Read: Romans 8:5-8

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. Romans 8:5

There are two possibilities as Christians that will determine if we manifest the righteousness of God, depending on whether we walk according to the Spirit or according to the flesh. The difference is what you set your mind on, i.e., what you are thinking about all through the day, what is important to you. Is it the viewpoint of the flesh, which governs the thinking of the world? Or is it the viewpoint of the Spirit — God’s viewpoint — on life? That is the determining factor — what you do with your thinking. Where you set your mind is going to make the difference.

What is the mind set of the person who lives according to the flesh? You only have to look around to see what that is. It is the natural viewpoint of life. People want to make money, because money provides comfort and conveniences that we would like to have. People want to have fun. People want pleasure, money and fame. People will give their right arm to gain influence and prestige. People desire to fulfill themselves. They want to manifest every capability that is within them. That is what the world lives for. And it wants it all now, not later. That is the natural point of view.

You say, What’s wrong with that? There really is nothing wrong with that, unless that is all you want. If that is all you want, then it is very wrong. This is what the Scriptures help us to see — that there is another point of view, which is life viewed according to the Spirit. Ah, you say, I know what that means! That means you have to forget about making money and having fun and fulfilling yourself. All you do is go around memorizing Scripture and thinking about God all day long. You go around reciting Scripture verses and telling people what is wrong with their lives.

Many people think that is what we are talking about when we say that we are to have our minds set on the things of the Spirit. But, of course, if you see people like that, you soon discover that kind of life does not produce the results this passage tells us should be there. That is really nothing but another form of being run by the flesh — it’s a religious form of it, but it is the same thing.

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Read: Romans 7:7-25

For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:18-20

Paul says that as a Christian, redeemed by the grace of God, there is now something within him that wants to do good, that agrees with the Law (because the Law describes God’s holy nature), that says that the Law is right. There is something within that says what the Law tells me to do is right, and I want to do it. But also, there is something else in me that rises up and says No! Even though I determine not to do what is bad, I suddenly find myself in such circumstances that my determination melts away, my resolve is gone, and I end up doing what I had sworn I would not do.

So, what has gone wrong? Paul’s explanation is, It is no longer I who do it; it is sin living in me. Isn’t that strange? There is a division within our humanity. There is the I that wants to do what God wants, but there is also the sin which dwells in me. Human beings are complicated creatures. We have within us a spirit, a soul, and a body. These are distinct. Paul is suggesting here that the redeemed spirit never wants to do what God has prohibited. It agrees with the Law that it is good. And yet there is an alien power, a force that he calls sin, a great beast that is lying still within us until touched by the commandment of the Law. Then it springs to life, and we do what we do not want to do.

This is what we all struggle with. The cry of the heart at that moment is: What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24) Right here you arrive at where the Lord Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). Blessed is the man who comes to the end of himself. Blessed is the man who understands his own spiritual bankruptcy. Because this is the point — the only point — where God’s help is given.

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Read: Romans 7:1-6

Do you not know, brothers and sisters — for I am speaking to those who know the law — that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man. Romans 7:1-3

Paul uses an illustration to teach us the way to be free from the Law. The woman is us. She has two husbands, one following the other. Notice what the death of the first husband does to the woman’s relationship to the Law. When the first husband dies, the woman is released from the Law. Not only is she released from her husband, but she also is released from the Law. If her husband dies, the Law can say nothing to her as to where she can go, and what she can do, and who she can be with. She is released from the Law. The death of the husband makes the woman dead to Law.

The first husband is Adam, this old life into which we were born. We were linked to it, married to it, and couldn’t get away from it. Like a woman married to an old, cruel, mean husband, there is not much she can do about it. While she is married she is tied to that husband. She cannot have a second husband while she is married to the first. She is stuck with #1, and she has to share his lifestyle of bondage, corruption, shame and death. That is why we who were born into Adam have to share the lifestyle of fallen Adam.

If this woman, while she is married to her first husband, tries to live with another — for this lifestyle is sickening to her — she will be called an adulteress. Who calls her that? The Law does. The Law condemns her. It is only when the first husband dies that she is free from that condemnation of the Law and can marry again. When she does, the Law is absolutely silent; it has nothing to say to her at all. Verse 4 says, So…you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

What a fantastic verse! Here is the great, marvelous declaration of the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Notice how Paul draws the parallel: So … you also. We fit right into this. The key words here are you also died to the law through the body of Christ. The body of Christ refers to the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross.

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Read: Romans 5:3-10

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5 NIV

It is clear from this that Christians are expected to experience suffering. Those who think that becoming a Christian will remove them from suffering have been seriously misled, for the Scriptures themselves teach that we are to expect suffering.

The Greek word for suffering is translated as tribulation, something that causes distress. It can range from minor annoyances that we go through every day, to major disasters that come sweeping down out of the blue and leave us stricken and smitten. These are the sufferings that we might go through, the tribulations.

According to Romans 5, the Christian response to suffering is to rejoice: Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings. Here is where many people balk. They say, I can’t buy that! Do you mean to say that God is telling me that when I am hurting and in pain, I am expected to be glad and rejoice in that? That is not human, not natural!

How do you get to the place where you can rejoice in suffering? The apostle’s answer is, We rejoice in suffering because we know… We rejoice because we know something. It isn’t just because it’s such a great feeling to be hurt, it is because we know something about it. It is something our faith enables us to know, a kind of inside information that others do not share.

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Read: Romans 5:1-2

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1

The first thing that you learn as a Christian is that you are justified by faith. To help us understand what that means, the apostle brought in the example of Abraham in chapter four. Before the Law was given, Abraham was justified by faith. He was declared to be acceptable to God. He was God’s friend. Abraham didn’t earn that. He was given that right at the beginning of his relationship with God, when he believed God. That is what faith means. When Abraham believed that God could and would do what he had promised, Abraham was declared the friend of God and he entered into that close relationship with God that characterized his life. That is what it means to be justified by faith. You receive this with no merit on your part, but by faith alone, by believing God’s promise, according to the work of his Son. That is justification.

Then, Paul says, there is a way by which you can test whether you really do believe that and have been justified by faith: Since we have been justified by faith, the sure result is that we have peace with God. As you think about your life and your relationship with God, if you really have believed that God justifies the ungodly, you will have peace with God. You are in the family of God. The war is over. All the conflict between you and God is ended; you are at peace with him.

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Read: Romans 4:1-12

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about — but not before God. What does Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Romans 4:1-3

Paul says that Abraham our forefather discovered two ways to gain worth: One, Paul suggests, is by works. Abraham was a man of good works. In Genesis, Abraham was an idolator and worshipped the moon goddess. But he was not deliberately seeking to evade God. He worshipped in ignorance. It was in the midst of that condition that God appeared to him and spoke to him. Abraham believed God, responded to his call, and set out on a march without a map. He trusted God to lead him to a land he had never seen before, to take care of his family, and to fulfill his promises. So Abraham appears in the Scripture as a man of great works.

Paul admits that if Abraham was righteous because of works, he had something to boast about. Works always give you something to boast about. You can look at the record, you can show people what you have done and why you ought to be appreciated. You may not boast openly, but we all have very subtle ways and clever tricks of getting it out into the open so people can see what we have done. You can drop a hint of something you have done, hoping that people will ask some more about it. Somehow you manage things so that people will know you are a person of significance. That is the way the world is today, and the way it was in Abraham’s day.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – The Father of Faith →

Read: Romans 2:12-29

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. Romans 2:12-16

Here we are dealing with the question of what to do about the people who have not heard the gospel. What about those who live where the Bible is unknown, or those who are in a different religion where there is no reference to the facts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? In this passage Paul says that their problem is that they defile their consciences. These people will be judged by their own standards. God judges men, not according to what they do not know, but according to what they do know.

In Chapter 2, verses 9-10, Paul also says the judgment of God is according to light. God is not going to summon all mankind and tell them they are going to be judged on the basis of the Ten Commandments. But people will be judged according to light. That means that God will say to that individual, What did you think was right and wrong? When the individual answers, God’s question then is, Did you do the right, and not the wrong? By that standard everyone fails. Paul makes that clear: All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law. The fact that such men never heard the Ten Commandments, or anything else that is in the Bible, does not mean they are going to be acceptable in God’s sight. They will perish, not because they did not hear, but because what they did know was right, they did not do.

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Read: Romans 2:1-11

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Romans 2:1

Here Paul talks about those who pass judgment on others. The apostle makes two points about these people. First, he says that these people know the difference between right and wrong; otherwise they would not presume to be judging. Paul’s second point about these people is that they are guilty because they are doing the same things themselves. The judges are as guilty as the ones they have in the dock.

Whenever moral people, those who pride themselves on a degree of righteousness and a standard of ethics, read a statement like this, they are taken by surprise. What do you mean? How could this be? I will use myself as an example, simply because I am such an excellent example of what the rest of us are like. I see three ways by which I try to elude the fact that I am guilty of the things that I accuse others of doing:

First, I am congenitally blind toward many of my own faults. I do not see that I am doing the same things that others are doing, and yet other people can see that I am. We all have these blind spots. One of the greatest lies of our age is the idea that we can know ourselves. We often argue, Don’t you think I know myself? The answer is, No, you do not know yourself. You are blind to much of your own life. There can be areas that are very hurtful and sinful that you are not aware of.

I caught myself the other day saying to someone, Relax! Take it easy! It was only afterward that I heard my own voice and realized that I was not relaxed, and I was not taking it easy myself. Have you ever lectured your children on the sin of procrastination? Then did you barely get your income tax report in on time, or not get it in at all? How blind we are! We are congenitally blind toward many of our own faults. We are indeed guilty of doing the very things we accuse others of doing.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – Sinful Morality →

Read: Romans 1:24-32

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity, for the degrading of their bodies with one another. Romans 1:24

The wickedness at work among human beings follows a process which is identified in this passage by the thrice-repeated phrase, God gave them over. This phrase identifies what is going on in our culture. The first mark of wickedness in a godless society is widespread sexual immorality — the degrading, or the dishonoring, of the body. Many people think this account describes all the evil things men do, and then says that God washes his hands of evil people because they are so filthy and dirty. That is not what this says. But because men run after other gods and refuse the testimony of their own hearts and do not glorify or thank the true God, God removes his restraints from society so that what is done in secret is allowed to break out into openness and acceptability. That is the mark of the wrath of God at work. The first sign of wickedness in a civilization is that sexual immorality becomes widely accepted.

You may ask, Why is it that sex always seems to be singled out as the sign of God’s judgment Many Christians have wrongly concluded that sexual sins are the worst kinds of sin. But that is not true. This passage in Romans bears it out. It begins with sexual impurity and proceeds to sexual perversity. But, the final result is not sexual sins, but sins of the spirit. Widespread animosity, hatred of the heart — these are the worst sins. There is good reason why God allows sexual practices to come to the surface. He allows it to show us what is going on in our spiritual lives. It highlights the fact that sex is linked with worship. Sex is a desire to possess another body and to be possessed by another. It is a deep-seated craving inherent in every human being.

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Read: Romans 1:18-23

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:18-20

Here we see the cause of the wrath of God. The apostle explains that it is the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness that causes God’s wrath. The tragic aspect of life is caused by the attitudes men have and the subsequent actions that follow. Notice the order of this — godlessness and then wickedness. It is the godless attitude that produces the wicked actions, and that is why the wrath of God is being revealed constantly from heaven against man. What is godlessness? Godlessness isn’t necessarily atheism, the belief that God doesn’t exist. Godlessness is acting as though he doesn’t exist. It doesn’t necessarily deny that there is a God, but it never takes any account of him; it doesn’t expect him to be active.

As a result of godlessness, there is unrighteousness or wickedness, selfish and hurtful acts of men toward one another. Why do we act selfishly? Why do we hurt each other? Because we disregard God, and expect there will be no consequences. That is Paul’s analysis. By means of these hurtful and selfish acts, the truth is suppressed.

Here we are in a world in which truth from God is breaking out all around us, but we are busy covering it up, hiding it, suppressing it, keeping it from being prominent and dominant in our thinking. The reason life has turned tragic in so many cases is because the world is deprived of the truth that is necessary for life and liberty and freedom and godliness, and it is hidden by men and suppressed by them. The nature of the truth that is suppressed is the existence of a God of eternal power and majesty.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – Suppressing the Truth →

Read: Romans 1:8-17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed — a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith. Romans 1:16-17

This quotation from Habakkuk that Paul uses is the great fact that he is expounding in the gospel. He is not ashamed of it, and that is a way of saying that he is proud of it.

Paul especially is not ashamed of the gospel in Rome because the Romans appreciated power, just as Americans do. The Romans prided themselves on their power. They had military power that could conquer all the nations that stood in their path; they had a tremendous program of road-building; they had some of the greatest law-makers of history; they had the power to write literature and create art. But Paul knew that the Romans also were powerless when it came to changing hearts. They were powerless to eliminate slavery. They were powerless to change the stubborn, hostile, hateful hearts of men and eliminate violence. Paul says that is why he is so proud of the gospel — because it is the power of God to do those very things that men cannot do. We never need to apologize for the gospel. It is absolutely without rival.

Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because it reveals a righteousness from God. Righteousness is an old word that we don’t understand very much. I would like to substitute for it the word worth, a worth before God. A sense of acceptance before God that He has given to you. You can’t earn it, you certainly don’t deserve it, but it is given. God really accepts you because of the gospel, because of the good news of the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Therefore, it is something that you, or I, or anybody else can have, and it is complete, perfect.

The last thing Paul says is that this righteousness is received by faith. It is not something we can ever earn; it is something we can take anytime we need it, and that is good news. Our worth before God is not simply something we receive once, by faith, at the beginning of our Christian lives. It is also something we remind ourselves of every time we feel depressed, despairing, discouraged, defeated, etc. God has loved us, restored us, and we have perfect standing in his sight. He already accepts us and loves us as much as he possibly can; nothing more can be added to it. That is the righteousness that is revealed in the gospel, by faith, to all who believe, no matter what their background or training may be.

Father, I pray that I may understand how hopeless, how dark and bitter my condition would be were it not for the gospel of the grace of God. Help me to know that nothing could have saved me from the wicked machinations of the evil one had it not been for the intervention of the gospel of grace.

Life Application

When we consider the magnitude of God’s gift of unearned, undeserved righteousness, are we responding with gratitude and worship? How does it affect the habits of our hearts and our actions?

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Read: Romans 1:1-7

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God — the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 1:1-4

At the heart of Paul’s argument is a person: Jesus Christ, our Lord. That, certainly, is the theme of the epistle to the Romans, as it is the theme of all Paul’s writings and all the New Testament. Union in Christ is the central truth that God wants us to see. As Paul himself wrote in the letter to the Colossians, Christ in you, the hope of glory, (Colossians 1:27b). That is the great truth from which all others flow.

Sometimes Bible teachers identify certain of the great emphases that come from that truth as being the central truth. For instance, they emphasize justification by faith, or sanctification, that is, solving the problems of sin. But these themes all stem from the great central theme — union with Christ. We are not simply followers of a philosophy, or even of a philosopher, but of a savior, a redeemer, a person — and he must be central in all things.

In his introduction, Paul points out that the Lord was promised to us; he came as predicted in the Old Testament. The gospel was promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son. One of the most important things that we can learn about our faith is that it comes to us through the anticipation and prediction of centuries of teaching and preaching.

When The Lord Jesus comes, he is presented to us in two unique ways: First, concerning his human nature, the apostle says he was a descendant of David. The actual Greek says he comes of the very sperm of David, emphasizing his intense humanity. We all came that way, and Jesus came in the same way.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – Regarding His Son →

Read: Jeremiah 50:1-51:64

This is the word the Lord spoke through Jeremiah the prophet concerning Babylon and the land of the Babylonians: Announce and proclaim among the nations, lift up a banner and proclaim it; keep nothing back, but say, Babylon will be captured; Bel will be put to shame, Marduk filled with terror. Her images will be put to shame and her idols filled with terror. Jeremiah 51:1-2

Chapters 50 and 51, two of the longest in the book, are devoted to the destruction and overthrow of Babylon. Everywhere in Scripture Babylon is a symbol of the great enemy of God, especially as the devil uses false religious authority to claim earthly standing, prestige, and power.

Do you remember where Babylon began? In the tower of Babel, after the Flood. Why did men erect the tower of Babel? They erected a tower to ascend into the heavens and become like God. Under Nimrod it became the mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth. It became the fountainhead of idolatry and began to export these ideas all throughout the world. It was so that they might make a name for themselves (Genesis 11:4). Babylonianism is the attempt to gain some prestige or status in the eyes of the world by religious authority. Every religion in the world seeks that. Whole systems of religion have been seized and these systems seek to gain great authority, to be known as princes and kings and powers in the world today. It all began with the tower of Babel.

Just as Babylon itself was the great destructive power against Judah, so Babylon’s turn must come. Out of the north, the Medes and the Persians would come against Babylon and overthrow this great kingdom. Despite its tremendous walls, its vast palaces, its ornate hanging gardens, its huge size, and its great armies — the greatest power of the world of that day — at the very height of its power God declares that it shall be totally lost.

There are many who say that Babylon must be built again because of the prophecies in the book of Revelation that refer to Babylon. But the reference there is to Mystery Babylon the great, (Revelation 17:5 KJV). So this is not the actual, literal city, but that for which Babylon stands — the idolatrous practices and the blasphemous assumption of power by religious authority. That is what is going to be destroyed, as the book of Revelation says. Yet here in Chapter 51, we are given a description of the destruction of this actual city, which is picked up and used again in Revelation.

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