THE POWER TO BE GOOD
Sermon by Don Myers
>> Preach the word.
>>> Thank you, church. I love the Lord, I Love Sunset International Bible Institute. God bless you for allowing me to be here today. I'm going to ask you to go to God in prayer with me.
PRAYER
>> Our Father, thank you for your eternal plan. Thank you, Father, for determining before the foundation of the world that you would send your Son, tabernacle him in flesh; and that he would fight the devil on the battlefield of the law and that he would be a perfect performer; and that he would earn our salvation by his performance; and that our righteousness and claim to righteousness would come from being clothed in his righteousness. And Father, we pray that that righteousness, that right standing that we have with you, will inspire us to be good, to aspire to be like him, to aspire to be like our God, who is light, and in whom there is no darkness at all.
Strengthen me today to preach your word, through the name of Jesus. Amen.
(AMEN IN UNISON)
SERMON
>> I grew up in south Mississippi. My dad worked for Chevron Oil Company. He wore a hard metal hat and steel toed boots, and I think he was the grandest fellow that ever lived.
My mother, while he worked in the oil field, operated a little country grocery store there in south Mississippi. One interesting thing about the times that we lived, we lived at the grocery store. Our home was actually connected to the grocery store, so when most folks get up and raid the refrigerator at night, I got up and got to raid the whole store.
[LAUGHTER]
>> And have never really overcome that.
[LAUGHTER]
>> But mother was at the cash register one day, and my brother about seven years old came strolling through the old wooden store, on the customer side of the counter, and discovered a five dollar bill laying on the floor of the store.
He picked that five dollar bill up, he stuffed it down into his pocket, and he begun to announce to my mother, "Mom, I found $5.00."
And she said, "Well, son, that's great. But, you know, someone has lost that money, and they're liable to come back in here and claim it."
And he said, "I don't care. I found the $5.00, and it's mine."
Well, that conversation was still in progress, I believe, when a young man came back into the store--a young man by the name of Leon and said, "Mrs. Myers, I was in here just a little while ago and buying some little things. I've lost some money."
"How much did you lose, Leon?"
He said, "Ma'am, I've lost $5.00."
She says, "Well, I'd like to tell you that Bobby my son there he's found the $5.00."
Bobby said, "That's right."
[BABY CRYING]
[LAUGHTER]
>> My mother also informed Leon that Bobby says he's not going to return the money, and Bobby Said, "That's right."
Well, my mother knew how to strike deep at his spiritual sensibilities. So she just struck the key on the cash register, and the cash register opened. She pulled out a crisp, clean, new five dollar bill, handed it over to Leon and said, "Leon, we're Christian people. We're not going to let you be cheated, son, out of your money. So here's your $5.00. But one thing I'll tell you, in the presence of Bobby Myers, his record will not be clear in heaven for what he's done today."
[LAUGHTER]
>> That that hit hard. Bobby dropped his head, put his hands down in his pockets, begun to kind of screw his feet around in the floor. Mother knew she had him. He was about to come to repentance. He popped his head up and said, "I want to tell everybody here something. My record wasn't clear before I found the $5.00."
[LAUGHTER]
>> You know, that humorous story, kind of, puts in a capsule the reason why a lot of people don't feel they can live the Christian life. They don't believe that they can live the Christian life because their record's not clear. Many people who have become children of God, still believe that their record is not clear.
And because they don't believe their record is clear, they're not certain about their eternal destiny. Not only does that destroy their assurance and smack at lack of trust in the great sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but it also destroys their power to live the Christian life and to bear fruit unto God.
Romans 7:1 6 unveils one context among others in the scriptures about how we might have the power, if you will, to be good.
One of the phrases that I want to pick up on in this text immediately is in Romans 7:4 where he says, "Therefore, brethren, we die to the law, through the body of Christ, that we might be married to another, even him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit unto God."
There is something about our liberation from damnation, our liberation from the damning jurisdiction of law, that it's supposed to give us the strength and the power to bear fruit unto God. But if somehow we don't understand that our record has been cleared, and our record is being cleared, as we trust Christ, walk in the light, seek his will, and repent of evil when we find it in our life, then it seems like the “in order that I might bear fruit unto God” gets hurt and damaged in a great way.
In the book of Romans, I believe that the book of Romans sets out two great systems under which every adult or every accountable person lives. In Romans 8:1 4, he says, [1] "There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death."
He talks about these systems under these titles: The law of sin and death, the law of the Spirit of life.
I kind of view those that phrase as cause and effect. Sin brings death. The presence of God's Holy Spirit in our lives brings life. He is the water of life.
And so these two great systems the law of sin and death, the law of the Spirit of life.
Another way in which these systems are referred to in the book of Romans is Romans 6:14. He says, "Sin shall no longer be master over you. For ye are not under law but under grace"--law and grace.
Also in Romans 3:27, to understand Christianity and to understand what Christ has done to us means that all boasting is excluded. He says in Romans 3:27, "Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith."
These two systems in the book of Romans are referred to as law and grace. The law of sin and death and the law of the Spirit of life. The law of works and the law of faith.
Now, let's just pause just a minute by way of introduction here today to at least pick up the flavor and the nature of these two systems. What is the law of works? What is the demand of the law of works? The law of Moses was a type of law of works. The law that existed in the conscience of Gentiles who were not in the or under the theocratic system of the Jews was there law of works. They had a law written on their conscience, either applauding them when they did well or accusing them when they did wrong, but it was still a law of works.
So whether you were a Jew or a Gentile, you still lived under a system called the law of works. What did the law of works demand?
In Galatians 3:10, Paul writes and says, "Cursed is everyone." And actually he's quoting Old Testament scripture. "Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things written in the Book of the law to do them." The law of works demanded absolute perfection.
Now, that doesn't surprise us when we think about it because our God is absolutely perfect. When the Bible says in 1 John 1:5, "God is light" that is emblematic of perfection and righteousness and holiness and sinlessness. "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all."
There are no shades of gray, no compromise of sin, God's nature is holy, and he cannot fellowship anything that is not absolutely holy and perfect.
And you see, here is where our dilemma comes. Our dilemma comes when we come to grips with the fact that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
In the book of Galatians 3, Paul talks about the guiding axiom of the law of works. He says, "However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practice them shall live by them."
If you'd notice, the guiding axiom, the foundational principle of the law of works, it is that man lives that's spiritual life, that's union with God, that's fellowship with God, that's communion with God. Man can live only under one condition. Under law under the law of works that he practices the law.
And Paul has already said in this same context, "This has to be a perfect practice."
Now, I'm not going to talk to you today on this in talking about the flavor of the law of works and pointing out some renegades out there today that are rebelling against God, who do not care about God, who fly in the face of the Lord, and live a life in deference to him.
I want to talk to you about someone other than Jesus, for a moment, that strikes me as a person that ate and breathed and slept the will of God. I'm thinking today of the Apostle Paul. I'm thinking of the Apostle Paul and how the Apostle Paul ate and breathed and slept the will of God. And I personally believe and I know this is a debatable thing but I personally believe in Romans 7:14 25, Paul is not talking about his struggle as a Christian. Paul is talking about his struggle under law. We have to reconcile that with the fact that the present tense is used, but he is talking about his struggle under the law.
Now, we're talking about a person that that understood that the law was the will of God. He acknowledged the will of God. He wanted to keep the will of God, and in this context he's going to talk about himself as being sold into bondage to sin. He's going to say I don't understand what's going on. I want to do right, but I end up practicing the very thing that I know is wrong. In my mind, I know what is right. But in the translation in the daily practice, I don't find the power to perform the will of God.
Have you ever been there? Of course you have. Where we struggled and wanted to please God with all of our heart and understood that we came up short. Now, you know, I hope you didn't draw the pharisaical conclusion of the man that stood up before God in Jesus’ parable and begun to outline various reasons why God was lucky to have a man like him.
I pray so many times a day. I fast so many times a week. I give tithes of all I possess, that when the weight of what I'm saying today hits you, you will be, like, hopefully, the publican who would not so much as lift his eyes up into heaven, but smite yourself upon the breast and say, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."
It's little doubt why Jesus unfolded his manifesto at the Sermon on the Mount. One of the very first things he said was, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” Blessed is the person that has come to understand that he cannot serve his own spiritual needs by the work of his own hands. Blessed is the person that comes to understand that he is spiritually bankrupt before God. This is the nature of the law of works.
You know that the law, Galatians Chapter 3, the law was given because of transgressions. The law was given in order to show sin exceedingly sinful. We stand up before it like a mirror, and it points out the flaws of our lives. Now, that is the flavor of the law of works.
I want you to think just a minute about what the law of faith is all about. Because the law of works demands absolute perfection, and on whom does a person have to depend on for that perfection? You remember Galatians 3:12, he said, "The man that does these things shall live." He had to depend upon himself to perform the will of God, the weight of his salvation or the hope of righteousness rested upon the power of his own performance.
When we come to the law of faith, we're expecting that maybe God will demand less of us, but he doesn't. Under the law of faith, God still demands perfection. When you start looking in the book of Romans as to what Christ offers us through his sacrifice up on the cross, you come to understand that God is offering that which we cannot obtain by our own merit.
“The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first, and also the Greek; for therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’"
Romans 3:21, "But now apart from the law"
See we're trusting ourselves and trying to earn and merit our own salvation.
He says, "But now, apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ."
You see, God has not made a compromise. Since he is life, since he is holy, since he is perfect, he still demands that if we're going to be right with him, we're going to have to be perfect.
Well, we think, my goodness, if the New Testament covenant, the New Testament system, if Christianity is still demanding perfection, it seems like that I'm in, still, the desperate circumstance that I was before.
But you see, there is a grand difference in the law of works and in the law of faith. Now let me mention to you about the law of works. The law of works that God gave was not bad, because it's not bad for God to demand that we be like Him. Every command that comes out of the heart and mind of God is but an extension of God. Therefore, when we are when we know God and obey his Commandments, we're reflecting that fact that we're His children.
But the law of faith is different than the law of works in this grand manner. That instead of having to trust ourselves for our righteousness, we trust the perfect Jesus for our righteousness.
So when you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you read how he was led of the Spirit in the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and you read of how he overcame the fiery darts of the devil and overcame temptations what you're watching is the basis of your salvation being played out in the performance of Jesus Christ.
(AMEN IN UNISON)
>> When Jesus was tabernacled in flesh and tempted in all points like as we are, and of course, yet without sin, I'd like to say that Jesus went to heaven. Jesus the man resurrected from the dead the Eternal Son of God, the Incarnate Son of God resurrected from the dead got to go back to heaven because he never sinned.
And do you know something? I'm going to get to go to heaven because Jesus never sinned.
(AMEN IN UNISON)
>> Because, you see, the only claim that I have, or anyone here today has upon righteousness that the man of God is to be clothed in Jesus’ righteousness.
So when we come across these concepts of the law of works and the law of faith in the book of Romans, I want you to look in another word here. For in this context, Romans 7:1 6, Paul is going to state a principle, Verse 1; he's going to illustrate his principle, Verses 2 and 3; and he's going to apply his principle, Versus 4, 5, and 6. But the whole purpose of this context, now, is to connect the redemptive work of Christ and how it liberates us and releases us from the law, to showing us how we can have the power to be good.
And so I want you to look at the principle he states in Verse 1: "Or do you not know brethren? For I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives."
Now, Paul has already spent Romans 1:18 to chapter 3, verse 20 showing that whether you are pagan, moralist, or Jew that you are accountable under law, that you are condemned under law, and there is no excuse. And when he strips every rubber crutch excuse out from under humanity, then he points them to Jesus.
And so he's been talking about the jurisdiction of law in the book of Romans. Now, the point I want to make here at this juncture, let us never think that Jesus came to this earth to settle a few unpaid debts we had to the law of works. Jesus didn't come just to settle a few unpaid debts we had to the law of works, folks. He came to destroy the jurisdiction of the law over us.
I think about a man standing before a judge. He has been condemned or he has been convicted of a capital offense. The judge gets ready to pronounce sentence, and he says, “You are going to be strapped to an electric chair on a certain, certain date; and the switch will be thrown, a sufficient amount of electricity will be run through your body until it's determined that you are dead.”
The man hears the sentence and falls dead, right before the judge. Are they going to still take that man's lifeless body and put it in the electric chair on the designated date and flip the switch? No. When he died, the jurisdiction of law ended in his life.
The Bible says here, "As long as we live, we're under the jurisdiction of law." Then how can we come out from under jurisdiction of law? Well, a death is going to have to take place, and you have to decide if you're just going to remain under jurisdiction of law and go into the judgment and stand there before that God who has no sin and answer for your own sins. Or, you going to allow Jesus, the perfect sin sacrifice, to stand there by your side and be the explanation as to the reason why you'd be allowed into heaven.
Now, watch Paul's application. He said, "For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living, but if the husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while the husband is living, she is joined to another man, she should be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is freed from the law, so she is not an adulteress though she be joined to another man."
Now, it seems odd on the surface that Paul would suddenly, in the midst of talking about after he talks about the universal condemnation of man, then justification by grace through faith apart from meritorious works of law, and now he's talking about this great, holy life we're going to live. And right in the midst of that context, in Romans 7:1 6, he brings up the subject of marriage, divorce, and remarriage.
[LAUGHTER]
>> That seems interesting. But what Paul is doing here, is he's using this as an illustration. This woman, who is married to her first husband, who is this woman? That's the alien sinner. That's the person still under the jurisdiction of law. You see, the law binds the person who is still under it. We're bound, we're obligated. You can't walk away from that obligation.
So he's talking here about another type of obligation in an illustration. He says, "A woman is bound. She has an obligation, a debt to her first husband."
Who is her first husband? Law. And she's not free just to walk away from that husband and become the wife of another man while that husband is living. Why? In this illustration, the obligation hasn't been met. The debt hasn't been paid.
But if the husband dies, she is free, she is released from the law of the husband that she might become the wife of another man and not be called an adulteress. Who is the second husband in this illustration? Who is this woman's second husband? This is grace.
"Sin shall no longer has mastery over you, for ye are not under law but under grace." This idea of being bound and then being released. It's the same concept we just came across in Romans 8. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death."
If you will allow me and I think you can relate to this most of the Sunset instructors don't know me, but I know them and I love them. I've set at the feet of Jim McGuigan, Richard Rogers, Gerald Paden, Ed Wharton, through means of books and through means of tapes.
I was going to a gospel meeting one time, headed up into Kentucky. I had an earplug in my ear. I know what year it was because I was driving a brand new 1981 Datsun not Nissan Datsun Station Wagon.
[LAUGHTER]
>> And I had that earplug, and Richard Rogers had me up in Mount Seir in Edom, where the Edomites were insisting we don't have to worry about God bringing us down. We've got water supplies, we've got wise people, we've got riches, we've got intelligent leaders, and God is going to whistle to the nations and bring you down, he said to the Edomites.
Well, I got shocked back into real-time when I heard a siren behind me in a little little Kentucky town.
[LAUGHTER]
>> The officers pulled me over and basically got across this message: “You have broken the law.” They said you'll have to follow us down to the Justice of the Peace. Now, I'm not kidding you. When we got down to the Justice of the Peace, The Justice of the Peace Tribunal was set up in an old abandoned gas station, and the judge's chamber was in the former grease rack room, but it was still according to the law of the land.
And the judge agreed with the policeman. He said, "You have broken the law." And he said, "The fine for that is $50."
Well, he might as well remember, I'm a preacher.
[LAUGHTER]
>> He might as well of said $50,000. I used to think you could strike out on a 600 mile trip with $20.00 in your pocket. You can't go around the corner without $20.00 in your pocket now.
[LAUGHTER]
>> So here I was, and I didn't have $50.00. I, kind of, got the impression that they weren't going to let me go. But do you know what I did? I just walked up to the judge and said, "This has been a life transforming experience, sir. This has changed my life. I'm going to lay off this speeding thing. I'm sorry, policeman. I'll see y'all later." And just walked out. Do you think I did that? No. I was bound, and I would be bound until a debt was paid.
[LAUGHTER]
>> What does a preacher do way off in lonely Kentucky on a remote strip of highway in a dilemma like that? "Mom..."
[LAUGHTER]
>> "I've got a 'legal' problem."
She said, "Put the judge on the phone."
And I want you to know, on the promise that my mother would mail him $50.00, and you've got to believe she mailed him the $50.00, they released me.
What will these ministers of the gospel that are going out, and they're going to be preaching, and they're going to be telling people. They're going to be speaking to brethren, in some cases, who don't understand that their debt has been paid. They're going to be talking to some discouraged brethren who are about ready to give up, or have already given up because they didn't feel they had the power to be good. But you're also going to be facing a world that God loves that are still under the jurisdiction of law.
Have you ever heard this at a funeral home? You've heard it every time there's been a funeral most every time. “Uncle Sam, if anyone went to heaven, I know he did. There's never been a finer citizen.” And I want to tell you, there probably hasn't been. “There's never been a finer citizen, finer father, more upstanding husband, a more loyal, moral man who contributed to this community. If he didn't go to heaven, I say nobody did,” someone might say. And we understand. Bless this person's heart. They don't understand God. You have to have a Jesus form of righteousness to go to heave by your merit.
But I want you to watch Paul's application here. Paul says, "Therefore, my brethren, you were made to die to the law."
Now, notice the action is not being performed by the subject; the action is being performed on the subject.
"Ye have been made to die to the law through the body of Christ so that you might be joined to another, even him who was raised from the dead, that you might bear fruit unto God."
Now, how is it that we are made to die to the law through the body of Christ? We understand that “he was wounded for our trespasses. He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement of our peace was laid upon him, and by his stripes, we are healed.” Jesus is our reason, for heaven's sake. But he says, when we understand that our debt has been paid, he said that will bring about and “an order that you might bear fruit unto God.”
Oh, what a relief. When I started studying Romans some 35 years ago, I would come out of my study, and I would say, "Can this be true? Can this be true?" If you'll allow this one diversion to White’s Ferry Road. I remember Bill Smith standing up one day in class, I hadn't been there very long. I had been studying Romans about six months, nine months before I got to White Ferry Road School of Preaching. I hadn't been there very long. Bill Smith was in there, and he said, "I want to tell you guys something." He'd rub his mustache. "I want to tell you guys something." He said, "If you become a child of God and you are robed in the righteousness of Jesus and you are seeking to do right and you hate evil and repent of it when you find it in your life and you continue to put your faith in Jesus, the sin sacrifice, you are going to heaven!”
I want to tell you something. You could have heard a pin drop, but I want to tell you something else. I laughed out so loud, and it wasn't because it was funny, folks, it was because it was so good.
(AGREEMENT IN UNISON)
>> I understand the weaknesses of this illustration. They said a woman was married to her first husband. He was an especially strict man, a very exacting man. Each morning when she got into the kitchen, he was already in there reading the morning paper, and he would look over the paper and say, "Woman, I have posted the 15 things that I want you to take care of today. They are in priority order. I'll be home at lunch to check on your progress."
I can hear some ladies in here saying, Uh huh.
[LAUGHTER]
>> She did her best to live up to his expectations. The years that she lived with him were frustrated years. She never quite measured up. After long last, he died. She attended the funeral. She fought away she fought away the thoughts that somehow she felt relieved, somehow she felt a release, but she wouldn't let herself think that at the funeral. She got home, she was by herself, she took off her coat, she was headed toward the kitchen, she got in the kitchen and looked. There on the cabinet were the most current list of rules that he had posted.
All of the emotions and frustrations that had built up over the years caused her to rush over to the cabinet, and acted out all of those frustrations by ripping those rules from the cabinet. She went up into the attic, opened a dusty old trunk, and threw that list of rules in the trunk, slamming the lid and saying, “I hate men. I'll never marry again!”
Numbers of years passed. She met a man. He was marriageable. She couldn't trust though. But the courtship continued, and she begun to trust more and more. And finally, they married. For a while, they lived in the first house that she and her first husband had lived in. But finally, they discovered there were just too many old ghosts, too many old memories, and they decided to move. She was by herself up in the attic, cleaning up, throwing away things that she didn't want to keep. Suddenly her eyes came across that old, dusty trunk. Emotions swept over her that she hadn't felt for a long time.
She built up the courage to lift up the lid on that old, dusty trunk. There they were, laying right there at the top where she put them--that list of rules that her husband had given her. She was by herself. She reached and got the lists, and she begun to read it. Tears flowed down her cheeks, dripping off on the old dirty floor upstairs, and suddenly it hit her. “I'm doing everything on this list for my new husband, and I love every minute of it.”
“The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly and righteously, and godly in this present world” (Titus 2:12).
Dear brothers, go out into the world and tell a lost world the good news.
God bless you.
