-in-No-One-ElseThis is the message of salvation! If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are saved! You have entered into a Covenant with God sealed with the blood of Jesus His Son. God will not break His Covenant. All of your sins are forgiven, and God promises to never leave you or forsake you (Romans 8:38-39; Matthew 28:20). Remember, your salvation is secure in Jesus Christ (John 10:28-29). If you are trusting in Jesus alone as your Savior, you can have confidence that you will spend eternity with God in heaven! Salvation is entirely because of what Jesus did for you. It is a totally free gift. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

There is nothing that you can do to make you good enough or worthy enough to enter into heaven. You are “saved” ONLY by what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross. When your heart is opened to believe in Jesus as your personal Savior, you are born again and the proof of you being a new creation, a child of God, is the seal of the Holy Spirit who now lives within you.

And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22

2. Find a good Church that teaches the Bible.

churchDon’t think of the church as a building. The church is the people. It is very important that believers in Jesus Christ fellowship with one another. That is one of the primary purposes of the church. Now that you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, we strongly encourage you to find a Bible-believing church in your area and speak to the pastor. Let him know about your new faith in Jesus Christ.

A second purpose of the church is to teach the Bible. You can learn how to apply God’s instructions to your life. Understanding the Bible is key to living a successful and powerful Christian life. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

A third purpose of the church is worship. Worship is thanking God for all He has done! God has saved us. God loves us. God provides for us. God guides and directs us. How could we not thank Him? God is holy, righteous, loving, merciful, and full of grace. Revelation 4:11 declares, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”word

3. Set Aside Time each day to focus on God.

prayerintimacyIt is very important for us to spend time each day focusing on God. Some people call this a “quiet time.” Others call it “devotions,” because it is a time when we devote ourselves to God. Some prefer to set aside time in the mornings, while others prefer the evenings. It does not matter what you call this time or when you do it. What matters is that you regularly spend time with God. What events make up our time with God?

(a) Prayer. Prayer is simply talking to God. Talk to God about your concerns and problems. Ask God to give you wisdom and guidance. Ask God to provide for your needs. Tell God how much you love Him and how much you appreciate all He does for you. That is what prayer is all about.

(b) Bible Reading. In addition to being taught the Bible in church, Sunday School, and/or Bible studies – you need to be reading the Bible for yourself. A good place to start is with the Book of John. John presents the majesty and beauty of Jesus in the flesh. In John you will discover the Love of Jesus for His disciples.

The Bible contains everything you need to know in order to live a successful Christian life. It contains God’s guidance for how to make wise decisions, how to know God’s will, how to minister to others, and how to grow spiritually. The Bible is God’s Word to us. The Bible is essentially God’s instruction manual for how to live our lives in a way that is pleasing to Him and satisfying to us. You have a new Teacher living within you – the Holy Spirit. Ask Him to teach you as you read the Bible.

4. Develop Relationships with people who can help you spiritually.

friendswalking1 Corinthians 15:33 tells us, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.” The Bible is full of warnings about the influence “bad” people can have on us. Spending time with those who engage in sinful activities will cause us to be tempted by those activities. The character of those we are around will “rub off” on us. That is why it is so important to surround ourselves with other people who love the Lord and are committed to Him.

Try to find a friend or two, perhaps from your church, who can help you and encourage you (Hebrews 3:13; 10:24). Ask your friends to keep you accountable in regard to your quiet time, your activities, and your walk with God. Ask if you can do the same for them. This does not mean you have to give up all your friends who do not know the Lord Jesus as their Savior. Continue to be their friend and love them. Simply let them know that Jesus has changed your life and you cannot do all the same things you used to do. Ask God to give you opportunities to share Jesus with your friends.

5. Be Baptized.

baptism pictures death burialMany people have a misunderstanding of baptism. The word “baptize” means to immerse in water. Baptism is the Biblical way of publicly proclaiming your new faith in Christ and your commitment to follow Him. The action of being immersed in the water illustrates being buried with Christ. The action of coming out of the water pictures Christ’s resurrection. Being baptized is identifying yourself with Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:3-4). Baptism also makes you a part of a local church, and assures you of the watch care of a group of believers who will have your best interests at heart.

Baptism is not what saves you. Baptism does not wash away your sins. Baptism is simply a step of obedience, a public proclamation of your faith in Christ alone for salvation. Baptism is important because it is a step of obedience – publicly declaring faith in Christ and your commitment to Him. If you are ready to be baptized, you should speak with one of the Pastors at the church you attend.

6. Allow Christ’s Holy Spirit to Control Your Life.

Realize you can chose how you will live your Christian Life. These two diagrams illustrate in a simple way the struggle we will have to allow Jesus to lead our life, or to follow our own ways:Christ-Directed-versus-Self

In order to live a Christ-Directed Life you need to be filled (controlled) by the Holy Spirit. We must realize that this is what God designed us for when we are “Born Again”.

1. God Has Provided For Us an Abundant and Fruitful Christian Life

  • Jesus said, “I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly” (John 10:10).John10_10
  • “I 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” (John 15:5).
  • “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22, 23).
  • “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

    • The Spiritual (Holy Spirit Controlled) Man – Some spiritual traits which result from trusting God:Holy-Spirit-Directed-Life

    The degree to which these traits are manifested in the life depends upon the extent to which the Christian trusts the Lord with every detail of his life, and upon his maturity in Christ. One who is only beginning to understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit should not be discouraged if he is not as fruitful as more mature Christians who have known and experienced this truth for a longer period.

    • Why is it that most Christians are not experiencing the abundant life?

    2. Christians who follow the Flesh Cannot Experience the Abundant and Fruitful Christian Life

    The self-directed man trusts in his own efforts to live the Christian life: He is either uninformed about, or has forgotten, God’s love, forgiveness, and power (Romans 5:8-10; Hebrews 10:1-25;1 John 1; 1 John 2:1-3; 2 Peter 1:9; Acts 1:8).

    • He has an up-and-down spiritual experience.
    • He cannot understand himself – he wants to do what is right, but cannot.
    • He fails to draw upon the power of the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life. (1 Corinthians 3:1-3; Romans 7:15-24; 8:7; Galatians 5:16-18)

    The Fleshly (Self-Directed) Man – Some or all of the following traits may characterize the Christian who does not fully trust God:Self-Directed-Life

    The third truth gives us the only solution to this problem…

    3. Jesus Promised the Abundant and Fruitful Life as the Result of Being Filled (Directed and Empowered) by the Holy Spirit

    The Spirit-filled life is the Christ-directed life by which Christ lives His life in and through us in the power of the Holy Spirit

    • One becomes a Christian through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, according to John 3:1-8. From the moment of spiritual birth, the Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit at all times (John 1:12; Colossians 2:9, 10; John 14:16, 17). Though all Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, not all Christians are filled (directed and empowered) by the Holy Spirit.
    • The Holy Spirit is the source of the overflowing life (John 7:37-39).
    • The Holy Spirit came to glorify Christ (John 16:1-15). When one is filled with the Holy Spirit, he is a true disciple of Christ.
    • In His last command before His ascension, Christ promised the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to be witnesses for Him (Acts 1:1-9).

    How, then, can one be filled with the Holy Spirit?

    4. We are Filled by the Holy Spirit by Faith

    Then We Can Experience the Abundant and Fruitful Life Which Christ Promised to Each Christian.

    holy_spirit1Please remember that this does not mean your life will always be great. The Holy Spirit will take you through times of testing and tribulation, just as He did Jesus, but always with the goal of producing the Character of Jesus Christ in your life. Faith holds on when things are darkest. But whatever God takes you through, He will never abandon you there. He will bring you through the valley and you will find increased faith and strength of character that is more precious than the purest gold.

    You can experience the filling of the Holy Spirit right now if you:

    • Sincerely desire to be directed and empowered by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 5:6; John 7:37-39).
    • Confess your sins. By faith thank God that He has forgiven all of your sins – past, present and future – because Christ died for you (Colossians 2:13-15; 1 John 1; 2:1-3; Hebrews 10:1-17).
    • Present every area of your life to God (Romans 12:1-2)myjobmyrelationshipsmyfinances
    • By faith claim the fullness of the Holy Spirit, according to:

    1. His Command – Be filled with the Spirit. “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).

    2. His Promise – He will always answer when we pray according to His will. “And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:14, 15).

    Faith is expressed through believing prayer:

    We are filled with the Holy Spirit by faith alone. Sincere prayer is one way of expressing your faith. The following is a suggested prayer:

    “Dear Father, I need You. I acknowledge that I have been directing my own life and that, as a result, I have sinned against You. I thank You that You have forgiven my sins through Christ’s death on the cross for me. I now invite Christ to again take His place on the throne of my life. Fill me with the Holy Spirit as You commanded me to be filled, and as You promised in Your Word that You would do if I asked in faith. I now thank You for directing my life and for filling me with the Holy Spirit.”

    worshipBeing Filled and Controlled by the Holy Spirit is not a one-time event like being Born Again (Becoming a Christian). It is a daily, moment by moment walk with the Holy One who lives within you.

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