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Bible Study- Lutz, Florida
Established
November 2008
Rightly
Dividing the Word of Truth
(2
Timothy 2:15)
This is
good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who
desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1Timothy 2:3-4
Romans by the Book 41
Welcome
to Home Bible study.
I
encourage you to open your Bible and follow along with us as we study God’s
Word.
I
trust you’ll compare what you find here with Scripture for this is my objective.
You
see I am merely your guide through this book, God the Spirit is your teacher.
Permit
me to show you (using this book) exactly what I mean.
Prior
to Jesus’ arrest He told His disciples,
John 16
12: “I have
many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
13: “But
when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth…
God
is the source and the giver of all truth and the Holy Spirit is the conduit He
has chosen to guide you and me into these truths.
Many
Christians are unaware of this fact but when you accepted (put your faith in) Jesus
Christ as your Lord and Savior this is equal to agreeing with Christ in all
things; for He is the Head of the Body and the Church here on earth (Colossians
1:15-19).
Because
Christians do not understand how the Holy Spirit teaches and leads (shows us
the way) many have been missing these corrections, teachings, and leadings of
the Holy Spirit. God is communicating
His will to us, through the Spirit, but the message isn’t getting through
because the circuits are down in far too many Christians today.
The
Spirit teaches us and only the Spirit
knows the mind of God.
I Corinthians 2
10: For to us (Believers) God revealed them (God’s wisdom) through the Spirit; for the Spirit
searches all things, even the depths of God.
11: For who among
men knows the thoughts of a man
except the spirit of the man which is in him?
Even so the thoughts of God
no one knows except the Spirit of God.
12: Now we have
received
(past tense), not the spirit of the
world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we many know the things
freely given to us by God.
13: which things we
also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the
Spirit, combining
(or comparing) spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
Right
now there are approximately 600 church denominations in America.
They
represent about 600 different ideas about how the Bible should be interpreted.
But
there is only 1 Bible and it is the only source of Spiritual Truth in the world
today.
One
day you will stand before the Creator God.
You
will come face to face with “What God meant in His Word.”
It
won’t matter if you were taught incorrectly by well-meaning Bible teachers,
pastors, priests, etc. You will face the
Lord Jesus Christ and He is absolute
truth.
Jesus
said,
John 14
6: Jesus said to
him,
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no
one comes to the Father but through Me.”
Since
Scripture teaches us that only the Spirit knows the mind of God, we need to be
doing all we can to understand how the Spirit teaches and leads then we need to
respond to this knowledge. In
other words, obedience is required for we are servants of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
The
Scriptures say?
Proverbs 3
5: Trust in the
LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding.
Please open your Bible to Romans chapter 6 at verse 15.
Outline for Romans 6:15-19: the Gospel makes no provision for living in sin, anymore than the Law did; and those who commit sin (return to sin repeatedly) are slaves to sin.
Romans 6
15: What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but
under grace? May it never be!
16: Do you not know that when you present
yourselves to someone as slaves for
obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in
death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness.
17: But thanks be
to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart
to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18: and having been
freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19: I am speaking in human terms because of
the weakness of your flesh. For just
as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, so now
present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
In
verse 15 above the Apostle Paul returns to his opening argument stated at 6:1.
Paul
warns the Believers in Rome (and us) not to take sin lightly.
God’s
good grace does not give us the liberty to sin freely!
Paul
repeats himself, “May it never be!”
What
does the Word of God say?
Romans 6
16: Do you not know that when you present
yourselves to someone as slaves for
obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin
resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness.
According
to Paul, we should be aware of this truth.
When you present yourselves to someone as “slaves” for obedience, you are “slaves of the one whom you obey…
Bob
Dylan wrote a song sometime back called, “Gotta
Serve Somebody.”
In
this song, Mr. Dylan reminds us that no matter who you are, no matter your
position in life, you’re going to have to serve somebody.
Here’s
the refrain:
But
you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody
you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody
Make
no mistake about this truth you’re already serving somebody.
From
a Biblical aspect this means you’re either serving God or Satan
Jesus
said, “No one can serve two masters; for either
he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and
despise the other.” (Matthew
6:24)
I
don’t care if you own your own business, your own corporation, or if you are
retired.
It
doesn’t matter if you’re a dedicated housewife, a homeless person by choice, or
a busboy you “gotta serve somebody.”
Jesus
is reminding us that as human beings we are meant to be mastered (Genesis 6:5)
and then serve one master only; for this is the very (sin) nature of humanity.
In
verse 16, the Apostle Paul has taken us to the to the slave markets of Rome in
order to demonstrate this truth: you are
a slave to the one who owns
(controls) you; either to righteousness,
or to sin.
If
you return again and again to drunkenness, drugs, sexual immorality,
pornography, envying, jealousy, strife, anger, etc. then these things “have power
over” you.
If you can’t say “No” to these harmful things, then they control you.
You are a slave to whatever controls you and ultimately a slave to sin.
Bondage
to sin results from serving sin, as verse 16 explains
There
was a time, before you became a Believer, when you were a slave to sin.
Sinning
was as natural as breathing. You didn’t
even think about it – you did whatever you wanted to do, when you wanted to do
it, and with little regard to right or wrong, so long as you couldn’t get
caught that is…
Apart
from Jesus Christ we all sinned willingly and willfully.
Romans 6
17: But thanks be
to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from
the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18: and having
been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
But
God has set every Believer free from sin – to serve Him and righteousness.
In
verse 17, we read that this “obedience” comes from the heart of a saved person to that
form of teaching, to which you were committed…
Note: For those of you who only use one Bible to
study God’s Word be advised the old version misses the entire sense of this 17th
verse in its translation. Allow me to
explain. First I’ll present the old version
from the King James Bible.
Romans 6
17: But God be
thanked, that ye were servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine which was delivered you.
(KJV)
The
true interpretation of this verse should read: that form of doctrine unto which ye were handed over (or) delivered.
For the verb is in the plural – ye were delivered over!
In
the Old Testament, the Israelites were “delivered over” to Moses and the Law.
It
was not only that the Law was delivered by Moses to them; they were themselves delivered over to a legal
dispensation – to a mold of doctrine, which had the Ten Commandments as the
foundation, and then numerous details contained within the Mosaic Law with
which they had to abide by. The Jews
knew they were under the Law. They knew
they had been “handed over” to it, to its demands, and to its entire system.
Verse
17 is saying, likewise Believers now are “delivered over” to a form or pattern
of teaching and that is the gospel of your salvation or Christ’s work on the cross.
These
“teachings” include: their guilt has been put away on the cross, their
connection with Adam died with Christ, their history in Adam has ended before
God, they share the risen life of Christ, and are now before God as risen ones
(Romans 6:10-11).
Let’s
move on to the next verse.
Romans 6
19: I am speaking in human terms because of
the weakness of your flesh. For just
as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, so
now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in
sanctification.
Paul
explains at the beginning of verse 19 why he uses the word “slaves” in this
teaching - I am speaking in human
terms because of the weakness of your flesh…
Our
“flesh” is weak, therefore, we MUST be slaves to something; either to sin or to
God.
Rome
was full of slaves. Many of the
Christians to whom Paul was writing were slaves. In the Roman Empire, freedom was difficult to
achieve (Acts 22:28).
So,
Paul speaks/writes in “human terms,” after the manner of men, and he reports
that we are without strength and that comes to each of us naturally. He reminds us that we must be bondservants to
someone, either to God or to Satan…“No one can serve two
masters;
This
theme of being a bondservant to
someone runs throughout Scripture Paul didn’t create it. Please turn in your Bible to the Old
Testament book of Leviticus, chapter 25.
Leviticus 25
55: ‘For the sons
of Israel are My (what)
servants; they are My servants whom I
brought out from the land of Egypt. I am
the LORD your God.
The
sons of Israel suffered in cruel bondage for 400 years (Genesis 15:13) in the
land of Egypt and were made to serve under harsh masters. But now, being “delivered over” from there,
were now obligated to serve the LORD their God readily, and cheerfully.
Likewise,
we who have been bought and redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ (1
Corinthians 7:23) have been “delivered over” to that form of teaching which is
the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) which we are now “servants” to and obey from
the heart.
This
is the message of verse 19. Out with the
old and in with the new! …so now present your members as
slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
I
want you to focus on the word “sanctification” in the latter part of verse 19.
Sanctification
is the process of change that takes place in a Believer’s life after they are
saved. God’s number one plan for you is
that you become like His Son (Romans 8:29).
The
Apostle Paul likened this lifelong activity to that of a race.
I Corinthians 9
24: Do you not know
that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?
Run in such a way that you may win.
No
one wins a race by remaining behind at the starting line.
The
act of "running" is a motion forward, a following on to know the Lord
in an intimate way, a going from strength to strength, from one degree of grace
to another.
It’s
a pressing forward toward the mark for the prize; and requires spiritual
strength from Christ, and a daily renewal of it.
It is to be performed with readiness, swiftness, and cheerfulness, in opposition to a slowness of heart to believe, and a sluggishness and apathy in the service of Christ.
Paul
says; present your members (body
parts) as slaves to righteousness…
Here’s
how you get started.
True
sanctification begins with renewing your mind. You must know the truth, plain and simple. There’s no premium on ignorance in
sanctification. You’re not going to get
there through some emotional or mystical experience. Spiritual growth won’t happen by osmosis—it
requires the discipline of constantly putting God’s truth in your mind.
Don’t
confuse childlike faith with childish thinking. There are no shortcuts in sanctification—a
lack of biblical knowledge will always retard your spiritual growth.
Apart
from the truth of Scripture, there simply is no mechanism to restrain your
sinful flesh. Legalism can’t do it. Common sense can’t either. The only certain method for true spiritual
growth starts with absorbing God’s eternal truth.
(To
be continued)
©
Copyright 2011
GJ
Heitzman’s Ministry
All
Rights Reserved
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