SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, and welcome to the Western Church's special Monday morning coffee high. On this high, we will help you get your weaker. So grab a cup of coffee and we start the week together on Monday morning coffee.

Sermon Notes

Monday Romans 4

Tuesday Romans 5

Wednesday Romans 6

Thursday Romans 7

Friday Romans 8

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Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast for Monday, March the 23rd. I'm Mark, and I am holding a really good cup of coffee. This is some amazing coffee that we roasted recently, and it's called Liquid Amber. How can you not love coffee that's called liquid amber? It's just amazing. Comes out of the espresso machine. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. And that's exactly where I am on the sermon yesterday. That's exactly where I am on our daily Bible reading this week. It's just, it'll be a wonderful week in every way possible. I want to look back to yesterday's sermon about heaven. How wonderful is that? I want to think about Romans in front of us. How wonderful is that? It will be a wonderful, wonderful week, and it's time to get it all going. So pour that cup of coffee, grab your Bible, let's grow together. Yesterday I continued the preaching theme for the year, which is heaven bound. And I'm really, really immersed in the book of Revelation right now. Just tons and tons of stuff about Revelation going on over here. And that's what I preached on in the 9 a.m. as I'm preaching through the book of Revelation. And I got to talk about what Revelation teaches us, shows us about heaven in the 1040 yesterday. And one of the things that you may have noticed that I did not cover is all the worship that's going on in heaven in the book of Revelation. And that is a huge piece of what's happening in the book of Revelation. And I love those scenes of worship in heaven. But sometimes I, sometimes I get a little reluctance on people's part, a little fear maybe that if heaven is an endless worship service, ah, wow, maybe, maybe heaven isn't going to be all that great. You ever thought that? Well, in some later lessons, as I continue to work with the preaching theme this year, I want to talk a little bit about heaven. Is it going to be dull? Is it going to be boring? Is it an endless church service? But my point right now is to say, if you read the book of Revelation and just go through, just page through and look at the songs and the hymns in the book of Revelation, look at the worship services in the book of Revelation, you will see that heaven, the worship there in heaven is amazing and wonderful because when you are with God, it just naturally pours out of you. For example, Revelation 14, 1 to 3, I looked and behold, on Mount Zion, there stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his father's name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures, and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. If you look at that text, that text actually does not say there are harps in heaven. It was a sound like harps. It was a sound like the roar of many waters, like the sound of loud thunder, like harps. And what that means is it was really loud, the roar of many waters, really powerful the roar of loud thunder, and really beautiful like the sound of harps. And all of that is saying that the worship there, as people gazed upon God, as people are with the Holy Spirit and with Jesus the Son, it was incredible and they loved it and they just worshiped fully and freely. And I do think a big part of this is wanting God, of wanting to be with God, that is wanting to worship Him who saved us and who our hearts are really made for. And Revelation shows us so many scenes of that kind of worship, and that really centers us as to what heaven will be all about. Heaven, as I said yesterday, as many times as I could possibly say it, is that heaven is about being with God. And so when you're with God, you worship God. You want to worship God. It comes out of you loud like thunder, roaring like waters, beautiful like harps. That's an incredible truth that affects how we live now because we want so much to get there and be able to be part of that perfect and wonderful worship we'll offer in heaven. We are. We are heaven-bound. Where are we in the book of Romans? What's going on? It's been a little bit since Friday when we read Romans chapter three. There's been a ton of NCAA basketball. What's going on here? Let's get reset. In the first three chapters of Romans, Paul has contrasted two systems of being saved, of being justified, counted right. First, there is this idea that I could just keep the law. I could be a perfect law keeper. But Paul says no matter if you are a Jew under Moses' law, or whether you're a Gentile that knew some of the things of the law, some of the things that would be right to do, it doesn't matter because nobody lived up to the law, to what was right. No one can be justified based on their record of keeping the law. So then Paul begins to set forth an entirely different kind of righteousness towards the end of chapter three. It's not based on never sinning, but on being given forgiveness by God. It is a righteousness that is obtained through faith as God blesses us with that. It's not about perfection, it's about being forgiven. Now, I said that I wasn't gonna complicate things in the book of Romans by talking about everything, about everything that particularly the wrong uses of the book of Romans, but chapter four is heavily used to prove that we are saved by faith alone. And so I'll say a word about that here, particularly because we're gonna read a little bit today about being saved by faith. And I don't want anybody to panic. Don't freak out because Paul says that we're saved by faith. Remember, no one, no one in the New Testament world, I was about to say no one in Rome, no one in the New Testament world would argue for faith-only salvation. No one. Baptism is essential to be saved, it is taught, it is accepted, it is essential everywhere and always. You see that, for example, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, you see that in Peter's writing, 1 Peter chapter 3. Paul was baptized, Acts 22. Come on, Paul will teach baptism in Romans 6. I've never understood how that famous tract, the Romans Road of Salvation, which teaches a false plan of salvation, teaches faith-only salvation, works out of Romans 4 and ignores entirely Romans chapter 6. Remember, grace never nullifies obedience. Receiving a gift from God never nullifies our obligation to reciprocate that gift, to respond to that gift, and to be a grateful recipient of that gift by building relationship with the Lord. The best definition of grace is not unmerited favor that leaves all kinds of wrong ideas and wrong connotations in people's heads. The definition of grace that we want to work with is that grace is a gift that comes with obligations and builds relationships. And that's the kind of grace that Paul, that's the way Paul uses the word gift because that's the way the word gift or grace, chorus, that word in Greek, that's how that was used in the New Testament world. And that's what he means by that. The grace of God builds relationships and comes with obligations, one of which is, yeah, one of which is baptism. So stop with the faith-only thing. And I should also say, faith is a package word. It really means allegiance, allegiance to. And there isn't anyone that would say, I give my allegiance to the king, and by that mean I just believe that he exists. I have mental assent to his existence, but I don't obey what he says. If you give your allegiance to the king, you are saying you will obey him. So enough with that. Enough with that. Romans 4 is not teaching faith-on salvation. No place in the Bible is teaching faith-only salvation. Romans 4 is teaching that we receive righteousness, we receive forgiveness by faith, by trusting in God rather than trying to earn our salvation. And I think this is an important chapter, not only for us today, but of course, obviously in the New Testament for the original readers of the Roman epistle, because the Jews love to boast the most about being Abraham's children. But Paul says, I'll tell you what, Abraham is my witness. He's on my side. He makes my case. And let's watch how that works. The first five verses talk about Abraham's story and says that he was counted righteous. Now, what does counted righteous mean or imputed righteousness? That's a term that throws a lot of people. We want to make sure that we can speak Paul. We have Paul's vocabulary. Well, as is often the case, we just need to read a little bit further. We read verse 6 that David was also counted righteous. And then verse 7: blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. Counted righteous and forgiven are synonymous terms. To be counted righteous is to be forgiven. The man that's counted righteous is the forgiven man. Blessed, verse eight, is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin, will count his righteousness, will forgive him. And so in David and in Abraham, we see that in trusting in God, we can be forgiven. Then there comes the question of circumcision, because a Jewish Christian might say, oh, yes, that's right. You have to be saved by faith. You have to be justified by faith. But of course, not just anybody can exercise that faith. You have to be a circumcised believer. And so Paul takes that up in verse 9 by talking about when? When was Abraham blessed? When was he reckoned righteous? He was reckoned righteous in Genesis 15. He wasn't circumcised until Genesis 17. That's a gap of about 13 years. So it's not about circumcision. Well, maybe verse 13, it's about having the law. Sure, Abraham did that, but now we have the law, and the law changes everything. No, Paul says the promises can't be based on the law of Moses and keeping the law because then it'd be hopeless. We don't keep the law. We're all sinners, and it wouldn't be universal. The law of Moses was only for Jews. Watch the father of all, for example, in verse 11. Paul is very much about uniting this congregation of Jews and Gentiles. So it can't be just for the Jews, it has to be for all. So then the chapter ends, verse 22. That is why his faith was counted for him as righteous, by showing that Abraham's faith is a model for all of us today. We can all be children of Abraham when we trust in God for salvation. I'm not right. I'm coming to you. I call upon the name of the Lord. Remember, that's what Paul was told to do by being baptized in water for the remission of my sins. I'm calling upon the name of the Lord. I'm trusting in God to save me because I cannot save myself. Romans 4 is a powerful, powerful chapter that's teaching us what salvation is really all about. And it is, as I said, tremendously disappointing to see people try to use this to prop up the Calvinistic notion of salvation by faith alone. I'm stunned at that and disappointed. Some of our own brethren, some people preaching in places with Church of Christ out front, have tried to bend Romans 4 as they try frantically to find some way to teach a faith-only doctrine while still saying that they kind of sort of, you know, you know, baptism still is kind of sort of important, but but they're using Romans 4 the way the Calvinists use Romans 4. They're using it to teach faith-only salvation, and that's not in Romans 4. It's not in Romans 5 either, which is what we'll read tomorrow. But the reading for Monday, Romans chapter 4. It's Tuesday. It is Tuesday, and we do have Zoom tonight. West Ciders be excited to talk about Romans 5 with you tonight in Zoom. This chapter is maybe not the easiest of chapters to read. There's some material here that sometimes people struggle with a little bit because of the comparison between Adam and Jesus can be well, it can be a little complicated, a little complex. I do think this chapter is a bridge section as Paul begins to move towards some ideas about what it is to live for Christ and to live as a Christian and to deal with some of the objections that people have raised to his teaching. But I don't think we'll get too far off if we just stay with the basic idea that Jesus completely reverses the effects of sin. And that's why we can have assurance. This is really a chapter about assurance. And the first 11 verses really push assurance that you can and will be saved, is found in what Jesus Christ has done. Notice the word peace in verse one. Peace is a very common word for Jewish people. Peace for us is the absence of bad things like war. We wish there was peace in the Middle East. But in the Bible, peace is a lot more than that. It's justification, reconciliation, wholeness, life being right and good. You're right with God. So peace comes through Jesus Christ. And we stand in that. We stand in grace, verse two. One writer said the word stand suggests that our position in grace is firm and secure, not tentative and precarious. We are standing on a firm foundation rather than clinging by our fingertips to some weak and tattered cord. The point is that grace is like a room into which we enter by the door of Jesus Christ, a room which becomes our refuge and in which we continue to dwell. It's the sphere of our Christian existence. I couldn't agree more with that. We stand in grace. We should have confidence in grace. We should have confidence in the God who sent his son to save us and who wants us to be saved. People ask all kinds of hypothetical questions about what happens about this and what happens about that. And if I die like this, they're not standing in grace. They somehow have this idea that God doesn't want them to be saved, that God would allow something to get in the way of their salvation. That's not what Paul has to say. It's not what the rest of the Bible has to say. God is working to bring you home. God is working to bring you and me home. Paul will reach a climax with that in chapter eight. Can't wait to get to chapter eight. But for now, we just need to notice look what God has done, verse eight. Paul's really making the heavy to light argument. If God has done this very difficult thing, how much easier is it for him to do this light thing? If God sent his son to die for us, what won't God do for us? And so we rejoice in God, verse 11, through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are saved because of what Jesus has done. I'm saved by trusting in him who saved me when I was even his enemy. That's what our assurance comes from. Then in verses 12 to 21, Paul begins to talk about the all-sufficiency of Jesus' death. And I would imagine that Paul is dealing with what some people are saying internally that, well, yeah, Jesus died to save sinners, but not a sinner like me. You don't know how sinful I am. And Paul wants us to know that what Jesus did is more than sufficient for your sins. More than. Not just, oh, almost. Whoa, it was close. Wasn't sure I could save that one. No, Jesus' death absolutely and completely and totally reverses the effect of sin, your sin, every sin. And that's verse 18. Romans 5, verse 18. As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. What Jesus did completely reverses what Adam did. And there's a parentheses in verses 13 to 17 where Paul kind of makes an aside here, and sometimes people get a little bit lost. Just mark the parentheses there and know that Paul isn't saying anything there that's any different than what he then sums up with in verse 18. And I said at the outset of the podcast today that sometimes this gets a little complicated for people. And maybe some of that is because we've never really thought, man, did Jesus do enough to save me from my sins? We're pretty steeped in that. And then I think as well, there were no Calvinists in Paul's day, so nobody was misusing this text to teach all kinds of wrong ideas. I think we just need the basic idea. As one man's sin had terribly destructive results. So one man, and the man there would be a capital N, because that's Jesus, capital M, Jesus, one man's righteous acts have incredibly constructive results. That's all that's going on. And as you read through 12 to 17, is there something there that's teaching original sin? Of course not. And I cluttered the podcast yesterday by dealing with all that faith-only business. And I'm I'll try not to do some so much of that today. I'll just say this. If the doctrine of original sin is really true, why didn't Paul just announce that in Romans 1? Why why did he spend so much time proving that everybody's a sinner, Jew, and Gentile alike? Why didn't he just say we're all born in Adam's sin? Yeah. There's no such thing as original sin. Stop with that, Calvinist. So then in verses 18 to 21, the all here refers, look at that all men to all humanity, Jew and Greek. And the point here is that Adam's story is our story. We are all the same. We're all one person. Adam is every man for us. And so just as Adam's terribly destructive act brought sin into this world, and unfortunately, all accountable persons have repeated Adam's terribly destructive act. Now, now, because of Jesus, we have the opportunity to be saved. And I should add here, if this teaches inherited sin and condemnation, then it also must teach universal salvation. Notice that? Yeah, no one wants the passage to mean that, or at least very few people are universalists. Paul then signs up, sums up, signs up, how about that? Coffee's the answer. Sums up everything in verse 21 by saying the only thing that the law served to do really was to give grace an occasion to shine. The law teaches us how far we are from the Lord, and that means God's grace becomes even more precious to us. Unfortunately, some people misuse the idea of grace, or at least charge Paul with teaching that, and so in chapter six, Paul needs to clean that up. And we'll look at that tomorrow in the reading tomorrow. But tonight we'll talk more about Romans 5 in the Zoom call with Ciders, and we'll work through our reading for Tuesday, which is Romans chapter 5. The reading for Tuesday is Romans 5. It's hump day, it's Wednesday, and today our reading is Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6 is the reading for Wednesday. This is one of my favorite chapters in the book of Romans. It's amazing, it's powerful, it's wonderful, and maybe not for all the reasons that we might think. Sometimes Romans 6 is the place that we go to to prove that baptism has to be immersion, and it absolutely does that. But that is really a side note. That is not Paul's main emphasis here. Paul is dealing with two questions. First, does grace make sin irrelevant? And then secondly, does freedom from the law mean that we are free to sin? Let's make sure that we have some understanding. That's that whole let's speak Paul thing, of what Paul means here by sin. Paul here, look at verse 14, really talks about sin having no dominion over you. He's personifying sin, and we'll continue to do so in the book of Romans, very much like a monster. It's like a beast. It gets a hold of you, it enslaves you, it dominates you, it takes you over. I think about Cain and what God said to Cain. Sin is crouching at the door. You must master it. Well, the question is, how do I do that? How do I get a hold of this monster? And what Paul says is in baptism, something has changed inside of us. Something has changed inside of us. I taught through Romans recently at West Side. So many of you who are listening to this podcast are in the Westside family will remember me talking about this. When we talk about baptism, mostly we talk about how it washes away sins, it forgives sins. And that is, of course, completely true. Acts 238, Acts 22, 16. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times, yes, praise be to God. But that's not the only thing baptism does. Baptism doesn't just make you clean, it makes you a new person. It makes you a new person with a new relationship to God and a new relationship to sin. And that's what Paul develops in these first 14 verses. Now we can't continue in sin. Can't live in sin anymore. Why? Because we've been changed. We were changed when we were, verses 3 and 4, buried with Christ in baptism. So now we've been united with Christ. So we are a different person on the inside. Verse 11, we must consider ourselves dead to sin. Can I give a quick note here? Sometimes people see sin as if they can't really overcome it. They're just stuck in it. And you hear that when people pray, we are weak and sinful creatures. We sin so often. Father, we ask for forgiveness of our sins because we fail these so often. Look again at verse 11. That's not in verse 11, is it? Now, I understand the sentiment in that prayer and I understand the humility that people are trying to express, but I just wonder sometimes if we're not saying we're somehow tainted with sin and we're never really gonna get the taint of sin off of us, and it's never really gonna be any better. And that leads to all kinds of wrong conclusions and a lot of problems with assurance, because if I'm just this weak and sinful person, every second of the day I'm just doing something wrong. Well, probably not gonna go to heaven like that. Paul has no interest in that whatsoever. And I'll give you a note here, podcast listeners, you get these extra things and so forth. A number of scholars have talked about how crucifixion was a violent, cursed death. And so Paul says we're baptized into the death of Jesus. Is he tying on to that violence idea? One writer said that while baptism appears peaceful and calm and voluntary on the outside, something very different and not peaceful is happening on the inside. The old man, selfish and sinful, is fighting and screaming, stop! I want to live, I want to rule this person's life, I want to be in charge, I want to sin more. But in the waters of baptism, God kills the old man and brings life to a new man. God brings the body of sin to nothing, Romans 6, 6. The baptistry is a battlefield where the old man is defeated and killed. And so then Paul says in verse 14, sin will have no dominion over you since you're not under law, but under grace. Now that's that's a little expected, unexpected. We would think that Paul would say, you're not under sin, you're under grace. But instead he says, you're not under law, but under grace. But Paul's point all along has been that the law of Moses can't save us. We can't be saved by what we do, that the law can't set us free from sin, especially because there's no forgiveness, real forgiveness, under the law. So from there, he begins to develop this idea that we are slaves to righteousness. That begins in verse 15 and actually runs all the way through chapter 7 and in verse 6. And he's developing the key idea here of why we obey God. Grace changes us. We are different now in the Baptistry. As we come out of the Baptistry now, we want to please God. We no longer want to please sin and self. So that means we're not free to sin. We've chosen to serve God, which puts us even more firmly under God's reign and dominion. One writer said, we are determined men. I love that. We are determined men. That doesn't mean that we never sin. Paul is clearly aware that Christians will, from time to time, be involved in sin. But we don't want to be like that. We didn't want to do that. We are determined men. And maybe it's important to remember: do you not know, verse 16, that if you present yourselves, that there were people in the New Testament world who voluntarily entered into slavery. Maybe they did that to pay off a debt, maybe they did that to secure their family's future. There is voluntary slavery in the New Testament world. And so Paul says, we are voluntarily choosing to serve God. We are voluntarily wanting his way, not our way. And part of that comes verse 21, because sin never leads to goodness. It just always goes from bad to worse. You choose to serve sin, that's where you're headed. It's destructive and it will end in death. It is the way of grace that leads to life. Romans 6 and verse 23. Reading for Wednesday, Romans chapter 6. Welcome to Thursday. Welcome to Thursday, and today we are reading Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7 is the reading for Thursday. This is a place where the chapter division is just pretty bad, and that makes it harder to read this chapter. 7, 1 to 6 really goes with chapter 6, and I wish it was part of that. I think we would read it better. And then there is discussion beginning in chapter 7, verse 7, that needs to needs to more stand on its own. And I think there's a lot of confusion here, trying to meld all of this into one chapter, and maybe that will happen on a podcast that deals with this one chapter. I certainly hope not. Pour yourself another cup of coffee. It's a big chapter. There's lots to think about. And uh, let's just start with chapter 7, verse 1. Do you not know, brothers? For I'm speaking to those who know the law. The law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. Remember, Paul is dealing with this issue 6-1, that some people think that because Paul teaches grace, that will result in an outbreak of sinning. Come on, Paul, we're not under law. You know what these former idolatrous pagan Gentiles are going to do if you say that? There will be a wave of sinning like you cannot possibly imagine. So in chapter 6, in verse 23, he says, the wages of sin is death. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. But that doesn't mean that Paul is done with this thought. What he really wants to say is that the law has some value, it did some great things and so forth, but that the law has a weakness. A law has a weakness. Paul will develop the idea that sin uses law. And maybe this is a key idea for people who are listening to a podcast who are serious about their discipleship, because lots of times, as a serious disciple, we would love to de-sin our life. We want to be a slave of righteousness, we want to be dead to sin. Yet too often the old man keeps coming back. He keeps coming back from the dead. We are not completely rid of him, are we? And we hate that. So the temptation then is to make more rules, get rigid in our law keeping, more regulations. What we will do is we will we'll just have more laws and we'll regulate sin right out of our lives. We'll we'll outlaw it. And Paul is saying here in chapter seven, that won't work. That approach to righteousness is a step in the wrong direction. Now, in chapter seven, we may learn some things about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. And I know this chapter, the first couple of verses here are used in that discussion, and that's important, but that's not really Paul's point at all. What Paul is trying to say is that the death of another person can have an effect upon you, can affect you. And so he says, We have died to the law, and so he's using, look at verse four, you have died to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. We are not still married to the law. The law is not what controls us. And Paul is really trying to get his readers to stop being ruled by a law approach to God. Freedom from law here doesn't mean freedom from obedience, but it does mean the law is not our basis of, not our basis for, it's not the basis of our relationship with the Lord. A law approach to God is when rules and law and regulation are the dominant category of one's life. Thinking about Christianity, thinking about God that way just makes God primarily into the lawgiver who has a whip in his hand to keep us in line. Our motivation is: oh, if I don't keep the law, I'm gonna get into trouble. It's about threats, it's about punishment. Yeah, it's about, it's about hell. One of my favorite writers says, we obey the law not because we love God and want to please him, but because we want to escape the penalty of the law. And that approach will just leave you tired and hating the lawgiver. Outwardly, we're trying to keep the law, but inwardly we really wish we could, we could break the law and live like we want to live. And I think there are Christians who approach Christianity that way. So maybe starting verse seven, someone says, Well, I guess the law's the problem here, isn't it? This this whole terrible law that God gave us. And Paul says, no, law's not the problem, verses seven and eight. The problem is sin. And remember here, Paul is using sin almost like a person, like a monster. It attacks us, and it attacks us through the law. Uh one scholar likened this to the law being a puppet, and sin is the hand that's inside it. If the puppet hits someone, well, we don't blame the puppet. We blame the puppet master. We blame the controlling hand. So what does the law do? It helps sin out by providing a point of attack. Verse 8, sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produces in me all kinds of covetousness. This is a non-obvious command. There are obvious commands like don't murder, but covetousness, that's not so obvious. Some in society would praise covetousness, strong desire, the willingness to do anything to get what we want. That sort of thing. Ambition, for example, ungodly ambition is praised. Paul grabs that to say, see what sin does? It grabs a, it holds on to, it builds a point of attack, it gets a beachhead in our lives through the law. So the real bad guy, verses 13 to 25, is sin. Now, this is a very, very famous section of Romans. And it is often used by Christians to describe their ongoing struggles with sin. I think that's very problematic. I think that's very problematic. I understand why, as a Christian who struggles with sin, we read Romans 7 and we see ourselves right in the middle of that. The good that I would do, I don't do. The good things that I want to do, I'm not doing those things. The bad things, I think I ended up with how much wood could a woodchuck chuck and can a woodchuck. I think I missed it there somewhere. But I understand why we see ourselves here. But remember what Paul said in Romans 6 and verse 11. You must consider yourselves dead to sin. I don't think the Christian is in view here. Maybe more, I talked about this some in the book that I wrote on Romans, maybe more of an everyman approach. This is everyone as we struggle with sin. But I think primarily this seems to be the person who is trying to defeat the monster of sin on their own. Verses 17, 18, 19, 20, they seem to talk about Paul when he was trying to save himself under the law. And there's a huge contrast there to tomorrow's reading in chapter 8 and verse 9. You're not in the flesh but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you. So there seems to be the setting up of a contrast. Law is used by sin to destroy you, to build a base of operations and lead to all kinds of temptation and sin. And under law, you're never going to get where you want to get as you please the Lord. You need something else. And that comes in chapter 8. That comes in tomorrow's reading, Romans chapter 8, when he talks about the Spirit. So that's where I am on that section of Romans 7 that is controversial. There are plenty of people who would take issue with me about that and say, oh no, no, no, no. This is the Christian struggling with sin. But I think that's a mistake. I think that doesn't deal with Romans 6, and I think it doesn't deal with Romans 8. I think it doesn't deal with what Paul's dealing with in Romans 7, which is the law. Under the law, we won't get where we want to be. We won't be able to please God if we're using law as the basis for our relationship with the Lord. Reading for Thursday, Romans chapter 7. It's Friday. It is Friday. The work week is coming to an end, and as we end the work week, it's Romans chapter 8 that we read today. The reading for Friday, Romans the eighth chapter. There are some significant challenges here in Romans chapter 8. Notably, it is a really long chapter. It is also about the Holy Spirit, and sometimes that gives people the willies. I hope that it will not give you difficulties in any way. Actually, the Spirit is really good news in Romans chapter 8 because Paul is talking about being freed by the Spirit. I hope this episode, this chapter won't be too long in the podcast. With the chapter being so long and dealing with some controversial matters like the Holy Spirit, it may take a minute to sort through all of this. Let's see if we can get to work on it. So, as I said, Paul begins by talking about being freed by the Spirit, and this is very present tense, first four verses. The pain of chapter seven is now past, and so there's no condemnation, verse one, literally judgment against. We are freed from the law of sin and death. The law of sin demands perfection. We don't have to be perfect, we can be forgiven. That's what is available to us under the system of grace, where we are counted righteous. Remember chapter four, because God forgives us due to the work of Jesus the Christ. So the law of sin and death, I think, is what Paul was talking about in chapter seven, trying to live for God on our own to keep the law. That never worked. Instead, we need the way of the spirit, verses five to eleven. Flesh here is that outward stuff for those who live according to the flesh, verse five, set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who are serving Christ will set their minds on the things of God. And to set your mind on really means to have an orientation, a bent, a pattern, the way of doing things. And watch there in verse 9, there's many names for the Holy Spirit here: Spirit of Christ, Spirit of God, all the same. And there, verse 10, we get if Christ is in you, the indwelling relationship. And that is that is where sometimes Christians get a little squeamish. What is this indwelling spirit business? Well, that's not the charismatic stuff that we are being sold all the time about being in the spirit or being spirit-filled or spirit-led. That's not what Paul is on this at all. What he means is relationship. I wish we could get that through our minds that being indwelt is just relationship. To be indwelt by sin, chapter 7, verse 17, so no longer I who do it, but sin dwells within me, shows relationship to sin, being overtaken by sin. So the Bible is very much about relationship with God, knowing the Lord, being close with God, following Christ. Those are relationship terms. We even say, I am so into her, or she's not into him. That's relationship. So here the spirit is in you. That is relationship. Now, how precisely the spirit dwells within us, how we sustain that relationship with the spirit, has been a source of controversy and discussion and study. And I am more sure than ever that I don't know all the mechanics of exactly how the spirit does what the spirit is doing. Some have offered, this is a very common view among brethren, that the spirit is dwelling in us through the word. And the spirit certainly uses his word to accomplish our relationship with him. And there's a number of texts that talk about that. John chapter 16, for example, and 1 John chapter 2, verse 24, lots of discussion about the word. Ephesians 5, 19 and Colossians 3 compared there. The Spirit works with the Word. Now, others have argued that the Spirit dwells in us in reality, not through an instrument, the Word, but that the Spirit is literally in the believer. And there's pushback to that. Usually the pushback comes, oh, you're going to follow hunches and intuition and feelings. And admittedly, that's where some people go with that particular view, but you don't have to go with that view. That is not necessarily part of believing the spirit is in reality dwelling in the Christian. And someone says, well, you just think the word is unimportant. Well, no, that doesn't necessarily follow either. And then someone says, Well, you're just a Calvinist that the Holy Spirit operates on you directly. No, I'm not a Calvinist. I don't believe the Holy Spirit must operate directly upon your heart because you're born depraved, and thus God has to do something so that you can even obey the gospel. I don't buy any of that. But clearly, Paul is saying the Spirit plays a role in our lives with influence and relationship and control. And I am not as compelled as maybe I was at one time that that is done solely through the word. In Romans 8, the word dwell is a regular plain old word, which is used hundreds of times in the Bible. And its usual, usual meaning is literal, literally dwelling in a tent. So is there something here that compels us in the text to read this in some other way, other than maybe we're afraid someone's gonna say we're Pentecostal? Why can't dwell mean what it seems to mean and what it almost always means in scripture? Literally dwelling. And then I would say this: it doesn't seem possible that Paul is telling the Roman believers that the Spirit is dwelling in them through the scriptures when they do not have the completed New Testament yet. And in fact, Paul has just said that the written law of Moses didn't accomplish helping a believer live the way they want to live. So is he really saying now, well, we just need the written New Testament? That will get you where you want to go. No, the problem here really isn't ignorance. I need more data, I need more information. The problem here is weakness. It's not, I don't know what to do. I know what to do. I'm not doing it. And the word, knowing more Bible, that's not necessarily the cure for that. So saying the word is the only way that the spirit dwells in us seems to put us right back in Romans chapter 7. It's up to me to do more. Pull myself up by my bootstraps, read my Bible more. Paul is saying there's something else that's being added to the equation beside our own effort. And I think that is living by the Spirit, verses 12 to 17. We are led by the Spirit, verse 14. All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Remember the despair in chapter 7, verses 24 and 25? What a counter to that. We have, in fact, been adopted, Paul says, into God's family, verse 15. Now, as you push further into chapter 8, someone will say, but it's hard to put sin away and to do what's right. And Paul's answer to that is yes, it is, because we are living in a fallen world. And that's why Christians still suffer. We are not exempt from the things that go on in this world, verse 18. We are in the present time, or as one scholar said, the now time. And I like that. Now time. Now time is hard. Now time hurts, but now time is not permanent. In now time, verse 19, even creation is groaning and hurting. We hear a lot about Mother Earth and Mother Nature. Here's the truth. If you met Mother Earth or you met Mother Nature, she'd be groaning, but not because somebody polluted the water, but because of sin and the terrible way the people who are living on earth live and do. They live apart from God. So we need the help of the spirit, verse 23. Creation is groaning. We ourselves, we have the spirit, verse 23, and the spirit is groaning. The spirit is helping us, verses 26 and 27, when we pray. Now, what does that mean? I think it means exactly what it says: that the spirit speaks for us when we don't even know what to say or how to say, or we hurt so bad we can't even make a prayer. And that leads to that famous verse, verse 28. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purposes. I should say here that the point is that God is at work and that God is working in every situation, in his sovereignty to bring ultimate good. But please note, Paul doesn't say God causes or caused everything that happens to us. And Paul doesn't say that everything that happens to us is good or that everything happened for a good reason. Paul doesn't even say that each individual will immediately see a good result. Paul does say that ultimately, and finally, that because God controls all things, in his sovereignty, ultimate good will result. Probably more than anything, the good here is labeled in verse 29. We'll become conformed to his son, something that ultimately only really happens in eternity. And of course, there are always people who are determined to teach false doctrine and they try to find any passage to prop up their wrong ideas. And verse 30 gets used for that, but that's not where verse 30 is. Verse 30 doesn't mean we can have no free will and that we can't respond to the gospel. Some people have been predestined to be saved, some have been predestined to be lost. No, no. What this means is God has predestined a group, those who love Him. Then there is this beautiful doxology in verses 31 to 39. And the key here is God's faithfulness. I think there are people in Rome who are wondering. How can I keep this up? How can I keep doing this? And the answer is not more human effort, although, of course, we want to respond to God's amazing grace. We're never going to get there on our own. Instead, what we need is God, verse 31, to be for us. He is the one, verse 32, who gave up his own son. How can we imagine that he'll let us down, that he'll fail us, that in the moment when we need him to sustain us and assist us, he won't be there. Romans 8, 31 to 39 is the height of assurance because it says it's God who's working to bring us to heaven. It's God who wants us to be saved. It's God who's bringing us home. Our reading for Friday is Romans chapter 8. That concludes the podcast for the week. Thank you so much for listening. I really do enjoy working through our daily Bible reading with you, looking back to the sermon on Sunday, trying to get a little extra piece of that so it keeps working in our lives. So impressed with the power of the Word of God and what happens to people who give themselves to the power of the Word of God. I thank you for listening to the podcast. Hope you're telling others about it. It is a joy to open the scriptures with you each day on the podcast. I'm Mark Roberts. I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. See you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ podcast, Monday Morning Coffee with Mark. For more information about Westside, you can connect with us through our website, just Christians.com, and our Facebook page. Our music is from Upbeat.io. That's Upbeat with two Ps, U-P-P-B-E-A-T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others, and we look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday.