God's Good News in the Letter to the Romans

Most of the time, we listen to messages on a particular subject, a theme. I think it's very rarely that we do a Bible study of a section of scripture. So I thought I would do that for a change, since I believe that all of you are serious Christians and people who study the Word of God.

And so this will be of benefit to you and even the children. So what I want to do is turn to the Paul's letter to the Romans and have an overview of the whole book, because this is one of the very important letters that Paul wrote. And there is no book in the entire Bible which explains the gospel so well as this one.

So let's begin. The very first verse, he uses an expression called the gospel of God, Romans 1 and verse 1. And in a sense, that is the title of this whole letter. This letter is about the gospel of God, which Paul says was entrusted to him.

He was set apart to proclaim it very clearly. And he's explained it very clearly in this letter. It's very important for us to know this, first for our own benefit and then so that we can share it with others also.

So beginning, I'm not going to go through every verse. I think we'll begin at Romans 1, and he again uses the expression gospel in verse 16. I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

And he calls it here, the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Have you understood the gospel like that? Or have you understood the gospel as a doctrine, a message that will take you to heaven? Or I think very few Christians would say the gospel is for me the power of God for salvation. And salvation has got three tenses, past, present and future.

And once we are born again, we can say we're saved first of all from the penalty of sin that's in the past tense. And then second, as we live the Christian life, we're saved from the power of sin. And then thirdly, finally, we'll be saved from the presence of sin.

So salvation has got three tenses, past, present and future. From the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and the presence of sin is when Christ comes back, we'll be finished with sin completely. So it says here the gospel is a part of God for salvation.

The three steps of salvation. And this is for everyone who believes. It's by faith.

And faith is emphasized here in verse seven again. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. In other words, I have a faith that initially comes to believe that Christ died for my sins, has taken the guilt of all my past sins, and I'm forgiven.

That's the first step. Then I need to go on to another step of faith where I learned to overcome sin. And faith for many other things like overcoming Satan's attacks, etc.

So it's from faith to faith. It's a progression. Faith is not a static thing.

It's like a school. You can say there's a school of faith where you begin in the kindergarten and progress, progress, progress. Now the tragedy is that many Christians are in the kindergarten forever.

They are forgiven and that's about all they know. That's why it's important to understand the letter to Romans. And we talk about being saved by faith, but here it says the righteous, verse 17, will live by faith.

So life is something which we live every day. And here this verse tells us that we are to live every day by faith. Faith is not something we just believe in our head.

The best definition I've always found that I've discovered of faith is the branch in the tree. Helpless branch can accomplish nothing, but when it is in the tree, it produces wonderful fruit by the tree supplying the sap to the branch. So please think of faith like that.

Not an intellectual thing that I believe that Christ died for my sins, much more than that. Faith is a dependence upon God. The righteous shall live by faith means like the branch in the tree, a truly righteous person will constantly be dependent on Christ who is the tree.

Or he called himself the vine because the vine was the most common tree that the people in Israel knew at that time. So don't skip over these little sentences which are very, very important because I find that the vast majority of Christians are just, they say they are saved by faith. They're not living by faith.

Their daily life is not a life of faith. And yet it says here a truly righteous person will live by faith. So we need to say what does that mean? That means every day I'm living in dependence upon God.

And if you're not living in dependence upon God, you're not really living by faith at all. You just say I'm going to heaven, my sins are forgiven, but never anything beyond that. Okay, now I need to go through this fairly quickly and I hope you will listen to it later on and study it yourself, the letter to Romans, because there's a whole lot in it that can bless us greatly.

So Paul starts right at the beginning. And the beginning is Romans 118. Verse 17 was sort of an introduction.

He's setting up the message, the basis of what he's trying to say. And he starts with the wrath of God. So the message of salvation, if we don't begin in Romans 118 and see the anger of God, I don't think we will understand what salvation is all about.

Many people have not thought about the anger of God. God's anger is directed against every type of ungodliness, verse 18, unrighteousness, and where truth is suppressed in unrighteousness. And there are many things here that I will just go through quickly.

But remember this, we have to begin the understanding of the gospel by seeing the anger of God against sin. So it says here, first of all, that God is made evident in creation. There's no need for us to prove that there is a God.

You just look up into the skies and God says, that is enough proof that I exist. Verse 20, since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes and eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen through what has been made. So there's no excuse.

He says here that all you need to do is look up into the sky and the heavens and you know that there is a God. And then notice the first step downwards that man makes when you go into, all types of sins are described when you go down from verse 24 to 32 and 23 to 32. Lots and lots of sin gets worse and worse and worse and worse.

But the first step downwards is in verse 21. They did not honor him as God or give thanks. So it's very important to understand that the first step downwards into sin is a lack of thankfulness, ingratitude.

God has done so much for us. And if we are ungrateful, you can say, you have begun taking the first step downwards to go downwards into all that terrible sins listed there. So when God makes a list of sins, he begins with unthankfulness.

Now many Christians, probably many of you who listen to me, have probably never, never thought that being ungrateful to God is a sin of being unthankful. We just receive so many things and we never recognize that we need to thank God for it. If we had more thankfulness in our life, we would be saved from many sins.

So here's one lesson that we can learn right at the beginning in verse 21. And that's why when we are saved, the Bible says when we are filled with the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 5, 18 and 19, it says we will always be giving thanks. That's the opposite.

The ungodly person doesn't give thanks for anything. He's always complaining against God. God hasn't done this and God hasn't done that and this for me and that for me.

Now if you get that spirit in your heart, you know you're always already starting going down. An unthankful person is complaining about something or the other. You see, one of the things we need to teach our children is to be thankful, to be thankful to their parents and thankful for all the good things God has given.

Whereas our tendency is always to compare ourselves with somebody else and wonder why we don't have what that person has. It's this covetousness, desiring what God has not given us and not being thankful for what God has given us. So if this is the first step downwards to all types of terrible sins, then this thankfulness is probably the very first thing that we need to teach our children.

Little children, be thankful for your parents. Be thankful for what you have. Don't complain that this is not good enough for me.

You know how children complain at the dining table saying, I don't like this and I don't like that. You just got to remind them of the millions of people around the world who don't even have anything to eat and leave alone being selective saying, I don't want this, I don't want that. They'd be grateful even for a scrap of bread in many parts of the world.

So thankfulness is something that we need to teach our children and we adults also need to develop a spirit of thankfulness because I'll tell you this, if you look at your life, you may discover that thankfulness doesn't come up naturally. Think of a husband and wife. How much are they thankful for each other? A lot of problems will be solved in husband-wife relationships if they just begin to be thankful to God.

Lord, I thank you for the wife you've given me and thank you for the husband you've given me. It'll make a tremendous difference in their married life. Just a little thing like that.

And I don't mean as a ritual, but to just sincerely think about the things you find in your marriage partner that you're grateful for or being thankful for the church you're in. You know, there are many, many places where there are lonely believers who have absolutely no fellowship, not even a Zoom like you have right now. So even little things like this, we need to develop a habit of thankfulness.

It will save us from many, many sins. So as you see here, if thankfulness is the first step that takes a person all the way down to the pit of terrible sins, then unthankfulness is the thing that leads down to the pit of sin, then thankfulness is what will take us up towards the throne of God. Okay, now we see here, because they were unthankful, what happened? The next step was they began to worship idols.

Verse 23, four-footed animals and crawling creatures, and it's absolutely amazing. When you come to a country like India, you see the number of four-footed animals and crawling creatures that they worship, snakes and all types of things. And when man turned away the glory, it says in verse 23, of God into this type of corruptible stuff, there are three times here it says God gave them up, God gave them up, God gave them up.

If you notice that in verse 24, God gave them up to something. Verse 26, God gave them up to something. And verse 28, in the middle, God gave them up to something.

It is God forsaking, you don't respond to what God is trying to say to you, God leaves you. You still don't respond, he gives you up again, he gives up on you. And when that happens, it's first of all, one of the first things he mentions there about sin is impurity in the way they dishonor their bodies with sexual sin and many other types of sins.

He goes on to say they're degrading passions, unnatural passions in verse 26. The natural function is abandoned, verse 27, and you see so much of that in the world today. It all starts with unthankfulness and God giving them up.

So when you see people living in, as described in verse 27, men abandon the natural function of the woman and burn in their desire toward one another, men with men. You see that happening in the world today. How does it happen? You know that you've got to see the reason for it.

Verse 26, God has given them up to degrading passions. That's why women and men act so immorally, in a perverted way. And then it goes on to say that God gave them over, verse 28, to a depraved mind and then you have this big list of sins, verse 29 to 32, of unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, envy, murder, strife, deceit, slandering, you know, speaking evil about others.

Verse 30, that's also listed with murderers and arrogant and boastful. Good sometimes for you to go through these things listed here in verse 29 to 31 and you'll be surprised to see perhaps that little traces of that in your own life. And these are things that God hates and God gives up.

When God gives up on people, that's how they descend into all these things. I don't want to go into detail on that because it'll take a long time, but I encourage you to look through that slowly, meditate on each of these and see if there's any trace of that in your own life. And then in chapter 2, he speaks about the religious sinners, which you know the Jewish people had the law and he first says how Jewish people disregarded the law and they are guilty.

And then it goes on from there, I won't have time to go through the whole chapter, to in the next chapter, to say that everyone is guilty finally. We saw what we first saw in Romans 1 is the sin of the people in the world. Then in Romans 2, it speaks about religious people because a religious person can think, well I'm not like those people, I'm not doing all those terrible things.

But it says here that the Jew is just as guilty as the person who didn't have any religion. So Romans 2 is all about religious people and you could apply that to religious Christians today, nominal Christians who claim to have a religion. And concerning them, it's referring initially to the Jewish people in Romans 2, 24, that the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles, means the non-Jewish people.

The name of God is blasphemed because the non-Jewish people, look at these Jewish people who claim to know God, but look at the way they live. You could apply that to Christians. So the name of God is blasphemed among non-Christians because they look at people who call themselves Christians and they say, hey, I don't see much difference between the way you live at home and the way you bring up your children and the way I bring up my children.

No difference. And when the life of a so-called Christian and his family life and his children are just like all the people in the world, it says here the name of God is blasphemed. So that's something we need to check up on and see.

I claim to be born again. Is there a distinct difference between me and the person in the world? Is there a difference between the way my children behave in school or with others and the way they behave? If there isn't a difference, then it says here the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. He's speaking to the Jewish people, he's speaking to all religious people.

Then he goes on in Romans chapter three, ultimately, we saw with the sin of the unreligious, irreligious, non-religious person, the sin of the religious person. And then he goes on to say the final conclusion, Romans 3.10, is there is absolutely no one who's righteous. Not even one.

In the whole world, not even one person is righteous. If we don't start there, it's very easy to think that I'm a little better than somebody else. And that can carry on all through our life and make us spiritually proud and where we think, well, I'm not, I wasn't such a terrible sinner like that other guy.

And then we despise someone who's living in gross sin. But here it says there is nobody who's righteous, not even one. There's no one who understands or seeks after God, verse 11.

Do you really believe this? Verse 11. Some of you may say, no, I sought after God. Really? It says in Romans 3.11, there's no one who seeks after God.

I believe that. Basically, my nature is not to seek after God. Basically, our human nature is to seek our own in every area.

God becomes a convenience. If I can, he can help me in some way, I'll go to him. But otherwise, I'm not seeking after him for himself.

I'm seeking after him for some benefit I can get. There's no one who seeks after God. Everybody's turned aside.

And it says in verse 12, middle of that verse, there is no one who does good. Do you believe that? A lot of people think that doesn't apply to me. I've done a lot of good in my life.

There's no one who does good in his unconverted state. There's corruption, even in the good that's done, because it's done with the wrong motive or for honor or something like that. We need to recognize that the things mentioned here apply to everybody.

There's no one who's righteous. There's no one who understands or seeks after God. And verse 12, there's no one who does good.

And the final, in a nutshell, the final statement of the whole thing is in verse 18, there is no fear of God before their eyes. This is the description of humanity. Fear means a reverence for God.

And that's a good question that all of us can ask ourselves too. Do you, now that you're converted, do you have a reverence for God? A reverence for his, for him and his name? Otherwise, you're in that category. Well, I have to rush.

And finally, it says in verse 23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now this is a very important verse to think about. Everybody has sinned, the religious person has sinned, the non-religious person has sinned.

And what is the definition of sin? You know, there are a couple of definitions of sin in 1 John 3. One is, it says, is transgression of the law. Let me show you that. 1 John chapter 3, you go against God's commandment, that's a sin.

1 John chapter 3, verse 4, sin is lawlessness or going against God's law. That means something God has commanded, you go against it. That is one definition of sin.

And that is usually the definition of sin that most people have. Oh, God has told us not to do that and I do it. But here's another definition of sin in James chapter 4, verse 17.

The one who knows the right thing to do does not do it, to him it is a sin. So there again is a definition of sin. But the finest definition of sin is Romans 3.23, coming short of the glory of God.

So sin is, the best definition of sin is, coming short, Romans 3.23, of the glory of God. What does that mean? Very important to understand. I used to think of the glory of God as a bright light or something.

No. John 1.14, if you don't know that verse, is a definition of God's glory. John chapter 1, verse 14.

It says the glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ. The glory of the Father, the glory of God was seen in the person of Jesus Christ. So put the life of Jesus Christ in place of glory of God in Romans 3.23. Then here's how it'll read.

All have sinned and come short of the life of Jesus Christ. So anything less than that perfect life of Christ is sin. That's why I say Romans 3.23 is the clearest definition of sin.

Coming short of the glory of God. So a lot of people think that, you know, we preach about victory over sin. But when can I say that I'm completely free from sin, when I've become completely like Christ? Because anything less than Christ's life is coming short of God's glory.

That is sin. So I must never lower the definition of sin to anything else. Sin is coming short of the glory of God.

And the glory of God is seen in Jesus Christ. So if there's anything in my life, anything, my thought, word, deed, etc., you know, we sin in five areas. We sin in our actions or deeds.

We sin in our words. We sin in our thoughts. We sin in our attitudes to people.

Then we sin in our motive with which we do something, five areas of sin. And in these five areas, you know, action, words, thoughts, attitudes, and where we, if it's less than what Christ is, it's sin. So if you recognize the standard of, that is the standard of sin.

And I say, I want to be free from sin completely. We will be constantly pressing on to become more and more like him. That's why I said, we look unto Jesus and run this race.

If you stop looking at Christ's life, you will never progress in holiness because that is the standard God has set for us. Okay, let's move on. So when we recognize that we have sinned, the first thing we need is to have our sin forgiven.

So it says here that God has provided that forgiveness for us. It's in Romans 4 and 5, it speaks more about that. But it speaks here primarily, first of all, we'll come to the blood of Christ in a moment.

But it speaks here about, in Romans 4, about justification by faith. Justification means, the word just can also be translated as righteous. God is just, God is righteous.

So justification means being declared righteous. And righteousness does not come by, you know, the first step to righteousness is that God declares me righteous when I believe. So that is the theme of Romans 4 where he says that Abraham, verse 9 of chapter 4, faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.

Now this may sound like a lot of legalistic, I mean law and theology, but it's good for us to understand it. And I'll go on to Romans 5, verse 1, it says we're justified by faith. How do I come to this place where God can declare me as a righteous person? It's by faith.

That means I trust God and I can never make myself as holy as Christ is. So the first thing God says is, he places me in Christ and says, you are righteous. Declared righteous.

I mean, God says you are righteous in Christ. You turn to another verse which also makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. Now this looks like a intense Bible study, but it will establish you firmly in the faith and it will bring a lot of security into your life if you understand these things.

In 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30, it says, by God's doing, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom and righteousness. Christ is our righteousness. So when I come before God, when I say and I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, or I come to the Father in the name of Christ, what I'm saying is, I am coming not with my righteousness.

Not that I lived a good life today, but I expect God to answer my prayer or any such thing. I'm coming in Christ. That person who's born again today comes to God's presence in Christ, in Christ, and that's the only way he's accepted.

And someone like me who's been born again 65 years ago, I can also come before God only in Christ, in his person. So remember all your life that our acceptance before God is not because we have done a lot of good things. That can gradually happen in our life, where I begin to think, because I've been very faithful in so many things, that I'm more accepted to God.

No. We have to come with empty hands and say, Lord, I'm accepted in Christ. That's why we pray.

Sometimes we don't realize the meaning of ending all our prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. Lord, Father, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? I understand it to mean that there's absolutely no reason why God should listen to my prayer, except that he's placed me in Christ.

So I'm coming in Christ's name, and Father, therefore I ask you to accept my prayer. Not because I've lived a good life or any such thing. I am accepted in Christ.

Now that doesn't mean we can play fast and loose with sin, because then my connection with Christ is broken. But even when I'm living with a clear conscience, with my mind absolutely in the clear conscience, I'm still not accepted before God unless I come in Christ's name, because he is my righteousness. So Romans 5, 1 says, we are justified by faith and we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And one of the things that happens when we are born again is in Romans 5, in verse 5, that the Holy Spirit is given to us. So in the progression of our understanding of the gospel, he comes to the Holy Spirit coming in. And when the Holy Spirit comes in, it says here in Romans 5, to assure us of God's love for us.

That's how we find security. So this is very important. I'm accepted in Christ before God, and the love of God is poured in my heart through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This is very important for us to understand, because so many people think of various other manifestations of the Holy Spirit. But the first thing mentioned here is that God's love is poured in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, that the assurance of the evil, that he loves me as a father, and that love is poured into my heart. And that's the primary evidence of my being filled with the Holy Spirit.

The primary evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit is what it says here. I'm filled with God's love. If that's not there, whatever gifts I may have, the anointing of the Holy Spirit for service is a different thing.

That'll come to later on in Romans 12, where it talks about our serving in the body of Christ. And that's a different thing. But we have to begin here with Romans 5 with the love of God.

So I'm glad that the word, the love of God is mentioned so early in the explanation of the gospel, because I don't think many Christians take this matter of loving people seriously. I mean, if you ask yourself, do you really seek to have an attitude of love towards every Christian you know? I'm not saying that we can do so many things for them, but do you have anything which is contrary to the spirit of love in your heart towards anybody? God is love, and the Holy Spirit pours that love into our heart. And if you say, Lord, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you're asking God to fill you with love for every human being, love for every believer particularly.

And so I find that it's mentioned right here at the beginning of the gospel. And yet it's such an elementary thing, which a lot of Christians haven't taken seriously. That when my love for someone has gone down, or I've got a bitterness against someone, I need to go all the way back to the Lord.

I'm going backwards. Because Romans 5 says, the love of God is poured in my heart. I've been declared righteous, the love of God is poured in my heart.

So take that seriously, dear brothers and sisters. That is the mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit. The primary mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit is not speaking in tongues.

It's not being able to preach powerfully. It's the fact that your heart, now you can love everybody. Not that you can do so many things for them.

But let's take it like this, that you have no bitterness against anyone. You don't have an unforgiving attitude towards anyone. And you can't produce that.

People maybe have done harm to you, and it's so difficult for you to love them. But it says here, the love of God is poured by the Holy Spirit. That's why we need to ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit.

I'm sure many of you have asked God to fill you with the Holy Spirit. Why? Are you looking for some gift? Do you want to preach in some way? No. Ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit, so that you'll be able to love every single person in your local church.

And you'll be able to love difficult people in your family, among your relatives. Not that you can do so many things for them, or you spend a lot of time with them. No.

But in your heart, you've got no bitterness, no grudge against anybody. And that if your heart is opened up, you've got love towards everyone. You may do very little for all of them, because you don't have time or energy or resources.

But your attitude is one of love towards anyone. That's what God does. And this is at the beginning of the Christian life.

It's not some postgraduate lesson in the Christian life. So, dear brothers and sisters, please begin with this and say, Lord, I never want to have anything contrary to love in my heart towards anybody at any time. And keep that in mind always.

It's very easily forgotten. Then let's go on to Romans 5 and verse 10. We know about being saved by the death of Christ.

But here, notice the last part of Romans 5, 10. What does it say? Saved by his life. We are saved from punishment by the death of Christ on the cross.

But we are saved from sin in our life by the life of Christ. Have you ever read this expression in the last part of Romans 5, 10? Saved by his life. That is what the Holy Spirit does.

Bringing the life of Christ in me that saves me from the power of sin. I told you there's salvation from the penalty of sin. That is through the death of Christ.

There's no other way. Salvation from the power of sin is by the life of Christ. So, first salvation from the penalty of sin by the death of Christ on the cross I accept.

Then it says here, last part, we are saved by the life of Christ, Romans 5, 10. And that is the Holy Spirit bringing the life of Christ rising up in me and saving me. And I look at it like this, you know, that here's something, gravity pulls it down all the time.

It cannot stay up. But see, now my life is holding it up. Why is that pen not falling down? Because the life in me is holding it up, preventing it from falling.

And that's a picture of the life of Christ preventing me from falling. This pen is saved from falling by the life that is in me. And I am saved from falling, it says here, by the life of Christ.

So, it's not by some doctrine or understanding. It's the life of Jesus flowing in me that will save me and keep me from falling. Turn to the book of Jude, which is the second last book.

There it says, in the book of Jude, it says, Jude and verse 24, he is able to keep us from stumbling or falling and one day make us stand in the presence of his glory, blameless. So, the Lord Jesus is the one who's able to keep us from falling. That is the life of Jesus saving us from sin.

That is communicated to us through the Holy Spirit. That's why the Bible says we must be filled with the Holy Spirit all the time. The Holy Spirit primarily communicates the life of Jesus to us.

It's a very real experience. You know, like when somebody treats you badly, the life of Jesus comes up within you immediately and say, you're forgiven. Ignore it.

Don't let your spirit be affected by what he does or what he says. It's a wonderful thing. In the beginning, you get a little disturbed if somebody insulted you or said something to you, but you work on it and you'll find that the life of Christ brings you to the place where even your facial expression doesn't change when somebody treats you badly.

And there's not a not a single stirring in your heart of anything against him. That's the life of Christ. We must long for that.

It's a mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit. And we get a lot of opportunities in daily life. It's all provocations all around us to see whether this life of Christ is working in us or not.

So, remember this expression, we can be saved by the life of Christ. He's able to keep us from falling, Jude 24. Okay, now we go on to Romans 6. Having spoken about being forgiven, justified, then we go into the matter of overcoming sin in the daily life.

And he says, when we took baptism, the meaning of baptism is described here in Romans 6, 4, as the word baptism means immersion. And it says here that immersion in water is a picture of our dying and being buried with Christ. And when we come out of the water is a picture of God raising us up into a new life.

That's the meaning of water baptism. Now, most of us, when we took baptism, we didn't know the meaning of it. But here it says we are buried.

And like Christ was raised from the dead by what? Through the glory of the Father. Christ did not raise himself from the dead. And you did not raise yourself out of that baptism tank or river in which you were baptized.

Somebody else lifted you up. You submitted to be buried. You could resist being buried in the water, but you could not lift yourself up.

So, the meaning there is I submit to die, to die to myself, but God can lift me up. Christ was raised to the glory of the Father. We walk in that newness of life, Romans 6, verse 4. And this is one of the great truths.

It's taught here and in Ephesians that when Christ died, I died with him. And we were buried with him when he was buried and raised up with him when he was raised up. Why was that possible? Because of one reason, and that is God knew us from the beginning of creation.

God doesn't discover something suddenly. There's nothing new that God can discover today which he did not know in eternity past. For example, when do you think God knew that you would be a born-again Christian? Did he discover that the day you were born again? No.

He knew that before Genesis 1, verse 1. Ephesians 1, 4 says, chosen in him before the foundation of the world. So, it's wonderful. It brings great security for us to know that God knew me by name before he created the world.

I was not existing, but he knew that one day I'm going to be his child. And so, he placed me in Christ then, when I did not even exist. That is why I could be crucified with Christ.

When Christ died on the cross, I also died with him. Even though physically I was not alive then, but because God knew me before the worlds were created, he placed me in Christ then. And so, when Christ died, I died when he was buried.

I was buried with him. When he raised up from the dead, I rose up with him. And when he ascended to heaven, I ascended to heaven.

Colossians 3 says, you are seated today with Christ in the heavenly places, not physically, but in my spirit. And so, the right way to live is to recognize my place in the heavenlies and to look down upon the things of earth from there. You know, I've often used the expression of the rubber band.

The way I should live is, here's a rubber band that's tied up to heaven. And when I release, when I pull the rubber band down for all the work I have to do on earth, maybe 12 hours a day or 18 hours a day, whatever it is, and once all my work on earth is done, the rubber band is released, it goes back up to heaven because my life is there. So, that's how I should live.

I'm in Christ, but I have to do a lot of things on earth. So, I stretch the rubber band down to do all my earthly tasks. And once those tasks are done, the rubber band is released and I go back.

My mind goes back immediately. In other words, whenever my mind is free from all the responsibilities I have on earth, even if I have to work 18 hours a day, then when I'm free from it, my mind goes back immediately to the things of heaven. That is a spiritual person.

But very often, many Christians are not like that. Their rubber band is fixed to the things of earth and they're occupied with so many things. And Sunday morning, they stretch it for a couple of three or four hours to the things of heaven.

And then when that is over, this church service is over, the rubber band springs back to the things of earth. And then sometimes in a meeting like this is again stretched for a couple of hours to heavenly things. And when the meeting is over, it's stretched back to the things of earth.

I'm not saying we should not do our earthly things. We should be concerned about earthly things, definitely, and do it faithfully. But when our mind is free from all that, does it, like the rubber band springs back, does my mind spring back to the things of God? In other words, when my mind is free from all my earthly responsibilities and cares, what is the thing that goes on in my mind? We seek God to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that when you are released from that, your mind goes back, you're seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

Now, even if it takes time to get there, dear brothers and sisters, work on it. Say, Lord, I want the Holy Spirit to make this real in my life, not just a theory. It'll make your Christian life so different when you come to this.

Then he goes on to say this wonderful verse that we quote often in CFC churches, Romans 6, 14. Sin cannot rule over you because you're not under law. Law means commandments.

Command, do this, don't do this. No, if you go to the meetings in the church or you listen to a meeting like this and all you hear is commandments, don't do this, do this, don't do this, don't do that. That is law.

And if you're under law, you try to keep those commandments. You won't be able to keep it, I'll tell you. But it says we are under grace.

We depend on the Lord. It's by the life of God in us that we are prompted. Like, you know, if you're planning, for example, let's take a very practical thing.

Maybe in the office you're asked to sign something which is false and you can get some benefit from, maybe some money, and the life of God in me comes up in you and says, no, you can't do that. No matter what you're going to gain. So you tell your boss, I'm sorry, sir, I can't do that.

It's the life of God within you coming up and refusing to do what's wrong. Or when some situation comes up that provokes you to be angry or to hate someone, the life of God comes up in you and says, no, I'm not going to get angry. I'm not going to hate that person.

That's the Holy Spirit. It's the result of grace. I'm not living by a rule which says thou shall not get angry.

It's grace upon us. And we know from 1 Peter 5.5 that God gives his grace to the humble. So if we remain in humility, no thoughts about ourselves, and the best way to, I tell you, the best way to remain humble is by looking at Jesus.

You cannot become proud if you keep your eyes on Jesus all the time. It's absolutely impossible. If from the morning you say, Lord, I want to see you more and more, the way you lived on earth, and I want to live in your presence.

It is impossible to become proud. Then God's grace will be upon us all the time. That's why it says in Hebrews 12, we run this race looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

And then grace will be upon us. And as long as you're under grace, we do not sin. And it's a very interesting thing.

We have to look unto Jesus in this race. How did Jesus live? How did he overcome sin from childhood? Let me show you Luke. Please turn to Luke's gospel, and chapter 2. It's talking about Jesus in Luke 2.40. The child Jesus continued to grow, become strong, increasing in wisdom.

And see what it says here? The grace of God was over him, upon him. He was under grace. And Romans 6.14 was true in his life.

Sin shall not have dominion over you when you're under grace. And there is the first person on earth who was under grace, Jesus. Nobody was under grace in the Old Testament.

Grace came through Jesus Christ. There was no grace in the Old Testament. When it says in Genesis 6 that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, it's not this grace.

That is favor. And the NASV translates it as favor. Because John 1.14, you need to understand this clearly.

John 1.14 says, the glory of God was manifested in Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth. Verse 17, very clear. Romans John 1.17, Moses brought the law.

Grace came through Jesus Christ. There was no grace in the world until Jesus Christ came. So anywhere you find that word before that in the Old Testament, it's referring to favor, God's favor.

God's shown his favor to many people. He shows his favor to unbelievers too. But grace came through Jesus Christ.

And that grace was upon him. That's why he never sinned. Sin shall not have dominion over you when you are under grace.

That was true for Jesus also. That's why we say he's our forerunner. He's our example.

He did not overcome because he was God. Even though he was God, he did not use those resources to overcome sin. He was under grace and overcame sin.

And if I'm under grace, I will definitely overcome sin. At any time you slip up into any type of sin, thought, word, you accidentally spoke a rude word, in that moment, you must say to yourself, I'm not under grace now. Why am I not under grace? Because there's some pride in me.

So whenever you sin, don't ask why. Just go to God and say, Lord, show me the pride that is in me that made me fall just now. Why did I fall to that dirty thought of retorting that rude word? Show me where I am proud.

I decided that long ago. Lord, show me where, why did I slip up there? Even a word or a thought, show me where I'm proud. Start asking God more and more whenever you slip up in sin.

Show me where I'm proud, Lord. Because if I was not proud, I would have got grace. I would have been under grace and I would not have sinned at all.

Imagine if husbands and wives decide in their home to always ask God whenever they spoke a rude word or are in a bad mood. Lord, why am I in a bad mood? Where am I proud? Only proud people are in bad moods. I'll tell you that in Jesus' name.

Because Jesus was never in a bad mood. You could never do anything to make him in a bad mood. You did something or did not do something.

It did not affect him because he was under grace. It's an amazing life that God has called us to. Romans 6, 14, sin shall not have dominion over you because you're not under law but under grace.

So we got to rush. In Romans 7, he speaks about, in verse 15, about conscious sin and unconscious sin. This is another big thing.

What I'm doing, I do not understand. I'm not practicing what I'd like to do. I'm doing the very thing I hate.

We have to recognize that however holy you may be, however much victory you've got over sin, unconsciously we are doing something wrong or having attitudes that are contrary to the spirit of Christ. And that will never, we'll never be free from it till Christ comes again and we have become completely like him. So this is a very important area to understand.

Because he says that which I want to do, I'm not doing. That means I don't want to sin. I'm not talking about conscious sin.

Conscious sin is finished with in Romans 6, 14. In Romans 7, verse 14 to 25, he's talking about this law, verse 23, this law in my members, which is verse 22. In my conscious mind, Romans 7, 22, I agree with the law of God completely.

I want to be 100% pure but I find another law in my flesh, which is waging war. I mean, we all know that. And that makes me do some things which I discovered later on was wrong.

You're not talking about conscious sin, unconscious sin. Later on, I discovered. See, the one way we know we are progressing in Christian life is that we are discovering more and more of areas in our hidden life which are unlike Christ.

Not talking about the obvious things like telling lies or fighting and yelling. There are areas in our unconscious life which only we know and God will show us little by little. This is what Romans 7, 14 to 25, it'll take a whole hour to talk about this fully.

But if you want to listen to, if you go to the CFC website and go to verse by verse through the New Testament, there's a second, if you go down to the bottom of the page, there's verse by verse through the New Testament, the studies that I've taken, starting with Matthew 1 to Revelation 22. And there, find Romans 7, verse 14 to 25. There's a whole study there that explains this completely about how unconscious sin and conscious sin.

Go to 1 Corinthians 4, and you see Paul speaks about that in his own life. 1 Corinthians chapter 4. 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4. I'm conscious of nothing against myself. What is he saying? I'm not sinning consciously.

I'm not aware of any sin that I have committed. But that doesn't mean I'm acquitted. Acquitted is a language of the court where not guilty.

I'm not acquitted because the one who examines me is the Lord, and he sees things in me which I'm not conscious of. That's referring to this Romans 7, 14 to 25. Now, if you don't understand that, don't worry, because these are not something for us to understand intellectually.

As you seek to live this life, it'll become real in your life, and you'll understand it better. And so, you go to Romans 8, even though there is, I'm unconsciously doing things unlike Christ, but Romans 8, 1, I don't live under condemnation. There is no condemnation.

I mean, right now, as far as I can see, I'm not aware of any conscious sin that I'm guilty of right now, but I'm not thereby acquitted, because unconsciously, there are many things unlike Christ in me which I don't see right now. Otherwise, I have to say I've become like Christ completely. I've not become like Christ, but if I know some area that I'm doing wrong, that is a conscious sin.

I seek to be free from conscious sin, but when I'm totally free from conscious sin, I still acknowledge there are unconscious areas where I'm not like Christ, but I don't feel condemned about that. Romans 8, 1, I'm not condemned because of that, because there is a way in which God has formed for us to follow them. So, that comes later on in Romans chapter 8, in Romans 8 and verse 13.

If you're living according to the flesh, you must die. Now, here is how we, as we discover the areas where you're unconscious, become conscious. Romans 8, 13, in the middle, by the spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body.

Why doesn't he say put to death sin? I think deeds of the body refers to unconscious sin, which I get light on as I'm walking with the Lord. We suddenly discover, hey, that attitude in me was wrong and un-Christly, and I put it to death. And if you keep on walking with the Lord, what will happen is, you'll discover more and more and more and more of those unconscious areas, and you become more and more Christly.

To use an example from the Israelites occupying Canaan, the land of Canaan, it says was the top, the dam to Beersheba. That is how the land of Canaan was described, and that we say from head to foot. The land of Canaan is a picture of our body that needs to be completely under the control of Christ.

But you know, when Joshua went in and occupied the land, he didn't occupy the whole land in one day. If you read the book of Joshua, it took years for them to fight and battle. They killed the Canaanites, and then killed some more.

Whatever Canaanites they killed, they occupied his land. So picture it like this. They went in and occupied Jericho first.

Jericho became a conscious area of victory. All the Canaanites were killed. But there were a whole lot of Canaanites in the rest of Canaan that were not killed, but they didn't see them.

They only saw the Canaanites in Jericho, they killed them. So we can say there throughout the history of Israel and Canaan, there were areas where they saw Canaanites and killed them, and they always recognized there are more Canaanites in this country. I have not even seen them.

When I see them, I kill them and occupy that land. That's how the Israelites lived. So that's how we live in our body.

The area where I've seen, I start with, say, Jericho. Okay, some area in my life I see. I repent of that and ask God for grace.

I overcome there. Then another day God gives me light on some other area in my life. Some Canaanites I discover, I kill them.

So this is how Joshua occupied the land more and more and more and more. This is how we progress to become more and more like Christ. 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3. It says in verse 2, the last part, that when Christ comes, we look forward to his coming, but we will become like him.

1 John 3.2. So my hope is not only verse 2, that I will see him, but that I will become like him when I see him. It's a double hope. Many Christians say my hope is that I will see Christ when he comes, but 1 John 3.2 says it's a double hope we have.

I will see him and when I see him, I'll become like him. Now if you have this double hope, verse 3, 1 John 3.3, you will keep purifying yourself. What do you mean by keep purifying yourself? You keep on killing all the Canaanites you see, and more and more you will become like Christ.

This is a spiritual growth. So that's what Romans 8 says in verse 13. By the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, unconscious sin you will live.

Romans 8 ends with a triumphant note saying, who can separate us from the love of Christ? Nothing. In verse 35, Romans 8.28, all things work together for good, and some very wonderful passages all the way from Romans 8.28 to 39. And then I want to skip over 9, 10, and 11, which are referring to Israel mostly, to chapter 12, where it speaks about building the body of Christ.

This is the next step. Once we have come to a life of victory, we go on to building the body of Christ. And he speaks here in Romans 12.4 about we have many members in one body, so also the body of Christ, verse 5. And in the body, it speaks about the gifts of the spirit.

Some have the gift of serving, verse 7, some of teaching, some prophecy, verse 6, exhorting, giving. So many gifts mentioned in verse 6.28. He's speaking here about we have gone on, we are progressing to building the body of Christ. I don't want to go into detail on that.

You can read it. It speaks in verse chapter 13 about our attitude towards the secular society in which we live, being subject to government rules. Then it goes to Romans 14, where we, how do we deal with, you know, as we live together in a body, how do we deal with people who have a slightly different view from us on certain areas? Bear with him.

Can you bear with a brother whose view is slightly different from yours? He loves the Lord like you love the Lord, but he's got a slightly different view from you on some matter which has got nothing to do with sin. Here it's referring to the Sabbath or whether you should be a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian. So many people have got rigid views on all these things.

And Romans 14 says, be flexible. Give that brother freedom. And like that, we finally come to Romans 16.

And this is the final end of the gospel. Romans 16, verse 20. Satan is crushed under your feet.

See how God's ultimate goal is that the church stands triumphant over Satan, crushed under our feet. At the moment, right now, the Lord Jesus got all things under his feet. But one day we will have all things under our feet too.

So that's sort of a quick run-through of Romans. If you go again to that verse-by-verse through the New Testament in the CFC website, you can go through every single verse of Romans if you want to. I just wanted to give you a little taste of it.

If you want to study it in greater depth, you're welcome. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please help us to understand the wonderful truths the Holy Spirit has recorded here that will help us in our personal life, not to know these things as a theory and certainly not to know it to preach to others, but to experience it in our life.

Everything mentioned in this wonderful book. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.