Which Side of the Cross - Lesson 8 Week 3

Well, I'm going to start out, we'll finish up the last of Lesson 8 of Which Side of the Cross You Live On. Lesson 8 we, I believe, are down to Question 10, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. Alright. So, Number 10. If I am dead to sin, how can it still reign? Technically, positionally it can. But it says don't let it reign in your mortal body. So how does sin still reign?

I think the word is we choose. But I think the key is, what does it ultimately go down to? Lack of reckoning. Lack of reckoning? Yes. Okay. Faith and spontaneity. Yeah, I think the underlying lack of reckoning is faith. It comes down to, do you believe what he said? Do you believe? Reckon yourself dead and alive in the garden. Do you believe that? And that's really what it comes down to.

Sin is present in our members and ready to reign as king any time, any place. And if you don't doubt that, or if you doubt that, just wait until the next temptation comes up. And you engage. And it's ready and willing any time. So it's really back to the reckoning and our belief in that, our faith in that. It's true, but do we believe it?

Reckon yourself that are you dead positionally? I'll tell you technically positionally. Positionally you're dead to it. But again, we choose to not believe that we're dead to it. And we willingly choose to disbelieve what is true about us. So that's how it's able to reign. Ultimately it comes down to faith. We doubt what God says about us and we choose to follow the flesh.

Do you really understand that when you're actually sinning? You're actually, you know, half the time in the middle of sin. Your focus is nowhere on scripture or the Father or Christ. Your focus is on that sin that you're engaging in. But what you're doing is denying what the Father has told you is true about you. That's ultimately, you know, and I think, you know, it comes down to that I think is almost The rougher part is you're denying what Christ or the word tells is true about you. So it's a lack of faith. Usually when you sin you feel justified in doing it, right?

So that just puts a whole different spin on it. You know, there's been a lot of thinking about that. Not only do you justify it, but you find people to justify it. An alcoholic goes and gets somebody to justify the drinking. Somebody who is doing some bad thing usually finds people that will concur with their position. And it's amazing.

Anything you're doing, you don't want to feel bad. So what do you do? You go find somebody who will agree with you. And that's typically what happens. And alcoholism and things like that or anything. I don't know. Cheating. you know, you're cheating on something, you're going to find somebody who's going to say, well, that's okay because... and you'll feel better about it. That's what you typically do, is find somebody to justify. And you know it's wrong. In your heart, you know it's wrong.

But what you do is you try and get comfort by saying, you know, don't you agree with me? Yeah, yeah, it's okay. You know, I agree. Yeah, you're justified in that. And that's typically what I find, is that, you know, if you're doing something, you try and find somebody to agree with you, to make you feel comfortable. Because the Spirit will not make you comfortable. So you try and overcome that by trying to get somebody who will agree with you in what your position is. So, again, that's kind of a... OK.

So, what does verse 12 say about our bodies? Verse 12, and this is Romans 6, verse 12. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust. First, what does it say about our current state? We're mortal. We're mortal. We're mortal. We are mortal in this shell that we have on right now. We're mortal. That's the current position we're in, or state, I should say, state that we're in, is mortal. We have a position that is where? In heaven, right now, positionally. But we're mortal. We're right now in a mortal state here.

So, what does this also say about how many natures do we have? This is again, I think, one where you go and people will say, single nature. What does this tell you? Two. How do you say that there is a single nature when you say, do not let sin reign in your mortal body? How does somebody say there is just a single nature? That makes sense. You know, we go through the things, it's baggage, it's memories, it's la-di-da-di-da. But this is telling you, don't let sin reign in your mortal body. So there appears to be the possibility that sin can reign in your body.

So if you're only one nature, how does that happen? It just makes a guest appearance, I guess. I don't know how they would, you know, I'm not really sure. So, basically, our present body is mortal. That just means it's subject to physical death. We're waiting for the redemption of the body at Christ's coming. It's when natural desires are yielded to in self-will or self-indulgence that sin uses the desire of the body to assert sin's power and establish it. So again, that's in our mortal bodies. What are the linkings to will and indulgence? What were the hyphens before that? Self. Self-indulgence and self-will. We're looking at ourselves and gratifying ourselves. I mean, you look concerned. You OK with that? OK. All right. Any questions? We're moving quickly, because then we'll have Mike actually come up, and he'll start us on a grace.

I think it's important to understand that a non-believer is a slave to this. He doesn't have a choice. He has a choice between one sin and another, but he cannot choose righteousness. It's funny though, what you're talking about with sin and justifying it and how to buy it. He does the same thing in a non-believer.

The greatest philanthropist who's a non-believer thinks they're going to go to heaven because they're doing the greatest things. They're doing the same thing. You're really a great person. You're great. And that's the same thing, I think, the temptation in a believer. The sin is, you know, you're okay with justifying it. You justify because, you know, and I think he does the same thing, but in a believer, in an unbeliever, they have no choice, but he still does the same thing. He says, you're a great person. You don't need anything else. You don't need Christ. You don't need anything. Here's everything for you. Satisfying, you feel good about yourself. Don't look at that you have a need for a savior.

There's a few people that are better than I am, but there's a whole lot more that are worse. And there's a quota, and you made the quota. The other is, which a lot of people do too, it's the tree of good and evil. So what does the philanthropist do? He goes over to the good branch. He's a good person on that tree. He's good. Is that where you want to be? No. The tree of life. That's where you need to be. Not on the tree of good or evil. That's where you will die in yourself and in Adam.

And so the good people, and that's why I think for non-believers, they have the same pressure to be good or evil, you know, the good part and all that. We will do the same. The same, I guess, sinful nature is trying to push us in the same thing. You know, you're a really good person and you can get away with that and you know, this, that and the other.

And in a non-believer, they just don't have a choice, but they're still having that same pressure. And I think that's kind of an odd thing that, you know, you think in the non-believer it's just evil all the time. All you can do is evil. Well, no. You can do good things, but you're still without a savior. You're still going to be tied to that sinful nature into eternity if you don't accept Christ.

So it's just kind of a weird twist that you know most people think that unbelievers aren't well and Mike says that they only had they don't have any choices well they don't but it can look beautiful in a world perspective it can but from God's perspective no that's what I'm saying from a worldly perspective yeah you have to it's important that you look at the source of your behavior where did it come from yeah you know on that topic sinful things, he's in trouble, so they keep him getting the wrath of God. They don't do things to thee. Do they have the power and the sense to not do bad things because they're trying so hard not to? Well, there's some of that. You know, the harder you try, the worse it gets. But I think that Kortney's right.

What you get going on the self-righteous bandwagon and adhere to the precepts that that church gives you to live by. So you start to build up, you know, the store up for you, the good things you've done, and you think God's ready to incur. And as long as you confess all your sins at the moment that you die, you're probably going to make it. You might have to do a stop-off. Yeah, it's an interesting scenario because it's designed to keep you in fear your whole life and to keep you guessing in terms of what you really do mean. But it's no different than Armenian theology or Reformed theology. Reformers tell you that The only way you find out if you're really one of the chosen ones is if you persevere to the end. But what's the difference? It's the same dance. That's motivation. Fear is a great motivator. There was a hungry heart.

I can't remember the exact thing, but it was one of that monks and everybody who give up things. It's not what you give up. It's what you give yourself to. You know, that's a completely different attitude. You know, we're saying that, you know, I'm going to give up. You Catholic. Is it Lent when you give up everything or what is it? You're supposed to give up something. Is it during Lent?

Something you like, right? I'd give up Brussels sprouts but that wouldn't really do much. For something I like, give. Really sincere Catholics will find something to do during Lent. The work. But it's giving something up. It's not what you give up. It's what you give yourself to. And that's really the key. And you know, so many people, monks, who give up all these things and celibacy and la la la la la.

Does that get them anything? Nothing. And the lady who gave up crossword puzzles for Lent. Well, I'm just thinking, did Phil give up hot baths during Lent? But again, it's not what you give up, it's what you give yourself to. You can give up everything, but it's not going to change anything.

12. In verse 13, what does the word yield or present mean? And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. But present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. So what does present or yield mean? Do you think you could use the word offer yourself? Offer, okay. Any others? I've always looked at it as Those of you who have been in the military, when you raised your right hand, you presented yourself to the U.S. government and they said, thank you very much. You belong to them. And you had to do what they told you because that's what they kept telling us in the Marine Corps, you know, when you signed, when you committed, you're in. So it's that kind of a thing.

In Zodiates, he added, is to place or set before someone. And then he used present, which I don't know. And exhibit. So set before, to place or set before someone, or to exhibit, or to present, which is the translation when they use it in New American Standard.

So, what does it mean in this context? Do not go on presenting your members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Is that a one and done? No? Moment by moment. Moment by moment. Yeah, in the first case, do not go presenting the Greek terms are present, active, imperative, which it means do not keep presenting as a continual action that we actively participate in. So don't do this. Don't continually or go on you presenting yourself as instruments of unrighteousness. So that's the continual part of it, that's do not do this continually, do not, do not, do not, do not.

Okay, the second case, the term is Aorist tense active voice and imperative mood. The command is to present ourselves as unto God in the imperative Aorist active tense, which indicates a definite entering upon this attitude of presenting ourselves as risen ones to God. So again, the Aorist tense is you enter that.

It's a continual process. It's a fact. The imperative is a fact. So it's different in here. So don't go on presenting here, but do what? Present yourself to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. That's a fact. That's true. You are alive from the dead. That's a fact. So, go on. You present yourself because of the fact you are alive from the dead. So, again, just two different nuances. The presenting is continually, don't do this. Don't. Don't present, don't contain, but enter upon the fact, reckon yourself dead, but alive unto God.

So two different uses of the word present there basically, and you kind of pick more of it up by the Greek, but even in the English, presenting is a, you Greek, or I mean English people, Continuing is like presenting is a continual action. Is there a grammatical term for that? I don't know. Anyway, presenting seems like a continual action. It's not like presented in the past, like a past tense. The Greek will give you a little bit, but even on the English translation you can see that it's do not keep presenting yourself as instruments of unrighteousness.

13. Who are the ones commanded to present themselves unto God? 12-14 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, that ye obey its lusts. And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourself to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be mastered over you, for you were not under law, but under grace. So who are the ones commanded to present themselves unto God?

Yourselves. What's it say here? Present yourselves unto God. But who? Who? It says in here, who? Those who have been brought from death to life. What? Those who have been brought from death to life. Oh yeah, your translation. Yeah. Those alive from the dead. Those who are alive from the dead. Reckon yourself dead and you are now alive unto God. Those are the people who are to present themselves. So again, the same thing, dead in the reckoning, dead, and now alive under God.

Okay? Good to go? We'll move on on 9. And I think, you sent it out, but I don't know if you... There's a bunch of them back there. Okay, I'll pass them on. We don't need it now because we're just going to do an introduction. Oh, wow. Oh, thank you. I got one. OK, you know, I've got my product. Yeah, that's it.

So, verse 14. We picked verse 14 to move to the next part of the class. We've been working on identification now for four months. And now we're going to move to the second part, which is grace. So somebody read verse 14. Romans 6.14.

For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. So that verse says sin is not going to be master over you for what reason? You are not under law anymore. And that means law is a principle. So you are under grace. So it is important to understand I think exactly what grace is and how it functions. if it's going to actually do what the word says it's going to do, which is not being to prevent us from sinning. So grace is the thing that prevents us from sinning. Isn't that cool? It's not law. It's not commandments and statues.

To set this up properly, I think every environment on the earth is under a law system. Do you agree with that? the government, society, everything is under some sort of principle of a law system. So the Bible gives us two operating systems that can be lived under. One that we are most familiar with is law. The other one is what?

It's grace. So we look at grace sometimes that it comes in a jar and it sells for six bucks and it's a commodity. What the Catholics have done is they've taken grace and they've divided it up into different kinds. There's salvation grace, there's sanctifying grace. What you do is you pull into their gas station of grace and you fill up with whatever you need. But that isn't the way grace is. Grace is an environment that we live in.

This is the best example I know, but none of you have probably ever seen the show. Do you remember the TV series called The Dome? It's a really weird kind of show. It was on a couple of years ago. The premise was that there's this town in New England and for some reason this invisible dome came down out of the sky all the way into the earth and it isolated this entire community. and they could walk up to the edge of it and touch it and see people on the outside and people could see them but they couldn't get out and people outside couldn't get in and so here's this society living within and there's all kinds of drama involved and they're spending half their time trying to maybe tunnel their way out or do whatever but they can't get out so they live inside this bubble That's an entire existence that they're in.

I mean they can grow crops, they can live, they do what they do. Grace is like that. Grace is a total operating system in which we as believers, and we're the only ones who live under grace, operate in. Here's the other thing about it. Which system do you think God operates in? Has he got law for one people and grace for others? or depending on how good you are you get to live under grace and if you're really a dog you have to get punished by law. How do you think God operates today in the way he does everything? Do you think it's an admixture of both or is there one that he operates under? He operates only under grace. I can't overemphasize that that's the way that God operates today. There's never a time that he is operating legally.

Every single human being on the planet is either under a law system which was imposed by God and imposed by the culture and imposed by themselves. If you read the first three chapters of Romans you'll see that. All men desire what? They want to know the rules. They want to know what they're supposed to do.

We had a friend years ago who was a Christian guy. We paled around with him for a while until one night at the Bible study, he defined marriage as, she tells me what to do and I do it. We never went back after that. Not because she did the talking, but his whole concept of marriage was legal. She tells me what to do and I do it. Well it turns out he really didn't. Over the long haul he turned out to be really a rat.

And so the only human beings that live under a grace system are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we've got to understand that's the system we're under. The problem is that we go to God under the old legal system and we're trying to work a deal with Him. You know, Courtney just talked about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Will I move from those evil branches over to the good ones? God's going to really think I'm doing terrific. No, He's not, because He doesn't deal with us on that basis anymore. He only deals with us on grace, on a grace basis. So, that's why 614 is so important.

Sin will not have dominion over you. Does sin have dominion? You know what dominion means? It controls. Hopefully everybody here has realized at some point in your Christian walk that that sin is more powerful than I am to stop it. If you haven't gotten there yet, Call me when you hit the wall doing 40 with your helmet off, because that's what's going to happen. Sin controls. Before Christ, we're slaves. It tells us what to do, and we do it. We are under a legal system.

If you obey me, I will bless you. If you don't obey me, I will curse you. So what do we do? We go to God and say, look, I'm really thinking I'm doing the right stuff, how come you're not blessing me? Is he listening? No, he's not, because you called him up on the wrong line. You called him up on the legal line. We as believers deal with God and he deals with us strictly on a grace basis. So it's important that we find out what grace is and how it works, wouldn't you say? We're all really familiar with the legal system and how that works.

We know that we're condemned, before we were saved we were condemned to death and we were going to go to hell for sure and there was no escape. You couldn't do enough good stuff. You couldn't avoid enough bad stuff. We were conceived in sin. and we have a source and it was a sin nature and it controlled us.

So in this section we want to answer two questions. The first one is what is grace? What is it? And the second question is what does it mean to be under grace? So without giving the standard definition that you've heard, let's talk about what is grace? What do you think grace is? In your mind, I want to know how you perceive grace to be functioning, or what is it? What is the essence of it? Is it a hard question? Yeah, it is a hard question, actually. Grace is a gift, okay?

Expand on it more than that. We were unmerited. We didn't deserve it. You didn't deserve it. Okay. That's one element of it. What else? Well, it's a favor that God confers on us because we have believed in his son and his son has satisfied God's righteousness and he's free to bless us with grace. Okay. Trick question. That's good. That's good. Trick question.

I think, you know, without using our standard definition, I think kind of the underlying of all of this is God is love. And that's the basis. That's the foundational of which grace is based out of. Yeah. He said that God is love and everything that God does is based on the fact that He is love, which is why He's gracious.

To me Romans 5.8 means grace, the guy demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Perfect, while we were still sinners. So he didn't call you up and ask you if it was okay? He didn't say, I know you've been bugging me for a fix about sin, so I think I'll do it. Or like you're saying, I believe so I get the grace, that means I deserved it. I deserved it. No, I don't deserve anything. That's right. If grace is free, is it free? Totally free. It is totally free. It has to be by its very nature. It has to be free. And it's infinite. It's infinite and it's inexhaustible. It's unlimited because God is the source of it.

Now, the problem you have initially sometimes is that a non-believer is presented the gospel. And the gospel in its simplest form is what? Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures. He was buried and resurrected according to the scriptures and he was seen by many. And I say to you, If you believe that, God will save you for all eternity. Oh, that's simple, that's my part of the deal, and God's part of the deal is to save me. Is that a good thinking?

Here's the problem with that, and the last part of this class is going to be hormones on faith. Faith is a totally non-meritorious act. Because when I believe or you believe in the gospel, all of the value is in the gospel, not the fact that I believe. You see that? So I'm never at a point where I can go to God and say, you owe me because I believe. He does not owe us anything but condemnation.

I go back to the basis of grace, too. The reason why I kind of go back to the love part is, I think about this, that before He even created us, He and the Son had made the covenant to pay for our sin that He knew before He created any one of us that He gave us, Adam, the ability to have a will to choose to believe or not to believe.

He knew that before He created Adam. And He knew even before anything transpired that He'd have to give His Son. That's why I said that grace still goes down to love. He loved us so much. He didn't make us autobots and he loved us from the beginning so much that he would give us his son. The grace came out of that love for us even before he created us. Yeah, I couldn't fix it. So is it proper to say that everybody in this room does not live by any rules at all? True statement or not? Come on you cowards. We are not under a law system.

We don't live by any rules and if you've got some in your head, you've got in the behind this ear over here this little black box and in that box is I ought to be doing this and I shouldn't be doing that. Those are rules. If you're living that way you are not living under grace and you are not living as God would have us live. I know, that's a big pill to swallow. So why aren't we under a law system? Why are we not under a law system?

Look at Hebrews 7, 11 and 12, talking about the priesthood of Melchizedek, the Lord Jesus, the priest after the order of Melchizedek. He says, The priesthood being changed, the priesthood was changed from a Levitical priesthood to an Episodic priesthood, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.

The law being changed or transposed to put something in the place of another, that's what it means. There isn't a change we go from Sharia law to American law. That's not what it means. It means that what Hebrews is talking about is something has replaced law now as a system of operation. We are not under the law system because something has been put in place of that and that something is grace.

And so the priest had to change because the Levitical priest was a law guy. The Melchizedek priesthood, which Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, what's the very first thing that Melchizedek did? Let me see in the scripture. What's the first thing he did when he met Abraham? He blessed him. He didn't require anything of him. He blessed him.

We are getting from a priest who is a grace priest, the only thing he does is he blesses. 2 Corinthians 3, 7-11, that law had been done away, that's that great word, ketergeho, which means to nullify, to put it out of business, to make it inoperative. We are not under law because law for the believer has been done away. Just like I can say I have been separated from my sin nature. It's not what I'm subject to anymore just because I've been identified with Christ.

Romans 7.6 says we have been discharged from the law. legal term that means discharged from something. So I am not under any sort of obligation as a believer to perform for God to bless me. Nothing. I am under no obligation to avoid performing these things because he might curse me if I do. Is there any possibility of God cursing any one of us?

What if you go take a hot bath in the mountains? You eat a bunch of chocolates. The problem is that we have stuck in our minds because we were raised in a legal society that we've got to do something and we've got to obey and we've got to da da da da da because then God will look favorably upon us. No, God starts out looking favorably upon us and it gets better all the time because we sin he doesn't look less favorable than he did before.

What's the verse you just read? While we were yet sinners, here I am, what happened? God died for me. Christ died for me. while I was yet a sinner. So everybody in this room, when Christ died for your sins, they were all future, right? Unless some of you are older than I think you are. They were all future. You cannot, no fair going to God and saying, oh boy, this sin I'm in. Now, here's the cool thing. When the eternal covenant between the Father and the Son was a transaction between the two of them, Where were we? Where were we in that transaction? Nowhere.

The deal was God had to deal with this thing called sin. Now we're the ones that were purveyors of sin, but the sin is the issue. So the Lord Jesus dies, he pays the penalty for the sins of the whole world, and what's interesting about that is that he had to, the number one thing he was doing was satisfying the Father about the sin issue. All the insults of all the sins for all time had to be satisfied because God is holy.

So the Father says, okay I'm satisfied, I'm going to raise you from the dead. At that point, is he under any obligation to offer salvation to you and me? Is he? You say, well he died for me. I'm asking you, at the point that he's resurrected, which demonstrates that the father accepted his work, does he now have a deal worked out with humanity that now I'm going to save them? Because he's made a deal with them. No, he doesn't. He's under no obligation to save anybody, because if he was it wouldn't be grace. You see that? He does it because he's loved.

And he says, okay, I've completed everything. Now I'm going to offer it to mankind, salvation, but it's got to be on the grace basis. It cannot be on any sort of a merit basis. It has to be grace. So he says, here it is. And you say, well, what am I supposed to do? And he says, believe me. Oh, that's it? That's it? Believe that I took care of the sin issue in general and sin for you personally. That's where it starts. It starts at the resurrection where God had finished with all of the consequences of all sin for all time.

And he could have very easily there, and I wouldn't have blamed him if he did, said, well, you know, these humans, they bug me, they're done. I'm blipping them out of existence. But he didn't do that. He offered us the benefits of the work that he accomplished if we would believe him. Non-meritorious act.

So we'll pick up next week. I've got about three or four pages on Introduction to Grace. Then I think J.D. is going to do Lesson 9. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace. Can't thank you enough. But as we grow in the grace and knowledge of your Son, the Lord Jesus, we do find out that it is inexhaustible. We do live in it. Your desire is to shower us with grace all the time, if we will just believe you. Thank you, Father. We pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.