Romans Part 12
Romans Part 12: The Revelation of Righteousness with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. In this episode of Grace For Today, gain a greater revelation of how you can walk out the righteous life of Jesus!
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Romans Part 12 Transcript
Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned into the broadcast today. We’re gonna be in Romans chapter 12. It’s a transitional chapter. In the first 11 chapters of Romans, Paul talks about God’s plan for righteousness, but then he begins to talk about how we can walk out the righteous life of Jesus by renewing our mind and by the power of the Holy Spirit on the inside of us. So open your heart and receive God’s good word today. Blessings. Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you’re with us today. I have my son, Aaron, we’re gonna be teaching from Romans 12 and this is so powerful. It’s really a transitional place in the book of Romans, the first 11 chapters of Romans, talk about God’s plan of righteousness for the Jews and the Gentiles. And then in Romans 12, he just turns in the first two verses and Romans 12 through 16, the last five chapters, Paul talks about how we live out the righteous life of Jesus. Amen? And so praise God, we are not stuck and we can live our lives in a victorious way as we renew our mind in the word of God.
Yeah, Paul is a great preacher and most great preachers as they preach, I love looking at Paul’s letters, especially the circulatory letters, the letters that went out amongst several churches, so that’d be like Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, these circulatory letters, he also wrote letters to like Timothy and Titus, which were more directly to them, but these circulatory letters, he talks about just his revelation about Jesus, about faith, about grace, about righteousness, but then in all these letters, towards the end of the letter, he starts talking about how this applies to you as a believer and great preachers do that. They encourage you to live it out. How does this apply to your life as a believer? And this is where Paul begins to talk about how this revelation that he has concerning the gospel, concerning righteousness, righteousness is not through law keeping, not through works, but it is through faith in Jesus, how this applies to you as a believer. And sometimes people take the application of it, and turn it into works but that is not what he’s doing. When he’s saying to present yourself as a living sacrifice, that’s not a works-based statement. It’s actually a, it’s a grace-based statement.
Amen. So because Christ lives in us, we live a different way. In other words, the way we live out the gospel is we allow Jesus to live his life big in us. Amen? We can’t live the Christian life without the Christ life, without Jesus. But when you realize Jesus is living in you, and you allow Him to have His way, it changes the way that you live. And a good example is in John chapter 15, Jesus says, “I’m the vine, you’re the branches. And if you abide in me, you bring forth much fruit.” But if you go look at a fruit tree, an apple tree or a pear tree or peach tree, whatever it is, I have never seen a fruit tree out there, groaning and grunting, trying to bring forth fruit. It just flows, the life of the vine flows through the branch and it naturally brings forth fruit. Praise God. So we’ve got the life of Jesus, the nature of Jesus in us. And as we allow his life to flow through us, we bring forth fruit. Paul says in Romans 8:11, “If the spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you, He will quicken your mortal body by His spirit that dwells in you.” It’s not us, but it’s the Christ’s life in us. Now in Romans 12:1-2, Paul says, “I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” It is reasonable for you to present your body, a living sacrifice, “and do not be conformed.” Don’t be fall into the mold or the pattern of this world, “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This word transform comes from the Greek word, metamorphal. We get our word metamorphosis from a, like a caterpillar to a butterfly. And so he says, “be changed,” be transfigured, “be changed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good, the acceptable and the perfect will of God.” I like to take that word prove and put, walk out. This is how we walk it out. We need to walk out the gospel. And, you know, as we look at this, he says, “The way that we’re transformed is by the renewing of our mind and this word renewing in the Greek is the word anakainōsis, and it means renewal, renovation, a complete change for the better.
[Aaron] That’s awesome.
Praise God.
I love what Paul’s saying too, about “presenting your bodies, a living sacrifice.” I’ve heard different people preach on this and they kind of preach a legalistic message on “you better be a sacrifice.” And in the Old Testament it was actually an honor to be a priest. Priests would wear these crowns on top of their head that said, “Holy, unto the Lord,” in any sacrifice they made, it had to be perfect. My dad has been in the cattle business before, when I was a kid, I used to go with him to cattle auctions. We would go to La Junta, Colorado, where there’s an auction house there, and my dad would bribe me. He’d say, “If you go with me, you know, usually on a Saturday to this cattle auction, I’ll buy you some peanut M&M’s there.” And for me, it was a big deal to get these peanut M&Ms. And at this auction house, all these ranchers would be in there smoking cigarettes and things, and even to this day, cigarette smoke doesn’t bother me. It actually makes me crave peanut M&Ms. But at this auction house, my dad would, he’d look for the deals on the random cattle that came through the sale yard there, and so he’d buy ones that maybe their ear was missing, or their hoofs a little crooked, but you know, these kind of cattle would not pass. they wouldn’t be able to be a sacrifice in the Old Testament because they had some blemishes. You would buy the blemish cattle, ’cause you could get the good deal and you just sell it to the packer for the, for.
I’d take them and grow ’em, at my little feed lot we had a little feed lot by our house, just north of the-
You weren’t trying to win a beauty contest with him so.
No, my good friend, Aubrey Shotten, who instructed me in the cattle, I had three friends, three mentors, praise God. I’ll give you a lesson in business, one scripture that’ll change your life in the realm of business. Proverbs 13:20, “He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” And I had three millionaire. multi-millionaire farmers. They all started with nothing, and ranchers, that helped me get started in the cattle business, and I learned from Aubrey Shotten from Galatea, about 20 miles west of Eads, Colorado. And then Jim Mitchett, just north of Kit Carson and Irvin Mitchett, who lived then, a little bit farther north of Kit Carson. Those men were mentors to me and they invested knowledge in me. And you know what? If you wanna be a success, find three or four people that have been successful in what you want to do and listen to ’em.
And what did Aubrey tell you about cattle though? But Aubrey said this, Aubrey said, “They’re all the same color when you cut the hide off of them.” And so I’d buy striped cattle, spotted cattle, Jacob’s Cattle Company, man, I bought cows with their tails cut off and their ears cut off, and one blind eye.
But you when you read,
When you read the Old Testament, whatever sacrifice he made, whether it be a lamb or a bull or a pigeon, it had to be perfect. You couldn’t give, you had to always give God the best. And because we are now able to be a sacrifice unto God, it’s because He’s made us the best. Now, God doesn’t see us with spot. He doesn’t see us with blemish. He sees us as perfect in Christ. So now we can come boldly before that throne, our life can be a sacrifice. It’s actually an honor for you to present your life as a sacrifice and when God asks you for something, God actually spoke this to me just the other day, Sunday at church, God just said, “Hey, I’m not asking for much. I’m just asking for everything.” And I kind of thought about that, people are trying to hold back something like, I don’t really wanna surrender this. I wanna do it my way. I can’t give up doing things my way, you know, I gotta make my family work my way. I gotta make my business work my way. And God’s just say, “Hey, if you gave it up, I have so much more for you. Stop holding onto things, stop trying to play God in this situation.”
Release it.
“I’m not asking for much I’m just asking for everything.” And what you think is such a big deal to you, just surrender it to God.
Amen.
Just surrender it, and it’s really not that much.
Praise God.
Amen. Surrender your whole life to Jesus.
It’s everything.
Some people arguing with God about 10%, man, He gave you that, he just, you know what? And I agree with you, I look at it like everything that I have and everything that I am is God’s.
I know, from your finances to your family, to your health,
Paul says, to your career.
1 Corinthians
Six verse 19 and 20, “You are not your own. You’re bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
And when God told me that, “I’m not asking for much, I’m just asking for everything,” it’s kinda like what Jesus said, “He who seeks to find his life will lose it. But he who loses his life for my sake, will find it.”
It’s talking about absolute surrender. And man, when you surrender to Jesus, you’ll never be disappointed.
So present your body, a living sacrifice. You don’t have that much to present.
The way that you do this is you can’t follow the pattern of the mold of the world, but you gotta be transformed by the renewing of your mind, by the absolute renovation of your mind.
The world really makes it about you. Is this what you think? Is this what, you gotta look out for you. That’s the philosophy of the world.
And you know, Paul says this in Ephesians 4:22-24, it says, “Put off the old man, which is corrupt, according to deceitful lust.” And he says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, change the way that you focus, change your attitude about life.” And he says, “And put on the new man, which after God, in the likeness of God, is created in righteousness and true holiness.” True holiness isn’t all these things that you do. How short I cut my hair or how long I grow my hair. You know, not all the makeup I put on or don’t put on if you’re a woman. Not how long your dress is, that may have some things to do with it, but true holiness comes from a heart condition. And when the heart is right, you know what? It will affect the body.
Amen.
And so he just says, “For, I say, how do we do this? He says, “I want you to live as a living, sacrifice, sold out to God.” This is reasonable. You gotta renew your mind in the word of God. And then you begin to minister in the grace gifts, they’re grace gifts. God has given every one of us grace gifts. He says, “For I say through the grace given to me to every man who is among you not to think of himself arrogantly, more highly than he should think, but soberly, according as God has dealt to every man, the measure of faith. When he’s talking about that, if you read this in context, he says, “God has given to everybody grace gifts.” Man, you have a gift from God, Aaron, you have multiple gifts. Every born again believer has gifts from God. Amen. And you need to find out what they are and begin to use them so you can add positive value to the body of Christ. You see, the fact is, we all have positive value, but we need to come together as a body and use our gifts so we can realize what they are, and they can be invested in other people. Now listen, what he says, “For we have many members in one body and all members don’t have the same office.” You go to a different office for a dentist, right, than a medical doctor. And you go to a different office for an attorney, right? Or a banker. So they all have professions. So what he’s saying is God has given you grace gifts, right? And you need to find out what they are, and then apply those different grace gifts so the body can be edified. And he says, “We being many are one body in Christ and members of one another.” In other words, what I do affects my family. You know, your mother and I, when you kids were young, we didn’t make any major decision without considering how it would affect you and your brothers. We thought, I told somebody the other day, they’re thinking about making a big move. I said, “Think about how it’s gonna affect your children.” And I’ve told people before, sometimes people just act stupid.
Yeah, sometimes people just, they make all their decisions based upon how this will advance my career but they don’t think, well, in this new place I’m gonna move to, is there even a church where my kids can connect?
Yeah.
Like maybe you feel you can just connect online, but your kids,
I said that the other day, need to be in church.
Before you go somewhere, figure out what church you’re gonna go to.
Yeah.
I asked somebody, they were gonna move across the country, “Where are you gonna go to church?” “Well, we’d have to drive.” “And well, how’s this gonna affect your children? You need to think about this.” So he says, “We have many members in one body and all members don’t have the same office.” And he says, “We being members of one body are members of one another. We all affect each other.” And he says, “Having then gifts that differ according to the grace, that we’re different than one another.” You’re very different than me in the way that you teach and the way that you minister. But he says, “Whether it’s prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith.” Now I believe these are motivational gifts. And I believe it’s like the way that God has made you, you’re how you’re wired. And so a prophetic person is a person who sees things black and white. And they’re very, just like, this is how it is, “and/or ministry that’s serving.” Let us wait on our service, you know, wait on the place that God gives you to serve, and apply yourself. Or he says, “Or he that teaches on teaching.” You don’t have to just jump in and you know, I had somebody the other day come to me and say, “Are you doing this?” I’m like, “No, we don’t do that that way here.” “Well, I’ve been here three weeks and I wanna do it ’cause I’m gifted in this area.” “Well, that’s not how we do it here. Here’s how you can get involved here.” People need to figure out how they fit in where they’re at. And he just, he says, “Or he that exhorts encourages on his exhortation.” You know, that’s a gift from God. You went to Joel Osteen’s church for seven years. Joel’s one of the greatest exhorters in the body of Christ. He encourages people and some people get mad, but that’s who Joel is. And he says, “Or he who gives.” There is a motivational gift to give. I believe I have it. People with that, you know, they’re very motivated in the realm of giving and supporting the ministry. God, I believe gives a special anointing to make money and to manage, do different things. “Or he that rules or administrates, let him do it with diligence. He who shows mercy,” We’ve gotta keep being merciful. Now he says, “Do it with cheerfulness.” Sometimes people are merciful and they’re like, “Why was I so merciful?” He says, “Do it with cheerfulness.” Hey, we’re gonna be back in just a few seconds, so stay tuned. We’re gonna be talking more about how you can practically live out the gospel in this world. Friends, I’ve been teaching from my series on “Romans, The Revelation of Righteousness.” Romans is actually my favorite book of the Bible, and I teach this class, I’ve been teaching it for years at Charis Bible College in Woodland Park with Andrew Wommack. And so I’m teaching about the gospel is the revelation of righteousness. You want to get ahold of this? I have a book on it. I also have a four CD mini teaching on it. And then most recently we’ve done the 16 teaching USB that you can get just as we’ve been teaching it here on television, and so you want to get ahold of this revelation. If you get ahold of this revelation, it will change your life. So “Romans, The Revelation of Righteousness.” Thanks so much for being with us today. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy this great teaching and you’ll want to share it with your friends. Blessings, we appreciate you. Praise the Lord, friends. We are in Romans chapter 12 and we’ve been talking about how we can live out the gospel. And the first 11 chapters of Romans, Paul talks about the gospel is the revelation of righteousness in God’s plan for righteousness. But the last five chapters of Romans, beginning in Romans 12, Paul talks about living out the gospel. When we said, how can we do that? We need to renew our mind in the word of God, present ourself a living sacrifice, and then we minister through the gifts of God. And we’ve all been given gifts. We’re not all the same. We’re very different. In fact, he starts with the, the motivational gift of prophecy and a prophecy person is very black and white, just, this is the way it is, and he ends with mercy and they kind of differ from one another. But if you get these gifts working together, they all take care of people and it takes care of the needs in the body. Now he says in the first two verses, verse nine and 10 of this last part, “Let love be without dissimulation. Hate that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Be kind one to another with brotherly love, in honor, preferring one another.” So we gotta let the love of God rule us. How can we let love rule?
That’s awesome.
You just do it. Let Jesus live his life through you.
Amen, so we have the love of God in us. We gotta realize, first of all, that we have it. Romans 5:5 says, “The love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost that’s given to us.” We have to realize what the love of God is. You know, can you pass the love test? 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, love suffers long as kind, it’s patient. It’s not envious. It never boils over with jealousy. Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Love always believes the best in every person. Hopes are fadeless under any condition. Love will endure anything. It will never, ever fail. Thank God for the love of God.
I like that he connects love to honor here. When he is talking about love, he talks about honor as well in verse 10, he said, “In honor, preferring one another.”
[Lawson] Yes.
I’ve been thinking about honor lately, and if you were dishonorable to someone, it’s actually going against love.
Yes. And you know, we need to have honor in the body of Christ. We need to honor those who God honors. We need to honor Jesus. We need to honor leaders in the government. We need to honor leaders in the church, so on and so forth.
Some people kind of stop at respect. Respect, we say you “pay someone their respect,” respect is giving someone what they’re due. It’s giving them what they are supposed to get. Honor actually goes beyond. When you honor someone, you’re going beyond what they’re just due. So, and really to honor someone, you honor them with your substance or substance includes finances, it includes your talent, your time, and it’s saying to honor someone, you’re actually gonna prefer someone over yourself. So you’re gonna help someone else, even if it costs you your finances or your time.
Amen. That’s honor biblically. Now look at verse 11. I love this one. “Do not be slothful in business, but be fervent in the spirit.” Be hot, on fire, serving the Lord. So you can serve God in your business and don’t be lazy in your business. Some people think because you’re a godly businessman, you need to give them everything, but that’s not the way it is. Hallelujah. Aaron, you do a lot of business and you’re very blessed, but you have to stay on top of it. And you know, you do an online business, so there a lot of crooks and thieves, but you have like three or four different ramifications if somebody tries to ship you something, it’s not there, ship you, you got a box of salt that came from Russia. It was a bag of salt instead of a Breitling watch. But you got all the money back.
Don’t be slothful in business. I like that.
Amen.
Verse 12 says, “Rejoice in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality, bless them, which persecute you bless and curse not.” I love that. He is an active person, Paul, just think about his life and his ministry. Everything that he accomplished, he was not a slothful person. He was very diligent. He was taking care of a lot of things.
When he says this in verse 12, “Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer,” we always ought to have hope in the gospel. Hope it really is the foundation of faith. The Bible actually says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” And David said over and over in the book of Psalms, “I’ve hoped in your word, according to your word, have I hoped.” So when you first hear the full gospel preached, the word creates hope, hope of righteousness, hope of peace, hope of prosperity, hope of healing. The word creates hope, but he says, ‘Rejoice in hope, but be patient in tribulation, in trouble.” Trouble comes to everybody. If you’re in the world, you’re gonna have tribulation. But Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world” and continue instant, always be ready, run to God in prayer, run to the throne room, praise God. We need to go to God first. So many people, they make God their last resort instead of the first resort, man, go to God first. Believe God first. I’m not against doctors. I’ve got a good friend, a spirit filled doctor. I love them, and they help a lot of people. If it wasn’t for doctors, I’d probably been dead when I was like eight years old, when I had nephritis a kidney disease, but thank God we had a good, Catholic doctor that told my parents, “By every medical reason, he should be dead, but you go pray right now. Go get a motel room and pray.” And they did, and God healed me. They said, “I’d never get over that.” I got completely over it. But if you go to the medical field first and you just listen to all the things that they say, I told someone the other day, “If you’re gonna go this route, you’re gonna have to discount about 90% of what they say, because they’re just looking at the physical man.” That’s all they can deal with. So, you know, but run to God, go to God first. He goes on and says this, “Bless those who persecute you. Bless and curse not. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” We celebrate our victories together, and then pray for those who are hurting. Weep with those who weep. He says, “Be of the same mind, one to another, do not mind high things, but condescend to men of low estate.” I like average people. I’ve had, sometimes people stick their nose up in the air and snub me. Well just go and be high and mighty. Heady and high minded. The Bible talks about it, okay. And so he says, “Condescend to men of low estate. Be wise in your own conceits, and don’t be wise in your own,” in other words, you know, just.
Don’t think too highly of yourself.
Yeah, think about other people. “Don’t repay any man,” Verse 17, “evil for evil, provide honest all things in the sight of all men.” So don’t repay, I mean the natural thing is you want to repay sometimes evil. Do you know what? We do not have a biblical right to hate anybody. We’ve gotta love all men. We’ve gotta love everyone with the love of Jesus. He says, “As much as possible.” Sometimes it’s not possible. Sometimes people are tyrants. “As much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men.” So seek for peace. You had a good word the other day, you preached in church and you said, “Peace is priceless.” And you talked about Solomon and how he had so much peace and so much prosperity. “Dearly beloved, don’t avenge yourselves, but give place to wrath, for its written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay.’ Therefore, if your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him a drink.” Somebody hates you, you love him. He says, “For in doing so, you’ll heap coals of fire on their head.” Let the Holy Ghost convict ’em. “Don’t be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good,” verse 21, that says all of it, man.
Amen.
Don’t overcome evil. There’s a lot of evil in the world, but don’t let evil overcome you. You overcome evil with good. When somebody’s evil, you be good to them in return.
Yeah, good always triumphs to over evil. The truth always triumphs over the lie. Love always triumphs over evil.
Hatred.
Hatred.
Life always triumphs over death.
Amen.
Amen. So stay in the truth, stay in love. Amen. Keep doing good things. Amen.
Some people get tore up about all the lies out there in the world, but the truth always prevails.
Amen, so stick to the truth of the word. Hey, I hope you’ve enjoyed the broadcast. Tune in tomorrow, praise God, and we’ll have some great things on the program. God bless you. We appreciate you.
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