The Book of Romans: Verse by Verse – Part 5
05/28/16 (3/21) Video Broadcast
The Book of Romans: Verse by Verse - Part 5 - Study
Part 5 - Comments and Questions
The Book of Romans: Verse by Verse - Part 6 - Study01:21:26
Part 6 - Comments and Questions01:21:58
The Book of Romans: Verse by Verse – Part 7 - Study01:33:37
Part 7 - Comments and Questions01:15:02
The Book of Romans: Verse by Verse – Part 8 - Study01:30:39
Part 8 - Comments and Questions01:36:18
The Book of Romans: Verse by Verse – Part 9 - Study01:43:15
Part 9 - Comments and Questions01:39:06
The Book of Romans: Verse by Verse – Part 10 - Study01:43:19
Part 10 - Comments and Questions01:59:03
The Book of Romans: Verse by Verse – Part 11 - Study01:48:08
Part 11 - Comments and Questions02:41:41
The Book of Romans: Verse by Verse – Part 12 - Study01:35:34
Part 12 - Comments and Questions
We are ready to begin Part
Five of the Book of Romans
verse by verse as we've
been going through each
and every verse in the
book of Romans up to this
point.
We are at Romans Chapter
Five and Verse Eight.
We're gonna finish
Chapter Six today.
We have a lot of
information to cover and
very, very important
information to cover.
And in fact, this might be
one of the most important
parts of Scripture in
terms of understanding
what Yahushua has done
for us and how that works
effectively in our lives.
Ever have trouble
with temptation?
Tune in to today's
broadcast and watch it
often because the things
that are discussed here in
Book of Romans Chapter
Five and Six are crucial
to us understanding how we
can overcome the enemy by
the power of the blood of
the Lamb and the word of
our testimony.
First, I'm gonna go ahead
and review our Chapter
Four, actually Part
Four discussion.
First of all, Abraham's
belief in faith, in Yahweh
and his promise was
accounted to him for
righteousness.
Grace is likewise given
to us through faith.
We cannot earn salvation
by any work that we do.
All these things are
laying the foundation for
today's teaching.
Yahushua's blood
is precious.
Repentance is necessary.
Abraham's faith was
indirectly faith in
Messiah.
Unless our faith is
accompanied by works, our
faith isn't a real
living faith; it is dead.
Faith is what propels our works by the power of Yahweh's Spirit in us. And so in summary, we are saved by a faith that works. Two ways of looking at that, isn't there? Some first century Jews were shocked that uncircumcised gentiles were also granted salvation. Paul shows that Abraham was regarded as righteous before he was ever even told to be circumcised. Yahweh promised Abraham would be a father of many nations. Gentile believers are Abraham's seed. All gentiles are part of those nations. Yahweh's promises are so sure that, Yahweh, he calls things that do not exist as though they did. That's what we're gonna look at today, actually. We say we are saved but we are ultimately saved when Messiah returns. We must put our faith in Yahweh's word that he loves us and forgives us regardless of inner feelings. We must have an attitude of thankfulness for his grace and not intentionally take advantage of it by practicing willful sin. With the right attitude, we can glory in tribulations for we know they will produce righteous character. Ancient Israel interpreted trials, tribulations, and chastisement as Yahweh's hatred for them. We must be sure not to do the same actually as evidence of his love for us. Faith in Yahweh's grace causes us to want to walk in love, otherwise we may lack the strength and will to obey his word. Pay close attention to that today. His grace causes us to want to walk in love, otherwise we lack the strength and will to obey. A parent's relationship to their children mirrors how Yahweh relates to us in many ways. And out of thanksgiving, our heart will rejoice and obey for Messiah's death caused us to be reconciled and his resurrection gives us salvation and hope for eternal life, hallelujah.
So picking up in the book of Romans Chapter Five Verse Eight, Elohim demonstrates his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Messiah died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to Elohim through the death of his son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but wait there's more, right? We also rejoice in Elohim through our master Yahushua Messiah through whom we now have received the reconciliation. So we have every reason to be a joyful people. Yahweh has done so much for us and we're just scratching the surface. Just scratching the surface.
Verse 12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned." For until the law, sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moshe even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam who is a type of him who was to come.
And so we see these things in the Scriptures. Through one man, sin entered the world and then
death came through sin. Who's that one man? It's Adam. And just as Paul declared in other chapters, all have sinned. And so death spread to all men because all sinned.
Both Jew and Gentile has fallen short of Yahweh's glory. He also says that sin was in the world beforehand, but it was not imputed. That means we were not held guilty, unless we know that we had done something wrong. We're not held guilty. But the fact that we have death reigning from Adam to Moshe shows that ultimately every man had some awareness of Yahweh's standards. As we examined earlier, that Yahweh had given to each of us a measure of knowledge regarding right and wrong, good and evil. And for that reason, death continued to reign from Adam to Moshe. Even those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam, like they didn't partake of this tree of knowledge of good and evil, but yet they disobey. That's the main point. And it says, Adam is a type of him who was to
come. That one who was to come was Messiah.
Word translated type is the Greek word "Topos" and
it has to do with pressing in on something and creating an imprint or a pattern.
That's why we have typewriters which strike pages with an imprint of something. Well, Adam is called a pattern or a type or an imprint or form and that's how the word's actually translated in different context throughout the New Testament. But this is because Adam was created in the image of Elohim. In the same way, Yahushua's actually called the express image of his person in Hebrews Chapter One in Verse 23. But there are some stark differences between Adam and Messiah. Some very stark differences between the two. Let's take a look here. First of all, through Adam, sin entered the world. Through Adam, death entered the world. And through Adam, death spread to all who sinned. That's the things we're reading about here.
But through Messiah, righteousness entered the world. He was the first man to be called righteous. Through Messiah, life entered the world. And through Messiah, life is given to all who believe. So death spread to all who sinned but life is given to all who believe. Continue to read here. It says, "But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense, the many died, much more the grace of Elohim in the gift by the grace of the one man, Yahushua Messiah, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.
For if by one man's offense, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Yahushua, Messiah. Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men resulting in condemnation, even so through one man's righteous act, the free gift came upon all men resulting in justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience that many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous." So those are contrast between the first Adam and Yahushua, the Messiah. So putting this into our table here, we see that through Adam's offense, many died.
But by Messiah's gift, many are given grace and life. Through Adam's sin, judgment caused condemnation. Yahushua, the free gift caused justification. Through Adam's offense, death reigns. By Messiah, the gift of righteousness reigns.
By Adam's offense, one offense caused condemnation. But Yahushua's one righteous act caused justification speaking specifically of His willingness to say, "Not My will, but Your will be done." And so by him, many were made sinners, by Adam, many were made sinners. By Yahushua, many are made righteous. And so that is a summary of the differences between those who are believers and those who are unbelievers.
Verse 20. "Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life, through Yahushua Messiah, our master." So
when the law came, it did not resolve the sin problem. It only revealed more and more how sinful man was.
Now it could never have done that if it were not for Yahweh's righteous standard, the guideline. If Yahweh's standard was not the standard today, then there's no offenses. But the fact that it is the standard of righteousness shows us, "Okay, that sin can abound." The fact that it was a guideline by which men were expected to follow, that's what empowered it to condemn.
But through the law, there's this revelation of what sin is. There's this understanding that sin now has a certain power over us because we have disobeyed, and it is revealing our worthiness of death. That's what the law does. It reveals how worthy we are of death, apart from Messiah.
But with Messiah, we have grace reigning. We don't have sin reigning. We have grace is reigning through righteousness to eternal life, through Yahushua Messiah, our master. And so wherever sin may abound, grace will abound much more.
And that's the message here in Romans Five, the two great contrasts. The law reveals our sin, reveals the Adam man for who he is. Grace imparts righteousness to those who believe and will abound much more. And that's the message. Now, when Paul says, "Wherever sin abound, grace abounds much more," he realizes there are some people out there who would take those words, twist them and say, "Once we have Messiah, we don't have to concern ourselves with breaking Yahweh's law." And I'm sure the Jewish people in Rome were pretty concerned about that very thing. He had said in Romans Three that some Jews were claiming that believers in Messiah taught no one can... That one can intentionally do evil and then good will come. And so the Jews were concerned that all this talk about grace was essentially nothing more than giving someone a license to commit sin and find glory in it because of the grace that abounds. And so Paul directly addresses this very point next. He not only addresses this very point, but he also explains how the good news of Messiah actually empowers a person to have dominion over sin. Romans 6:1-2, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we, who died to sin, live any longer in it?" There's that word again, "Certainly not." The first "certainly not" was an answer to the question, "Does unfaithfulness of man cause Yahweh's faithfulness to build that effect?" Second "certainly not" was an answer to the question, "Is Elohim unjust who inflicts wrath?" And now we come to the third "certainly not" in answer to the question, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" And again, this phrase, "Certainly not," is the strongest possible objection, it's in the optative in Greek. There is no stronger objection in the Greek
language. Now, before I go into the very, very deep discussion of how a believer overcomes temptations and sin, I want to come to understanding of terms here. What is sin anyway? What is it? According to the New Testament Scriptures. According to the New Testament Scriptures, it says, 1 John 3:4, "Whoever commits sin transgresses also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law." Romans 3:20, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." Romans 7:7, "I would not have known sin except through the law." And so the very definition of
sin, according to the New Testament, is a violation of Yahweh's law, a breaking of Yahweh's law, a transgression of the Torah. That's by definition what it is.
And that fact is also borne out by the context here 'cause we see it says, "Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abound, grace abounded much more." So the law came to demonstrate that the offense existed. And if that law hadn't been a righteous standard by which men are expected to live, it could never have done that. And so it's what caused sin to reign in death because of our disobedience to it. It wasn't the law's fault, it was our fault for not obeying it. And so that's why he says, "Well, should you continue in sin? Should you continue operating in offense? Should you continue disobeying the law? Absolutely not." The law caused offense and caused
sin to abound. Why? Because it revealed a righteous standard that men were supposed to live by and thus it caused even more people to be condemned because their behavior was exposed as sinful. And once we realize something is wrong, then we're accountable, then we're guilty. So Paul says that all those sin abounded because of revelation of the law revealing righteous standards. Grace abounded much more. So then he asks, "Well, do we just continue sinning and grace will just continue abounding?" In other words, we intentionally violate the law intentionally so that grace may abound. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No way. So the law still tells us what sin is. It hasn't changed. It's still telling us right and wrong. It just explains to us what sin is. We are free from sin, but we are not free to sin
willfully. Huge difference. Yahushua came to set us free from the bondage of sin, from the condemnation that the law demanded. He didn't come to give us a license to live in sin. That's why Paul said, "Absolutely not. How can we who died to sin live any longer in it?" And since it's certainly not as a strongest possible way to express an objection in English here, I'm gonna go ahead and do the same in our English language. There we go, put it in bold, underline it, exclamation points, so you could probably add an infinite number of exclamation points here. And this is a good message for many Christians today. If you continue violating the law so grace may abound, absolutely not. Certainly not. They think that somehow grace caused the law to be abolished, and you don't have to do it anymore. Scripture says, "Certainly not." By definition, sin's a violation of the law. Should we continue violating the law? Absolutely not. So I wanna take a moment here. We got that clear. I wanna focus on this statement right here.
"We who died to sin." He's wondering how is it even
possible that the one who dies to sin discontinues in sin and lives in it. His statement is like an incredulous kind of a statement like "How shall we? How's it even possible?" In other words, you can't figure out some way that somebody could possibly who died to sin now start living in it.
Now what I'm about to teach is something you may never have fully grasped before, and I would actually say only a fairly small percentage of believers actually understand this doctrine and really put it into practical use. Some might understand it but don't put it to practical use. Some may not understand it at all. But remember, how I shared in an earlier segment how the prophets predicted we would receive righteousness though the Messiah Yahushua. There's something else also that we are predicted to receive. I want you to notice this very closely. Isaiah 45:23-25, it says, "I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return. That to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath. He shall say, surely in Yahweh, I have righteousness and strength." Both righteousness and strength. Two things. Two things predicted. Righteousness and strength. And we have to remember the strength part. The strength is the strength to walk as we ought to walk. And so it is through Messiah that we not only have righteousness imparted to us, he is also empowering us to walk in righteousness and by that he's giving us righteousness in two ways. He's giving us righteousness where we have failed to walk in righteousness in the past and he's also empowering us to walk in righteousness in the future. And so all these Scriptures that talk about the Messiah imparting righteousness to you, it's not just talking about the time that you used to be when you were a sinner. It's talking about right here, right now, today. Empowering you to walk in righteousness. And so these Scriptures it says, "No weapon formed against you shall prosper, every tongue that rises against you in judgement you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of Yahweh and their righteousness is of me," sayeth Yahweh. So Isaiah 53:6 "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all."
And we need to remember this. So our sin was laid on Him. His righteousness was given to us. But the only way that can happen is if we supernaturally become a part of Him. How else can I get there from here? How can our sin get to Him and how can His righteousness get to us unless somehow, some way, He receives us to himself and we become a part of Him so that our history becomes His history and His history becomes our history. And so that we become joined together into one body, His body. And that's what the new covenant is all about. It is this bringing us into a place where we are at one with Messiah. 1 Corinthians 11:23, "For I received from the Master that which I also deliver to you, that the Master Yahushua on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread: And when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, 'Take, eat: This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same manner, He took the cup after supper saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.'" Ephesians 5:30 says, "We are members of His
body, of His flesh, and of His bones." That's the new covenant, the cup of a new covenant. We're a part of Him now. We say that, but do we understand that?
We say that but do we understand. That's the new covenant. We partake of Yahushua's body and blood at Passover and we partake of Him at Passover, that's a sign that we're His body now. His body and blood are joined with us now, are a part of us now. We are made one with Him and one with Yahweh through Him, and that's what Yahushua prayed when he prayed for us specifically. He's actually praying for you and me right now, right here. He says John 17:20-23 says, "I do not pray for these alone," talking about his disciples there, "but also for those who will believe in me through their word," that's us, "that they all may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And the glory which you gave me, I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me." This oneness causes the world to know Yahweh has sent Yahushua and has loved us in the same way he loved his son, Yahushua. And so, if anyone is in Messiah, He is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. That's you. That's me. He is in us. We are in Him. You may or may not feel like it happened, but Scripture says it happens to all who believe by His Spirit. Acts 2:38-39, Peter said to them, "Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Yahushua Messiah for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off as many as Yahweh, our Mighty One, will call." Well, see, we, like the ones Yahushua prayed for, all, these ones who are afar off, and that promise is to us. What promise? The gift of the Holy Spirit. His promise to us who are afar off. And unless we have the Holy Spirit, we couldn't be saved. So the ones that Yahweh has called... None of us are able to be renewed to repentance actually, unless the Spirit has done some kind of work to call us into His kingdom. It would be impossible. You wouldn't even have a desire for righteousness in your life if the Holy Spirit had not called you into His kingdom because Scripture says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And He does that by His Spirit. And I will raise Him up at the last day." That should give you a reason to shout and jump and rejoice, that the Father in Heaven, the Creator of all things, the most powerful being in the universe looked at you and said, "I'm gonna save you.
I care about you. I love you. I'm gonna send my son to die for you. I'm gonna draw you to myself. I want to spend eternity with you." And since Scripture has declared all these things to be true, it is up to us to accept those things by faith, not according to how we feel inside or how the devil tries to knock us down a few notches, although a lot of people like myself, I know when I got baptized and I was prayed over, I'll never forget, I could not get the smile off my face. It was a Spiritual fruit of joy. And even to this day, you ever meet me in person and sit down and talk to me during a non-serious biblical conversation, you'll probably find out I just have a lot of sense of humor and I also enjoy life. I do, I love life. And a lot of us have... Who have believed are recipients of the Holy Spirit. That's the fruit of joy. And Scripture promises that if we repent and we believe in the Messiah Yahushua, accompanied with baptism, we receive this Holy Spirit in us. And the Holy Spirit is in the Messiah Yahushua. And the Messiah Yahushua dwells in us. And those all through him we have Yahweh's Holy Spirit. And Yahushua says, "Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice." Anyone hears my voice. You can only hear his voice if the Spirit draws you, if Yahweh draws you himself. "And opens the door. I will come into him and dine with him and he with me, and that's the beautiful Passover gathering. And so I ask you this question, "Do you believe this?" This is the beautiful, wonderful, marvelous, amazing details of what Yahushua has done for you and for me. This is how Yahweh is able to impart righteousness to you and to me. It's how Yahushua is able to take our sins upon himself and bear our iniquities through this union. This oneness we have with him. This connection that we have with him.
So do you believe the Scriptures that Yahushua lives in you and you are in him and that's why we are called the body of the Messiah to begin with? And if we're part of the body of the Messiah, that means he took on our sin when he died, and we took on his righteousness and that means that his history is our history. And our history, our sin, he took on himself as if it was his history, because we're joined with him. And that's why Scripture says, "I have been crucified," or impaled however you wanna translate it, "with Messiah. It is no longer I who live, but Messiah lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of Elohim who loved me and gave himself for me." What a beautiful Scripture. I love that. Yahushua's history is he was crucified and he's impaled. He took on our sins and bore them and because of our oneness with Messiah because we're a part of his body now, it's no longer we who live. We died with him and we are raised with him. It's Messiah who lives in us. And that's why it says in Colossians 3:3. "For you died." Do you believe that? You died and your life is hidden with Messiah and Elohim. When Messiah who is our life appears, he is our life now. Right? Then you also will appear with him in glory.
He's our life now. We're joined to him now. Do we believe that? To the extent that you do, that will be the extent to which you overcome. Don't you know your bodies are members of Messiah?
Shall he then take the members of Messiah and make the members of a harlot. Absolutely not. There it is again.
Or do you not know that he is joined to a harlot as one body with her for the two shall become one flesh? But he is joined to the master's one spirit.
So our bodies now are members, our bodies are members of Messiah.
We're now one spirit with him. We're joined to him and that's how our righteousness is of Yahweh. And that's how it is only through Yahweh we have any righteousness at all. In our flesh, there is no good thing. And for that reason, we need another body. The body of the Messiah. And so when the prophets predict here, about... In Yahweh we have righteousness and strength and only through Yahweh are we declared righteous, justified, and only through him that we can glory. This is all the details of how it happened. Only through him, do we have strength and that's why it says, "I can do all things through Messiah," who does what? "strengthens me." It's Messiah who does it.
It is so, so important that you and I understand this and get a hold of this and let it just become a part of who we are as an identity. Very, very important. Identity is powerful. Very powerful. Because what happens? If you decide you're gonna be a biker, while you get on a leather garb and get yourself a Harley-David motorcycle, you get your glasses on, you go down the road, you grow your beard out, and you know... And that's... Okay, you're a biker, that's the identity you decided to grasp, and so you do the things that are associated with that identity. Well, if Yahushua is your identity, you take on that identity, then you will do the things that caused you to take on that identity, the things that are associated with that identity.
Twenty-six years ago, I decided I'm gonna be a disciple of Yahushua, that's my identity. I was looking for an identity. I was a young man, 19 years old. I was looking for one. Thought I'd be a rock star for a while, that didn't work out, now what?
I wanted to be a disciple of Yahushua, that was my identity, that's who I wanted to be. And so the things I did followed that pattern. Identity is powerful, and what Yahushua is for you, He is for all of us, for me and for all of us. He is the one who now lives. We died. Our life is hid with Messiah and Elohim. Very important. And so with this understanding, it's pretty clear to me why Paul said what he said, "How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" We're dead to that. We're dead to those things. Yahushua didn't go through all the things He went through just so we could live in sin.
He did all the things He did so that we could be free from sin and the bondage that it had ahold of us, its power over us. And so when Paul asked the question, how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it... To live in sin is very different than, "Okay, you fail, you yield to temptation from time to time." You go to Messiah, you confess it, you pray, "Yahweh, I acknowledge I messed up, I failed, please forgive me. Cleanse me." He says, "If you confess your sins, He's faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness." But that's different than living in sin.
For a believer, sin's no longer a way of life. It's something we no longer practice because we're not enslaved to it. Now, occasionally, a man who's clean, he takes a shower, he'll get dirty, but that's different than living in a sewage pit. We don't live the life of the pig who after being washed goes back into the mud and just rolls around in it. We might slip and fall in the mud sometime, it doesn't mean we're living there. We get back up. It says a righteous man falls seven times a day but gets back up again, but the sinner lives in it and cares not. But we don't live in it, we don't live any longer
in it. That's not our place of residence. We died to it. And since you are dead to sin and we are dead to sin, that means that sin no longer has power over you. How can anything have a power over a dead man? He's dead. None of us should be of the belief that we're powerless against sin.
I don't care if it's an addiction, a habit, some sin that you have difficulty overcoming, you should never ever ever say to yourself, "Well, this has power over me. I'm enslaved to it." Don't ever say that.
It's not true. The Scripture says you're dead to it. You're dead to sin. That means it doesn't have power over you. That means you're free. That means our actions... See, our actions will follow our belief. If we think that we're enslaved to something, our actions will reflect that. If we don't believe it and by faith we declare that we are dead to it, that opens up the door for Yahweh to work effectively in us so that we are overcomers of it. Don't expect to be an overcomer when you think you're a slave to the sin, 'cause you're not. You're dead to it. You might say "Well, Tom, that's not how I've been operating." It's because you don't believe it. You don't believe you're dead to it. You believe this is who you are. It's a part of what you are. It's not a part of what you are, but your actions have followed your belief. And Romans Six is the inner workings of how we're overcomers. It's not often very well understood, but once we come to understand it, it's powerful. You see, willpower is not the secret to overcoming.
The secret to overcoming is faith in what He's done. The Book of Revelations says, they overcome him by sheer willpower? They overcome the devil by their strength and power that they just got to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and somehow figure it out some way to over... No, it says, they overcame him by two things: The blood of The Lamb and by the word of their testimony. The blood of The Lamb is what cleanses you from sin; the word of our testimony is what empowers us to overcome future sin.
And our testimony is that Yahushua lives in us. Our testimony is what Yahushua has done for us not only in cleansing us from our past sins, but also empowering us now to walk in righteousness. But you can't love your own life. You gotta love Yahweh. You can't hold on to your own life. You have to say, "My life is now hidden in Messiah."
Even to the point of death, if you already see yourselves as dead, well when the adversary threatens to kill your body, you're gonna be like, "Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm dead already." So the death of Yahushua the Messiah, our testimony is believing what he's done for us, our testimony is that we are dead to sin and we're members of Yahushua's body, we are one with Messiah, he died for our sins and sin can no longer have dominion over us.
Our testimony is, "I have been crucified with Messiah, it's no longer I who live, it's Messiah who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith. I live by faith. And by faith, I'm going to overcome whatever this is that's coming my way." The faith in the son of Elohim who loved me and gave himself for me. And that's why Romans says, "For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection." Knowing this, our old man was
crucified with him. But the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves of sin for he who has died has been freed from sin. Believe that? Do you believe that you died?
To the extent to which you believe that will be the extent to which you overcome.
The extent to which you believe that will be the extent to which you are able to overcome all sin. It's true. I know it works because it works for me. It does. Temptation comes my way, if I'm willing to fight it, if I'm willing to go against it and say, "I don't want no part of it," and I say, "In the name of Yahushua Ha Mashiach, I'm dead to that thing," whatever it is, it works 'cause I no longer associate with it. It's not a part of me any longer.
It's not a part of me any longer. That's not me. That's not me at all. That was the old man, that's not me. I don't associate with those things any more. That's not me. My identity is different. I'm not Adam any more. I'm not Adam. I am a believer in Yahushua Ha Mashiach, that's my identity.
Is that your identity?
Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Messiah Yahushua, we're baptized into his death. Therefore, we were, were, past tense, buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Messiah was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life.
Do we get this? Very important that we get this.
Yahushua says, according to baptism, he said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with.
And how distressed I am until it's accomplished." Talking about his death. It's what he came to do.
And so we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also should be in the likeness of the resurrection knowing our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be a slave to sin. Do you believe your body of sin is done away with, you're not a slave to sin any longer? To the extent that you believe that, you will overcome it. We're one with him. He took our sins and died because of them. And since it is no longer we who live but Messiah who lives in us, it is not possible for sin to have power over us. We can overcome them by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. And if you're willing to rise up in faith and declare that and believe that and operate in that, you will overcome whatever it is. Not by willpower, but by faith in what Yahushua has done for you. The same faith that you use to say, "Through Yahushua, I am forgiven for my sins," the same faith must be used to say, "By Yahushua I am dead to sin." By Yahushua, it's no longer I who live, Messiah lives in me. I am not a slave to sin. It does not have power over me, in Yahushua Ha Mashiach, I am dead to that. So when temptation comes knocking on your door, you say, "By faith, I'm dead to that." I'm dead to that sin, whatever it is. I don't care what it is. You can say you're dead to it because we don't have to live in that any longer. You don't have to live there. You're dead to it. And if we're crucified with Messiah and his history is our history, we can now say, "We're raised from the dead, and now we're a new creature walking in the newness of life." And the Scripture says, "If anyone's in Messiah, he is a new creation. All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. A new way of living like an old song. I found a new way of living. I found new life divine. I have prosperity, power, and victory abiding in the vine. It's just that those things are not often understood. And if you believe you're a new creation, a new creation does not live in sin. The new creation is Messiah Yahushua in you, he does not sin. And so we can overcome not by our willpower but by our belief if that's true. By our faith in the blood of the Lamb and faith in the testimony of what he's done for us, He has enabled us to be free from whatever that sin is and its hold us and we're dead to it. And that's why Paul says, "How can someone who's dead to sin live in it?" It just can't even be. It's like two opposite things. So when we're baptized, it's a sign that we are willing to be joined to the Messiah and let his history be our history and it's no longer we who live but the Messiah living in us, through that union of two becoming one, we died to sin when we are crucified with him. And he paid the penalty for our sin. Our sin was laid on him. His righteousness is laid on us. And just as Messiah's raised, we are raised.
For if we've been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly also the likeness of his resurrection. Our old man, crucified. Someone's crucified is dead, old man's dead. He's not someone that rises up every once in a while. Nothing like that. I don't buy that. He's dead. I don't wanna believe that. I give him an excuse, "Oh, he rises up every once in a while." No, he doesn't. He's dead, he's crucified. It's just you're not walking in faith. That's the problem. You're not walking by faith. And so let's add to our list here.
Through Adam, we were alive and enslaved to sin. Our Adam man was living in slavery, but in Yahushua
we're dead to it, and now we're alive unto Messiah. We are free from the old man. We were formerly joined with the body of Adam and all is yuck. All the yuck that's associated with it, but we died. And now, we're a part of the body of Messiah, and all the beauty that's associated with that. Yahushua's compared to a grain of wheat. The grain of wheat is buried in the ground and dies. He says it bears much fruit, and what happens is a new life rises up out of the ground and it bears even more seeds of life, that's us. That's what happens. So unbelievers are of the body of Adam and believers are of the body of Messiah. Body of Adam, sin and death and offenses and judgement and condemnation and death and all these things, slavery. But through the body of Messiah, righteousness, life, the gift of grace, justification, gift of righteousness. Many are made righteous, dead to sin, alive to Messiah, a part of his body.
Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. For he who has died is now freed from sin. We're no longer slaves, we're freed from sin.
We are those seeds that were brought forth and we are raised from the dead with him. And now even though we have sinned in our past, Yahweh still accepts us because the old man's dead. And just as he ascended to the heavenly places, waved up to Yahweh, we are ascended also to the heavenly places with him. Ephesians 2:4, "Elohim is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Messiah, by grace, you've been saved. And he raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places." In Messiah Yahushua, the things... This is why Yahweh can speak the things which are not as though as they are because it's as good as done. When he speaks to them, it's there, it's done, we accept it, by faith, it's true. We enter into the good news, we're saved by the faith of Messiah, and so we'll overcome by the faith of Messiah. The same faith that enables us to be saved also empowers us to overcome, whether you feel like it or not. This old body, I tell you what, it's got feelings and emotions or whatever. Let's put those feelings and emotions under the mastership and leadership of Messiah Yahushua, because now it's his members. And his members are gonna yield to his thoughts. And if we have faith, it should be just as easy for us to be released from sin's bondage as it is for us to be saved. Because the same faith functions to do both things. As we say, "If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you'll be filled." Yahushua said that. "If you hunger and thirst for righteous, you will be filled." That means you are now walking in repentance. You desire to walk in righteousness. And Yahushua now therefore because of what he has done for you, he'll fill you with righteousness where you lacked righteousness, and he will empower you to walk in righteousness where formerly you were unable to.
So when temptations come, you say, "Hey, in the name of Yahushua Messiah, Yahushua Ha Mashiach, I am dead to this. I am alive to Yahweh. It's no longer I who live. It is Yahushua who lives in me and he does not do these things." Say it out loud, if you have to.
And to the extent to which you believe will be the extent to which you overcome.
Now, if we die with Messiah, we believe we should also live with him, knowing the Messiah having been raised from the dead dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. And the life that he lives, he lives to Elohim. Likewise, you also, you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to Elohim and Messiah Yahushua, our master.
The same way Messiah died, a new life now lives to Elohim. You also say, "I died. I now live to Elohim." Reckon yourselves to be dead to sin. Why? Because it's true. Reckoning is not a struggle so much as it is just a faith. It's a belief. We say, "In the name of Yahushua. I am dead to that. I'm alive to Elohim. I'm alive to him and Yahushua Messiah, our Master. I'm alive to him. I'm dead to whatever that sin happens to be. I don't care what it is." And by faith, we overcome temptations. We have to be willing to fight. You have to hate sin and love Yahweh. You have to be willing to fight. You have to be willing to live a repentant lifestyle. We have to be willing to exercise our faith. Your faith has to have a realness to it.
'Cause faith without works is dead. It's nonexistent. Faith will produce righteous works and this is how faith produces righteous works even in the face of temptation.
And so your faith will produce works if you're willing to put your faith in what Messiah did for you. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to Elohim as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to Elohim. You ever play an instrument?
Well, your body's an instrument. You ever play the flute? Or the guitar? Or a piano? Or whatever? You get to decide. You get to decide what kind of things you do with that instrument, right? All the fleshly body you have is dead to sin. It's been freed. But now your body can be an effective instrument of righteousness because these are members of the Messiah. It can be used as an instrument for righteousness through this power that Messiah is living in you. And your eyes are instruments for the body. Your hands are instruments. And so when you use your instruments, make sure those instruments, the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the tongue, the hands, feet, everything are instruments that are being used for righteousness now.
Because you have yielded those instruments unto Yahweh by faith, saying, "My body's dead now. The only thing that's alive is whatever Messiah wants to do with this body." If you were presenting your instruments as unrighteousness, you would be presenting yourself as not being dead to sin. But if we are alive from the dead, then your members are instruments of righteousness. Why? Because you're now a part of the body of Messiah and sin does not have dominion over you.
For sin shall not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace. If you were under law, sin could have dominion over you because you'd be under condemnation. Law would condemn you. You wouldn't be having any grace in your life. You'd just be expected to live by this law and you would not survive its condemnation. But if you're under grace, sin doesn't have any power. You died already. What then? Shall we sin because we're not under law or under grace? What is that word again, put it in bold, add exclamation points, underline it. Absolutely not. Can I get any clearer than that? You don't violate the law because you're not under it. You don't break the law because you're not under it. The fact that you're under grace should be manifesting the power of Yahushua in your life. And he did not violate the law.
All makes sense, doesn't it? In a beautiful, beautiful, wonderful picture. I hope so. I hope it makes sense. If we were under the law, we'd be under condemnation. But if we're under grace, we are forgiven.
And just because you're not under the law doesn't mean you're above the law, either.
You can't just walk in willful sin, living in sin, because you're not under the law. You can't willfully violate anything the law tells you. To do so would be to sin. I don't care if the law's telling you to keep the Sabbath day, or to keep your body from unclean meats, or if it's telling you to observe a festival or whatever it's telling you, I believe it's true. For you to disregard those commandments would be to sin. Now you may not have realized it was sin, till now. Scripture says, sin is transgression of the law. The law says, "Do this," you say, "I don't want to." Then you're sinning. It's one plus one equals two. That easy. Nothing complicated about it. Then someone says, "Wow, I don't stone people." Those are commandments for sentencing guidelines for judges. You keep the laws of the United States without having to go and put someone to death, you have people in authority that judges and so on, that make those decisions. Same was true in Israel.
You can keep them laws in the United States and never, never put anybody into prison. Same way, you don't have to stone anybody if you keep Yahweh's laws. There were people in Israel that were appointed to do that. So my point is wherever you see sin that is
violation of the law, and we don't intentionally... He's making a connection between violating the law and not being under. See, he knows that. If you're not under law, does that mean you can break the law? Because grace will abound? No! Absolutely not. You don't just willfully sin because you're not under the law. The fact that you're under grace is what empowers you
to keep the law. So being under the law, being embodied to sin is essentially the same thing, because if we didn't have Messiah living in us, we could not... We would be worthy of death, right? We will be under condemnation. The law would determine we're guilty and deserving of judgement. But because we're joined to Messiah, he took our sin upon himself so that we died with him and that we are raised with him and it's no longer we who live, Messiah living in us. And since that's true, we have died to sin. And sin will not have dominion over us. Because we're not under it. We're not under the law. It can't condemn us. And nobody can claim, "Well, I can't overcome that sin. It's too hard." Wrong. Sin does not have dominion over you. Ding-ding-ding, sorry. Scripture says it. I believe it. That settles it. Now, if you're a part of the body of Adam, that might be true. But we're not part of the body of Adam anymore, we're part of the body of Messiah. And so by faith, we recognize this idea that we cannot overcome sin as a lie from the devil, taking us away from faith. So now, we can't have this excuse saying, "It's just too hard because Yahushua... If we believe the good news, we believe we're no longer a slave to it." If faith has saved us from sin, it will empower us to overcome it. And that's why the prophet said what they said.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. Do you believe that? Do you grasp this? I'm trying to repeat this thing. As the Torah says, teach them diligently to your children, teach them again and again and again. You're not my children, but I am teaching the Torah. So, I'm repeating these things so that you get this drilled in your head, so that you will be an overcomer.
And those who are Messiah's have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires.
If we live in the Spirit, let's also walk in the Spirit.
For by one spirit, we all were baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, or slaves, or free. It means all to drink into one spirit. It's Galatians 5:24 and 1 Corinthians 12:13. See, we live in the Spirit. The Spirit has enabled us to live and not die, therefore the Spirit enables us to walk in righteousness. Walking in the Spirit, walking in righteousness, and keeping Yahweh's commandments, it's all the same thing. No different. If any of you were raised with Messiah, seek those things which are above, Colossians 3:1. Where Messiah is sitting at the right hand of Elohim. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the Earth for you died and your life is hidden with Messiah and Elohim. Since this is true and since this is true, this is where you set your mind on heavenly things, not earthly things.
Do you believe this? That anyone's in Messiah, he's a new creation. Do you believe that? 2 Corinthians 5:17. If you believe it, there's not any temptation from the enemy that you can't overcome, because you are of Elohim. "Little children," 1 John 4:4, "and have overcome them because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." Do you believe this? To the extent that you believe and put your faith into action, you will overcome. Romans 6:16 says, "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you're that one's slaves to whom you obey. Whether of sin, as transgression of the law, leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness." You decide whose slave you're gonna be. Messiah's slave, a slave of righteousness or a slave of sin. "But Elohim be thanked that you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." See, we're on a slave
market. Yahushua bought us with his own blood. A slave has to do what his master tells him. We were enslaved to sin at one time, but no longer are we. He says you were, you were slaves of sin. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh talking about these things. So just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness, for when you were, were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is simply death. But now, having been set free from sin, all this past tense stuff... You've been set free, you've been redeemed, and you're now slaves of Elohim. You have your fruit to holiness in the everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death. That's where sin's gonna lead. That's where Adam went. But the gift, grace, gift of Elohim is eternal life in Messiah, Yahushua, our master. We're not slaves to sin. We're slaves of Elohim. Our fruit is now holiness. Our end is everlasting life. If we were enslaved to sin, our end would be death, right? 'Cause that's the wages of it. We were given a free gift, eternal life through Yahushua, our master. He says we have not so learned Messiah, talking about sins in the previous verses. If indeed you've heard him and been taught by him as the truth is in Yahushua, being heard, heard of him, and been taught by him, what? Have you heard? Have you been taught that you did already put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you may put on this new man, which was created according to Elohim and true righteousness and holiness. You believe this is what happened? He didn't say, "Hey, go put off the old man." He's
saying you've been taught by him that you did put off the old man. And so do not lie to one another since you've put off the old man with his deeds. Something already happened. Colossians 3:9.
And so I don't care if you're facing a temptation to fear, a temptation to lust, a temptation toward pride, a temptation toward anger, a temptation toward smoking cigarettes, or alcohol, or drugs, or anything. There isn't any sin that you're a slave to.
Scripture says so. Now, do you believe in the Scriptures? That's a matter of faith. That's your decision. See, we were once a part of the body of Adam that
caused sin to enter the world and death to enter the world, and death has spread to us who had sinned; but through Messiah, righteousness entered the world, life entered the world. Life is given to all who believe. And so by Adam and all of our association with him, we died. But our association now with Messiah, our oneness with Him, we are given grace and we are given life. And when we associate with Adam, we were judged and under condemnation, but we associate now with Messiah. We are one with him. We are given a free gift that results in our being declared righteous. And through Adam, we were under a death sentence and
death rained over us, had power over us, but we've been joined to Messiah and by Him we have a gift of righteousness reigning now and ruling over us. Through Adam, his one offense caused our condemnation, as we repeated that, Yahushua's one righteous act of giving his life for us caused us to be justified. By him, Adam, we we're called sinners. By Messiah, we are called righteous. By Adam, we're alive but we're enslaved to sin and our end is death. But Messiah, we are already dead to sin and now we're alive to Messiah. We were a part of the body of Adam and now we're part of the body of Messiah. So practical steps to overcome temptation.
Number one, you have to hate the sin and love Yahweh. If you love the sin, you're not gonna wanna fight against it. We have to have a relationship with Yahweh and love Yahweh, so when sin comes knocking we don't say, "Alright, here it comes." We say, "Oh, no, no, you don't." And we're gonna fight it. We're gonna see it as an enemy. We're gonna hate it. We're gonna see it for what it is, an enemy. And so here's some helpful tips to overcoming temptation. I don't claim perfection. I don't claim I've never made a mistake in the last two weeks. I have. I'm just telling you. This is where the power is, if we're willing to take on and put on Messiah. Number one, this usually works. This is it right here. This one right here, most of the time, it works. I reject that in the name of Yahushua Ha Mashiach. You can even say it before you go into Walmart, "I know there's sin in there. I reject it all right now, in Yahushua's name.
Every principality and power I bind up, you can't tempt me, you can't harm me. I hate sin. I don't want no part of it. I just want Messiah only in me. I reject all those things in Yahushua's name." If you have a problem with alcohol or whatever and you're driving by the old bar you used to go to, before you even go by, "I already reject it in Yahushua's name. I already reject it. I ain't gonna look at you." I'm telling you, this is powerful. That first step, it works numerous times. It works. Alright.
If it keeps wanting to rear its head at you or something and keep going, keep tempting you, here's something you can do. We're gonna rise up in faith. Now statement number one's already a summary of statement number two. But as a good reminder of who you are in Messiah and what Yahushua did for you, you're going to repeat back what Scripture has already said is true of you, and you're gonna believe it. You're gonna say, "I reject that in Yahushua's name for I am dead to that. I am dead to that.
In Yahushua, I am dead to that. That's not me. I believe in the good news of Yahushua. It's no longer I who live. It's Yahushua who lives in me and the life which I now live I live by faith in the son of Elohim who loved me and gave himself for me. He wouldn't do those things. That's not me." "I reject that in Yahushua's name.
I'm dead to that. It's not a part of me. It's not who I am. It's not my identity." Alright, temptation is still coming for some reason, step number three.
"I reject that specific sin, and you can actually use a Scripture to explain exactly why that particular sin is a sin, for it is written, for it is written this and it is written that. I reject that in the name of Yahushua Ha Mashiach. I am dead to that. I choose to believe in the good news of Yahushua. It's no longer I who live, it's Messiah who lives in me and life which I now live I live by faith in the son of Elohim who love me and gave Himself for me. I'm called to suffer. I'm called to suffer through these things and bear the marks of Messiah. Get behind me, Satan. Yahweh rebuked you for it is written." Whatever it might be, whatever Scripture condemns that particular temptation. I'm telling you this stuff works. I'm telling you it really does. Scripture says it does. What did Yahushua do? He got his sword out. Pulled the sword out of its sheath. It is written. The enemy always tried to attack his identity. If you're really the son of Elohim, then do this. But this is our identity. I choose to believe the identity that Yahweh has given me. Who I am in Messiah. There was an old man one time who was alive, he's dead to that stuff.
Enemy's still coming. Doesn't usually get to this step. Very rarely. But just cry out to Yahweh. "Yahweh, deliver me from my enemies!" And keep praying because the name of Yahweh is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10. Psalm 143:9, "Deliver me, O Yahweh, from my enemies. In you, I take shelter." Sometimes even in prayer of all places, the enemy is still trying talk to you. You keep praying. Here's an effective step right here I think. Number five, start praying for people who need to get saved. "Oh, I really pray for so and so. My lost son or lost daughter or my friend." I've really been hoping that person will come to salvation and as long as you keep praying for somebody else you think the devil's gonna wanna keep talking to you? Probably not. Start singing praises. Because this is what happens. 2 Chronicles 20:21-22. There was a king named Jehoshaphat. It says, when he consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to Yahweh. And who should praise the beauty of holiness and as they went out from before the army and were saying, "Praise Yahweh, for his mercy endures forever." Tell you what, this is a powerful thing to see.
Hallelujah. Ki L'Olam chasdo. So Hodu Yahweh ki tov ki L'Olam chasdo. So when they began to sing and praise, Yahweh sent ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, Mount Seir, and who came against Judah and they were defeated. Start praising Yahweh and the enemy can't stand that. That's why the unclean spirit departed from Saul. When David began praising Yahweh, he just didn't want anything to do with Saul at that point. And I've never known step five to ever have to go back beyond step five. So say with me and repeat after me, "By faith, I am free from the devil's power over me." Say with me and repeat after me, "By faith, I am free from the flesh. I am dead to sin. Sin has no power over this body." Say with me and repeat after me, "I am alive to Yahweh. I am dead to sin." We have that identity. And so this takes us back to some of the things I share in our previous segment. We examine parts, Romans Part Four and Five.
Life in Messiah is not so much walking around in fear that Yahweh's standing behind us with a big shepherd's rod ready to whip us at the slightest infraction. It's really, Yahweh is in front of us. He's leading us. He's guiding us. He's showing us the way. It's a love for Yahweh and a desire for a relationship with him that we pursue his steps. And if we're trying to live under the law, we'll never really have assurance of our life.
Condemnation's a very poor motivator. It only takes us away from the relationship. And builds walls in between us and Yahweh. But if we walk out from underneath the law and we receive the gift of grace, we'll not only be set free from condemnation, we'll also be empowered to walk in righteousness. We're not under the law in its condemnation, we have faith in Yahweh's acceptance of us. And that gives us the hope and propels us to good works, by faith. Because we love the Father, we fear doing something that would damage the relationship. We fear our Father being displeased with us because we just love Him so much. And so we accept His standing offer of love. If we can receive that love and forgiveness, it will compel us and propel us to love Him in return, because we don't want to hurt Him again. We want His forgiveness and we want His love for us to result in bearing good fruit for Him.
Faith in His love is what causes us to want to walk in love. Having faith in His love for us, believing Him when He says He offers forgiveness and causes us to realize there's hope for us. And His love for us compels us to want to love Him in return. And it's faith in what He's done through us, through Yahushua dying for our sins, it drives our faith in His love. And that same faith in what He's done for us is also going to empower us and give us strength, because of what He said He's done for you.
Do you believe what He's said He's done for you?
If you believe, you will be empowered by Messiah
Yahushua to do the good works and to overcome whatever temptation comes your way, through the power of His Spirit that dwells in you.
O Yahweh, Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, be Your awesome name. Your word is so amazing. Your promises are so amazing. We stand in awe of what You have done for us and we receive it. If there's any here who...
Somehow there's a... Heavens are like bronze and just can't seem to receive that what You said is for them, I pray that You would take down the barrier.
Destroy it, that the freedom of relationship, the freedom of Messiah might just flow out onto them and pour them, overwhelm them, with the anointing oil of your Spirit.
Let it be their identity does not come within, of the approval of men and what they say about us. Let our identity come through what You have said about us. What You have said You have done for us.
Yahweh, build up and strengthen Your body, the body of Messiah. Strengthen the body of Messiah to receive freely what You have said You are doing for us, that we might be those overcomers in the Book of Revelation, having overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Our testimony is Your word. The things that You have done for us.
For truly Yours is the kingdom and power and glory and majesty and all praise, honor, and worship belongs to You. Yahweh Eloheinu. Yahweh our Mighty One. Forever and ever. In Yahushua's great name, we pray all these things
and we believe. Amein
Faith is what propels our works by the power of Yahweh's Spirit in us. And so in summary, we are saved by a faith that works. Two ways of looking at that, isn't there? Some first century Jews were shocked that uncircumcised gentiles were also granted salvation. Paul shows that Abraham was regarded as righteous before he was ever even told to be circumcised. Yahweh promised Abraham would be a father of many nations. Gentile believers are Abraham's seed. All gentiles are part of those nations. Yahweh's promises are so sure that, Yahweh, he calls things that do not exist as though they did. That's what we're gonna look at today, actually. We say we are saved but we are ultimately saved when Messiah returns. We must put our faith in Yahweh's word that he loves us and forgives us regardless of inner feelings. We must have an attitude of thankfulness for his grace and not intentionally take advantage of it by practicing willful sin. With the right attitude, we can glory in tribulations for we know they will produce righteous character. Ancient Israel interpreted trials, tribulations, and chastisement as Yahweh's hatred for them. We must be sure not to do the same actually as evidence of his love for us. Faith in Yahweh's grace causes us to want to walk in love, otherwise we may lack the strength and will to obey his word. Pay close attention to that today. His grace causes us to want to walk in love, otherwise we lack the strength and will to obey. A parent's relationship to their children mirrors how Yahweh relates to us in many ways. And out of thanksgiving, our heart will rejoice and obey for Messiah's death caused us to be reconciled and his resurrection gives us salvation and hope for eternal life, hallelujah.
So picking up in the book of Romans Chapter Five Verse Eight, Elohim demonstrates his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Messiah died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to Elohim through the death of his son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but wait there's more, right? We also rejoice in Elohim through our master Yahushua Messiah through whom we now have received the reconciliation. So we have every reason to be a joyful people. Yahweh has done so much for us and we're just scratching the surface. Just scratching the surface.
Verse 12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned." For until the law, sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moshe even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam who is a type of him who was to come.
And so we see these things in the Scriptures. Through one man, sin entered the world and then
death came through sin. Who's that one man? It's Adam. And just as Paul declared in other chapters, all have sinned. And so death spread to all men because all sinned.
Both Jew and Gentile has fallen short of Yahweh's glory. He also says that sin was in the world beforehand, but it was not imputed. That means we were not held guilty, unless we know that we had done something wrong. We're not held guilty. But the fact that we have death reigning from Adam to Moshe shows that ultimately every man had some awareness of Yahweh's standards. As we examined earlier, that Yahweh had given to each of us a measure of knowledge regarding right and wrong, good and evil. And for that reason, death continued to reign from Adam to Moshe. Even those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam, like they didn't partake of this tree of knowledge of good and evil, but yet they disobey. That's the main point. And it says, Adam is a type of him who was to
come. That one who was to come was Messiah.
Word translated type is the Greek word "Topos" and
it has to do with pressing in on something and creating an imprint or a pattern.
That's why we have typewriters which strike pages with an imprint of something. Well, Adam is called a pattern or a type or an imprint or form and that's how the word's actually translated in different context throughout the New Testament. But this is because Adam was created in the image of Elohim. In the same way, Yahushua's actually called the express image of his person in Hebrews Chapter One in Verse 23. But there are some stark differences between Adam and Messiah. Some very stark differences between the two. Let's take a look here. First of all, through Adam, sin entered the world. Through Adam, death entered the world. And through Adam, death spread to all who sinned. That's the things we're reading about here.
But through Messiah, righteousness entered the world. He was the first man to be called righteous. Through Messiah, life entered the world. And through Messiah, life is given to all who believe. So death spread to all who sinned but life is given to all who believe. Continue to read here. It says, "But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense, the many died, much more the grace of Elohim in the gift by the grace of the one man, Yahushua Messiah, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.
For if by one man's offense, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Yahushua, Messiah. Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men resulting in condemnation, even so through one man's righteous act, the free gift came upon all men resulting in justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience that many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous." So those are contrast between the first Adam and Yahushua, the Messiah. So putting this into our table here, we see that through Adam's offense, many died.
But by Messiah's gift, many are given grace and life. Through Adam's sin, judgment caused condemnation. Yahushua, the free gift caused justification. Through Adam's offense, death reigns. By Messiah, the gift of righteousness reigns.
By Adam's offense, one offense caused condemnation. But Yahushua's one righteous act caused justification speaking specifically of His willingness to say, "Not My will, but Your will be done." And so by him, many were made sinners, by Adam, many were made sinners. By Yahushua, many are made righteous. And so that is a summary of the differences between those who are believers and those who are unbelievers.
Verse 20. "Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life, through Yahushua Messiah, our master." So
when the law came, it did not resolve the sin problem. It only revealed more and more how sinful man was.
Now it could never have done that if it were not for Yahweh's righteous standard, the guideline. If Yahweh's standard was not the standard today, then there's no offenses. But the fact that it is the standard of righteousness shows us, "Okay, that sin can abound." The fact that it was a guideline by which men were expected to follow, that's what empowered it to condemn.
But through the law, there's this revelation of what sin is. There's this understanding that sin now has a certain power over us because we have disobeyed, and it is revealing our worthiness of death. That's what the law does. It reveals how worthy we are of death, apart from Messiah.
But with Messiah, we have grace reigning. We don't have sin reigning. We have grace is reigning through righteousness to eternal life, through Yahushua Messiah, our master. And so wherever sin may abound, grace will abound much more.
And that's the message here in Romans Five, the two great contrasts. The law reveals our sin, reveals the Adam man for who he is. Grace imparts righteousness to those who believe and will abound much more. And that's the message. Now, when Paul says, "Wherever sin abound, grace abounds much more," he realizes there are some people out there who would take those words, twist them and say, "Once we have Messiah, we don't have to concern ourselves with breaking Yahweh's law." And I'm sure the Jewish people in Rome were pretty concerned about that very thing. He had said in Romans Three that some Jews were claiming that believers in Messiah taught no one can... That one can intentionally do evil and then good will come. And so the Jews were concerned that all this talk about grace was essentially nothing more than giving someone a license to commit sin and find glory in it because of the grace that abounds. And so Paul directly addresses this very point next. He not only addresses this very point, but he also explains how the good news of Messiah actually empowers a person to have dominion over sin. Romans 6:1-2, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we, who died to sin, live any longer in it?" There's that word again, "Certainly not." The first "certainly not" was an answer to the question, "Does unfaithfulness of man cause Yahweh's faithfulness to build that effect?" Second "certainly not" was an answer to the question, "Is Elohim unjust who inflicts wrath?" And now we come to the third "certainly not" in answer to the question, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" And again, this phrase, "Certainly not," is the strongest possible objection, it's in the optative in Greek. There is no stronger objection in the Greek
language. Now, before I go into the very, very deep discussion of how a believer overcomes temptations and sin, I want to come to understanding of terms here. What is sin anyway? What is it? According to the New Testament Scriptures. According to the New Testament Scriptures, it says, 1 John 3:4, "Whoever commits sin transgresses also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law." Romans 3:20, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." Romans 7:7, "I would not have known sin except through the law." And so the very definition of
sin, according to the New Testament, is a violation of Yahweh's law, a breaking of Yahweh's law, a transgression of the Torah. That's by definition what it is.
And that fact is also borne out by the context here 'cause we see it says, "Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abound, grace abounded much more." So the law came to demonstrate that the offense existed. And if that law hadn't been a righteous standard by which men are expected to live, it could never have done that. And so it's what caused sin to reign in death because of our disobedience to it. It wasn't the law's fault, it was our fault for not obeying it. And so that's why he says, "Well, should you continue in sin? Should you continue operating in offense? Should you continue disobeying the law? Absolutely not." The law caused offense and caused
sin to abound. Why? Because it revealed a righteous standard that men were supposed to live by and thus it caused even more people to be condemned because their behavior was exposed as sinful. And once we realize something is wrong, then we're accountable, then we're guilty. So Paul says that all those sin abounded because of revelation of the law revealing righteous standards. Grace abounded much more. So then he asks, "Well, do we just continue sinning and grace will just continue abounding?" In other words, we intentionally violate the law intentionally so that grace may abound. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No way. So the law still tells us what sin is. It hasn't changed. It's still telling us right and wrong. It just explains to us what sin is. We are free from sin, but we are not free to sin
willfully. Huge difference. Yahushua came to set us free from the bondage of sin, from the condemnation that the law demanded. He didn't come to give us a license to live in sin. That's why Paul said, "Absolutely not. How can we who died to sin live any longer in it?" And since it's certainly not as a strongest possible way to express an objection in English here, I'm gonna go ahead and do the same in our English language. There we go, put it in bold, underline it, exclamation points, so you could probably add an infinite number of exclamation points here. And this is a good message for many Christians today. If you continue violating the law so grace may abound, absolutely not. Certainly not. They think that somehow grace caused the law to be abolished, and you don't have to do it anymore. Scripture says, "Certainly not." By definition, sin's a violation of the law. Should we continue violating the law? Absolutely not. So I wanna take a moment here. We got that clear. I wanna focus on this statement right here.
"We who died to sin." He's wondering how is it even
possible that the one who dies to sin discontinues in sin and lives in it. His statement is like an incredulous kind of a statement like "How shall we? How's it even possible?" In other words, you can't figure out some way that somebody could possibly who died to sin now start living in it.
Now what I'm about to teach is something you may never have fully grasped before, and I would actually say only a fairly small percentage of believers actually understand this doctrine and really put it into practical use. Some might understand it but don't put it to practical use. Some may not understand it at all. But remember, how I shared in an earlier segment how the prophets predicted we would receive righteousness though the Messiah Yahushua. There's something else also that we are predicted to receive. I want you to notice this very closely. Isaiah 45:23-25, it says, "I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return. That to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath. He shall say, surely in Yahweh, I have righteousness and strength." Both righteousness and strength. Two things. Two things predicted. Righteousness and strength. And we have to remember the strength part. The strength is the strength to walk as we ought to walk. And so it is through Messiah that we not only have righteousness imparted to us, he is also empowering us to walk in righteousness and by that he's giving us righteousness in two ways. He's giving us righteousness where we have failed to walk in righteousness in the past and he's also empowering us to walk in righteousness in the future. And so all these Scriptures that talk about the Messiah imparting righteousness to you, it's not just talking about the time that you used to be when you were a sinner. It's talking about right here, right now, today. Empowering you to walk in righteousness. And so these Scriptures it says, "No weapon formed against you shall prosper, every tongue that rises against you in judgement you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of Yahweh and their righteousness is of me," sayeth Yahweh. So Isaiah 53:6 "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all."
And we need to remember this. So our sin was laid on Him. His righteousness was given to us. But the only way that can happen is if we supernaturally become a part of Him. How else can I get there from here? How can our sin get to Him and how can His righteousness get to us unless somehow, some way, He receives us to himself and we become a part of Him so that our history becomes His history and His history becomes our history. And so that we become joined together into one body, His body. And that's what the new covenant is all about. It is this bringing us into a place where we are at one with Messiah. 1 Corinthians 11:23, "For I received from the Master that which I also deliver to you, that the Master Yahushua on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread: And when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, 'Take, eat: This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same manner, He took the cup after supper saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.'" Ephesians 5:30 says, "We are members of His
body, of His flesh, and of His bones." That's the new covenant, the cup of a new covenant. We're a part of Him now. We say that, but do we understand that?
We say that but do we understand. That's the new covenant. We partake of Yahushua's body and blood at Passover and we partake of Him at Passover, that's a sign that we're His body now. His body and blood are joined with us now, are a part of us now. We are made one with Him and one with Yahweh through Him, and that's what Yahushua prayed when he prayed for us specifically. He's actually praying for you and me right now, right here. He says John 17:20-23 says, "I do not pray for these alone," talking about his disciples there, "but also for those who will believe in me through their word," that's us, "that they all may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And the glory which you gave me, I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me." This oneness causes the world to know Yahweh has sent Yahushua and has loved us in the same way he loved his son, Yahushua. And so, if anyone is in Messiah, He is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. That's you. That's me. He is in us. We are in Him. You may or may not feel like it happened, but Scripture says it happens to all who believe by His Spirit. Acts 2:38-39, Peter said to them, "Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Yahushua Messiah for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off as many as Yahweh, our Mighty One, will call." Well, see, we, like the ones Yahushua prayed for, all, these ones who are afar off, and that promise is to us. What promise? The gift of the Holy Spirit. His promise to us who are afar off. And unless we have the Holy Spirit, we couldn't be saved. So the ones that Yahweh has called... None of us are able to be renewed to repentance actually, unless the Spirit has done some kind of work to call us into His kingdom. It would be impossible. You wouldn't even have a desire for righteousness in your life if the Holy Spirit had not called you into His kingdom because Scripture says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And He does that by His Spirit. And I will raise Him up at the last day." That should give you a reason to shout and jump and rejoice, that the Father in Heaven, the Creator of all things, the most powerful being in the universe looked at you and said, "I'm gonna save you.
I care about you. I love you. I'm gonna send my son to die for you. I'm gonna draw you to myself. I want to spend eternity with you." And since Scripture has declared all these things to be true, it is up to us to accept those things by faith, not according to how we feel inside or how the devil tries to knock us down a few notches, although a lot of people like myself, I know when I got baptized and I was prayed over, I'll never forget, I could not get the smile off my face. It was a Spiritual fruit of joy. And even to this day, you ever meet me in person and sit down and talk to me during a non-serious biblical conversation, you'll probably find out I just have a lot of sense of humor and I also enjoy life. I do, I love life. And a lot of us have... Who have believed are recipients of the Holy Spirit. That's the fruit of joy. And Scripture promises that if we repent and we believe in the Messiah Yahushua, accompanied with baptism, we receive this Holy Spirit in us. And the Holy Spirit is in the Messiah Yahushua. And the Messiah Yahushua dwells in us. And those all through him we have Yahweh's Holy Spirit. And Yahushua says, "Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice." Anyone hears my voice. You can only hear his voice if the Spirit draws you, if Yahweh draws you himself. "And opens the door. I will come into him and dine with him and he with me, and that's the beautiful Passover gathering. And so I ask you this question, "Do you believe this?" This is the beautiful, wonderful, marvelous, amazing details of what Yahushua has done for you and for me. This is how Yahweh is able to impart righteousness to you and to me. It's how Yahushua is able to take our sins upon himself and bear our iniquities through this union. This oneness we have with him. This connection that we have with him.
So do you believe the Scriptures that Yahushua lives in you and you are in him and that's why we are called the body of the Messiah to begin with? And if we're part of the body of the Messiah, that means he took on our sin when he died, and we took on his righteousness and that means that his history is our history. And our history, our sin, he took on himself as if it was his history, because we're joined with him. And that's why Scripture says, "I have been crucified," or impaled however you wanna translate it, "with Messiah. It is no longer I who live, but Messiah lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of Elohim who loved me and gave himself for me." What a beautiful Scripture. I love that. Yahushua's history is he was crucified and he's impaled. He took on our sins and bore them and because of our oneness with Messiah because we're a part of his body now, it's no longer we who live. We died with him and we are raised with him. It's Messiah who lives in us. And that's why it says in Colossians 3:3. "For you died." Do you believe that? You died and your life is hidden with Messiah and Elohim. When Messiah who is our life appears, he is our life now. Right? Then you also will appear with him in glory.
He's our life now. We're joined to him now. Do we believe that? To the extent that you do, that will be the extent to which you overcome. Don't you know your bodies are members of Messiah?
Shall he then take the members of Messiah and make the members of a harlot. Absolutely not. There it is again.
Or do you not know that he is joined to a harlot as one body with her for the two shall become one flesh? But he is joined to the master's one spirit.
So our bodies now are members, our bodies are members of Messiah.
We're now one spirit with him. We're joined to him and that's how our righteousness is of Yahweh. And that's how it is only through Yahweh we have any righteousness at all. In our flesh, there is no good thing. And for that reason, we need another body. The body of the Messiah. And so when the prophets predict here, about... In Yahweh we have righteousness and strength and only through Yahweh are we declared righteous, justified, and only through him that we can glory. This is all the details of how it happened. Only through him, do we have strength and that's why it says, "I can do all things through Messiah," who does what? "strengthens me." It's Messiah who does it.
It is so, so important that you and I understand this and get a hold of this and let it just become a part of who we are as an identity. Very, very important. Identity is powerful. Very powerful. Because what happens? If you decide you're gonna be a biker, while you get on a leather garb and get yourself a Harley-David motorcycle, you get your glasses on, you go down the road, you grow your beard out, and you know... And that's... Okay, you're a biker, that's the identity you decided to grasp, and so you do the things that are associated with that identity. Well, if Yahushua is your identity, you take on that identity, then you will do the things that caused you to take on that identity, the things that are associated with that identity.
Twenty-six years ago, I decided I'm gonna be a disciple of Yahushua, that's my identity. I was looking for an identity. I was a young man, 19 years old. I was looking for one. Thought I'd be a rock star for a while, that didn't work out, now what?
I wanted to be a disciple of Yahushua, that was my identity, that's who I wanted to be. And so the things I did followed that pattern. Identity is powerful, and what Yahushua is for you, He is for all of us, for me and for all of us. He is the one who now lives. We died. Our life is hid with Messiah and Elohim. Very important. And so with this understanding, it's pretty clear to me why Paul said what he said, "How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" We're dead to that. We're dead to those things. Yahushua didn't go through all the things He went through just so we could live in sin.
He did all the things He did so that we could be free from sin and the bondage that it had ahold of us, its power over us. And so when Paul asked the question, how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it... To live in sin is very different than, "Okay, you fail, you yield to temptation from time to time." You go to Messiah, you confess it, you pray, "Yahweh, I acknowledge I messed up, I failed, please forgive me. Cleanse me." He says, "If you confess your sins, He's faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness." But that's different than living in sin.
For a believer, sin's no longer a way of life. It's something we no longer practice because we're not enslaved to it. Now, occasionally, a man who's clean, he takes a shower, he'll get dirty, but that's different than living in a sewage pit. We don't live the life of the pig who after being washed goes back into the mud and just rolls around in it. We might slip and fall in the mud sometime, it doesn't mean we're living there. We get back up. It says a righteous man falls seven times a day but gets back up again, but the sinner lives in it and cares not. But we don't live in it, we don't live any longer
in it. That's not our place of residence. We died to it. And since you are dead to sin and we are dead to sin, that means that sin no longer has power over you. How can anything have a power over a dead man? He's dead. None of us should be of the belief that we're powerless against sin.
I don't care if it's an addiction, a habit, some sin that you have difficulty overcoming, you should never ever ever say to yourself, "Well, this has power over me. I'm enslaved to it." Don't ever say that.
It's not true. The Scripture says you're dead to it. You're dead to sin. That means it doesn't have power over you. That means you're free. That means our actions... See, our actions will follow our belief. If we think that we're enslaved to something, our actions will reflect that. If we don't believe it and by faith we declare that we are dead to it, that opens up the door for Yahweh to work effectively in us so that we are overcomers of it. Don't expect to be an overcomer when you think you're a slave to the sin, 'cause you're not. You're dead to it. You might say "Well, Tom, that's not how I've been operating." It's because you don't believe it. You don't believe you're dead to it. You believe this is who you are. It's a part of what you are. It's not a part of what you are, but your actions have followed your belief. And Romans Six is the inner workings of how we're overcomers. It's not often very well understood, but once we come to understand it, it's powerful. You see, willpower is not the secret to overcoming.
The secret to overcoming is faith in what He's done. The Book of Revelations says, they overcome him by sheer willpower? They overcome the devil by their strength and power that they just got to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and somehow figure it out some way to over... No, it says, they overcame him by two things: The blood of The Lamb and by the word of their testimony. The blood of The Lamb is what cleanses you from sin; the word of our testimony is what empowers us to overcome future sin.
And our testimony is that Yahushua lives in us. Our testimony is what Yahushua has done for us not only in cleansing us from our past sins, but also empowering us now to walk in righteousness. But you can't love your own life. You gotta love Yahweh. You can't hold on to your own life. You have to say, "My life is now hidden in Messiah."
Even to the point of death, if you already see yourselves as dead, well when the adversary threatens to kill your body, you're gonna be like, "Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm dead already." So the death of Yahushua the Messiah, our testimony is believing what he's done for us, our testimony is that we are dead to sin and we're members of Yahushua's body, we are one with Messiah, he died for our sins and sin can no longer have dominion over us.
Our testimony is, "I have been crucified with Messiah, it's no longer I who live, it's Messiah who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith. I live by faith. And by faith, I'm going to overcome whatever this is that's coming my way." The faith in the son of Elohim who loved me and gave himself for me. And that's why Romans says, "For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection." Knowing this, our old man was
crucified with him. But the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves of sin for he who has died has been freed from sin. Believe that? Do you believe that you died?
To the extent to which you believe that will be the extent to which you overcome.
The extent to which you believe that will be the extent to which you are able to overcome all sin. It's true. I know it works because it works for me. It does. Temptation comes my way, if I'm willing to fight it, if I'm willing to go against it and say, "I don't want no part of it," and I say, "In the name of Yahushua Ha Mashiach, I'm dead to that thing," whatever it is, it works 'cause I no longer associate with it. It's not a part of me any longer.
It's not a part of me any longer. That's not me. That's not me at all. That was the old man, that's not me. I don't associate with those things any more. That's not me. My identity is different. I'm not Adam any more. I'm not Adam. I am a believer in Yahushua Ha Mashiach, that's my identity.
Is that your identity?
Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Messiah Yahushua, we're baptized into his death. Therefore, we were, were, past tense, buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Messiah was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life.
Do we get this? Very important that we get this.
Yahushua says, according to baptism, he said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with.
And how distressed I am until it's accomplished." Talking about his death. It's what he came to do.
And so we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also should be in the likeness of the resurrection knowing our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be a slave to sin. Do you believe your body of sin is done away with, you're not a slave to sin any longer? To the extent that you believe that, you will overcome it. We're one with him. He took our sins and died because of them. And since it is no longer we who live but Messiah who lives in us, it is not possible for sin to have power over us. We can overcome them by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. And if you're willing to rise up in faith and declare that and believe that and operate in that, you will overcome whatever it is. Not by willpower, but by faith in what Yahushua has done for you. The same faith that you use to say, "Through Yahushua, I am forgiven for my sins," the same faith must be used to say, "By Yahushua I am dead to sin." By Yahushua, it's no longer I who live, Messiah lives in me. I am not a slave to sin. It does not have power over me, in Yahushua Ha Mashiach, I am dead to that. So when temptation comes knocking on your door, you say, "By faith, I'm dead to that." I'm dead to that sin, whatever it is. I don't care what it is. You can say you're dead to it because we don't have to live in that any longer. You don't have to live there. You're dead to it. And if we're crucified with Messiah and his history is our history, we can now say, "We're raised from the dead, and now we're a new creature walking in the newness of life." And the Scripture says, "If anyone's in Messiah, he is a new creation. All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. A new way of living like an old song. I found a new way of living. I found new life divine. I have prosperity, power, and victory abiding in the vine. It's just that those things are not often understood. And if you believe you're a new creation, a new creation does not live in sin. The new creation is Messiah Yahushua in you, he does not sin. And so we can overcome not by our willpower but by our belief if that's true. By our faith in the blood of the Lamb and faith in the testimony of what he's done for us, He has enabled us to be free from whatever that sin is and its hold us and we're dead to it. And that's why Paul says, "How can someone who's dead to sin live in it?" It just can't even be. It's like two opposite things. So when we're baptized, it's a sign that we are willing to be joined to the Messiah and let his history be our history and it's no longer we who live but the Messiah living in us, through that union of two becoming one, we died to sin when we are crucified with him. And he paid the penalty for our sin. Our sin was laid on him. His righteousness is laid on us. And just as Messiah's raised, we are raised.
For if we've been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly also the likeness of his resurrection. Our old man, crucified. Someone's crucified is dead, old man's dead. He's not someone that rises up every once in a while. Nothing like that. I don't buy that. He's dead. I don't wanna believe that. I give him an excuse, "Oh, he rises up every once in a while." No, he doesn't. He's dead, he's crucified. It's just you're not walking in faith. That's the problem. You're not walking by faith. And so let's add to our list here.
Through Adam, we were alive and enslaved to sin. Our Adam man was living in slavery, but in Yahushua
we're dead to it, and now we're alive unto Messiah. We are free from the old man. We were formerly joined with the body of Adam and all is yuck. All the yuck that's associated with it, but we died. And now, we're a part of the body of Messiah, and all the beauty that's associated with that. Yahushua's compared to a grain of wheat. The grain of wheat is buried in the ground and dies. He says it bears much fruit, and what happens is a new life rises up out of the ground and it bears even more seeds of life, that's us. That's what happens. So unbelievers are of the body of Adam and believers are of the body of Messiah. Body of Adam, sin and death and offenses and judgement and condemnation and death and all these things, slavery. But through the body of Messiah, righteousness, life, the gift of grace, justification, gift of righteousness. Many are made righteous, dead to sin, alive to Messiah, a part of his body.
Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. For he who has died is now freed from sin. We're no longer slaves, we're freed from sin.
We are those seeds that were brought forth and we are raised from the dead with him. And now even though we have sinned in our past, Yahweh still accepts us because the old man's dead. And just as he ascended to the heavenly places, waved up to Yahweh, we are ascended also to the heavenly places with him. Ephesians 2:4, "Elohim is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Messiah, by grace, you've been saved. And he raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places." In Messiah Yahushua, the things... This is why Yahweh can speak the things which are not as though as they are because it's as good as done. When he speaks to them, it's there, it's done, we accept it, by faith, it's true. We enter into the good news, we're saved by the faith of Messiah, and so we'll overcome by the faith of Messiah. The same faith that enables us to be saved also empowers us to overcome, whether you feel like it or not. This old body, I tell you what, it's got feelings and emotions or whatever. Let's put those feelings and emotions under the mastership and leadership of Messiah Yahushua, because now it's his members. And his members are gonna yield to his thoughts. And if we have faith, it should be just as easy for us to be released from sin's bondage as it is for us to be saved. Because the same faith functions to do both things. As we say, "If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you'll be filled." Yahushua said that. "If you hunger and thirst for righteous, you will be filled." That means you are now walking in repentance. You desire to walk in righteousness. And Yahushua now therefore because of what he has done for you, he'll fill you with righteousness where you lacked righteousness, and he will empower you to walk in righteousness where formerly you were unable to.
So when temptations come, you say, "Hey, in the name of Yahushua Messiah, Yahushua Ha Mashiach, I am dead to this. I am alive to Yahweh. It's no longer I who live. It is Yahushua who lives in me and he does not do these things." Say it out loud, if you have to.
And to the extent to which you believe will be the extent to which you overcome.
Now, if we die with Messiah, we believe we should also live with him, knowing the Messiah having been raised from the dead dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. And the life that he lives, he lives to Elohim. Likewise, you also, you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to Elohim and Messiah Yahushua, our master.
The same way Messiah died, a new life now lives to Elohim. You also say, "I died. I now live to Elohim." Reckon yourselves to be dead to sin. Why? Because it's true. Reckoning is not a struggle so much as it is just a faith. It's a belief. We say, "In the name of Yahushua. I am dead to that. I'm alive to Elohim. I'm alive to him and Yahushua Messiah, our Master. I'm alive to him. I'm dead to whatever that sin happens to be. I don't care what it is." And by faith, we overcome temptations. We have to be willing to fight. You have to hate sin and love Yahweh. You have to be willing to fight. You have to be willing to live a repentant lifestyle. We have to be willing to exercise our faith. Your faith has to have a realness to it.
'Cause faith without works is dead. It's nonexistent. Faith will produce righteous works and this is how faith produces righteous works even in the face of temptation.
And so your faith will produce works if you're willing to put your faith in what Messiah did for you. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to Elohim as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to Elohim. You ever play an instrument?
Well, your body's an instrument. You ever play the flute? Or the guitar? Or a piano? Or whatever? You get to decide. You get to decide what kind of things you do with that instrument, right? All the fleshly body you have is dead to sin. It's been freed. But now your body can be an effective instrument of righteousness because these are members of the Messiah. It can be used as an instrument for righteousness through this power that Messiah is living in you. And your eyes are instruments for the body. Your hands are instruments. And so when you use your instruments, make sure those instruments, the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the tongue, the hands, feet, everything are instruments that are being used for righteousness now.
Because you have yielded those instruments unto Yahweh by faith, saying, "My body's dead now. The only thing that's alive is whatever Messiah wants to do with this body." If you were presenting your instruments as unrighteousness, you would be presenting yourself as not being dead to sin. But if we are alive from the dead, then your members are instruments of righteousness. Why? Because you're now a part of the body of Messiah and sin does not have dominion over you.
For sin shall not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace. If you were under law, sin could have dominion over you because you'd be under condemnation. Law would condemn you. You wouldn't be having any grace in your life. You'd just be expected to live by this law and you would not survive its condemnation. But if you're under grace, sin doesn't have any power. You died already. What then? Shall we sin because we're not under law or under grace? What is that word again, put it in bold, add exclamation points, underline it. Absolutely not. Can I get any clearer than that? You don't violate the law because you're not under it. You don't break the law because you're not under it. The fact that you're under grace should be manifesting the power of Yahushua in your life. And he did not violate the law.
All makes sense, doesn't it? In a beautiful, beautiful, wonderful picture. I hope so. I hope it makes sense. If we were under the law, we'd be under condemnation. But if we're under grace, we are forgiven.
And just because you're not under the law doesn't mean you're above the law, either.
You can't just walk in willful sin, living in sin, because you're not under the law. You can't willfully violate anything the law tells you. To do so would be to sin. I don't care if the law's telling you to keep the Sabbath day, or to keep your body from unclean meats, or if it's telling you to observe a festival or whatever it's telling you, I believe it's true. For you to disregard those commandments would be to sin. Now you may not have realized it was sin, till now. Scripture says, sin is transgression of the law. The law says, "Do this," you say, "I don't want to." Then you're sinning. It's one plus one equals two. That easy. Nothing complicated about it. Then someone says, "Wow, I don't stone people." Those are commandments for sentencing guidelines for judges. You keep the laws of the United States without having to go and put someone to death, you have people in authority that judges and so on, that make those decisions. Same was true in Israel.
You can keep them laws in the United States and never, never put anybody into prison. Same way, you don't have to stone anybody if you keep Yahweh's laws. There were people in Israel that were appointed to do that. So my point is wherever you see sin that is
violation of the law, and we don't intentionally... He's making a connection between violating the law and not being under. See, he knows that. If you're not under law, does that mean you can break the law? Because grace will abound? No! Absolutely not. You don't just willfully sin because you're not under the law. The fact that you're under grace is what empowers you
to keep the law. So being under the law, being embodied to sin is essentially the same thing, because if we didn't have Messiah living in us, we could not... We would be worthy of death, right? We will be under condemnation. The law would determine we're guilty and deserving of judgement. But because we're joined to Messiah, he took our sin upon himself so that we died with him and that we are raised with him and it's no longer we who live, Messiah living in us. And since that's true, we have died to sin. And sin will not have dominion over us. Because we're not under it. We're not under the law. It can't condemn us. And nobody can claim, "Well, I can't overcome that sin. It's too hard." Wrong. Sin does not have dominion over you. Ding-ding-ding, sorry. Scripture says it. I believe it. That settles it. Now, if you're a part of the body of Adam, that might be true. But we're not part of the body of Adam anymore, we're part of the body of Messiah. And so by faith, we recognize this idea that we cannot overcome sin as a lie from the devil, taking us away from faith. So now, we can't have this excuse saying, "It's just too hard because Yahushua... If we believe the good news, we believe we're no longer a slave to it." If faith has saved us from sin, it will empower us to overcome it. And that's why the prophet said what they said.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. Do you believe that? Do you grasp this? I'm trying to repeat this thing. As the Torah says, teach them diligently to your children, teach them again and again and again. You're not my children, but I am teaching the Torah. So, I'm repeating these things so that you get this drilled in your head, so that you will be an overcomer.
And those who are Messiah's have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires.
If we live in the Spirit, let's also walk in the Spirit.
For by one spirit, we all were baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, or slaves, or free. It means all to drink into one spirit. It's Galatians 5:24 and 1 Corinthians 12:13. See, we live in the Spirit. The Spirit has enabled us to live and not die, therefore the Spirit enables us to walk in righteousness. Walking in the Spirit, walking in righteousness, and keeping Yahweh's commandments, it's all the same thing. No different. If any of you were raised with Messiah, seek those things which are above, Colossians 3:1. Where Messiah is sitting at the right hand of Elohim. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the Earth for you died and your life is hidden with Messiah and Elohim. Since this is true and since this is true, this is where you set your mind on heavenly things, not earthly things.
Do you believe this? That anyone's in Messiah, he's a new creation. Do you believe that? 2 Corinthians 5:17. If you believe it, there's not any temptation from the enemy that you can't overcome, because you are of Elohim. "Little children," 1 John 4:4, "and have overcome them because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." Do you believe this? To the extent that you believe and put your faith into action, you will overcome. Romans 6:16 says, "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you're that one's slaves to whom you obey. Whether of sin, as transgression of the law, leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness." You decide whose slave you're gonna be. Messiah's slave, a slave of righteousness or a slave of sin. "But Elohim be thanked that you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." See, we're on a slave
market. Yahushua bought us with his own blood. A slave has to do what his master tells him. We were enslaved to sin at one time, but no longer are we. He says you were, you were slaves of sin. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh talking about these things. So just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness, for when you were, were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is simply death. But now, having been set free from sin, all this past tense stuff... You've been set free, you've been redeemed, and you're now slaves of Elohim. You have your fruit to holiness in the everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death. That's where sin's gonna lead. That's where Adam went. But the gift, grace, gift of Elohim is eternal life in Messiah, Yahushua, our master. We're not slaves to sin. We're slaves of Elohim. Our fruit is now holiness. Our end is everlasting life. If we were enslaved to sin, our end would be death, right? 'Cause that's the wages of it. We were given a free gift, eternal life through Yahushua, our master. He says we have not so learned Messiah, talking about sins in the previous verses. If indeed you've heard him and been taught by him as the truth is in Yahushua, being heard, heard of him, and been taught by him, what? Have you heard? Have you been taught that you did already put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you may put on this new man, which was created according to Elohim and true righteousness and holiness. You believe this is what happened? He didn't say, "Hey, go put off the old man." He's
saying you've been taught by him that you did put off the old man. And so do not lie to one another since you've put off the old man with his deeds. Something already happened. Colossians 3:9.
And so I don't care if you're facing a temptation to fear, a temptation to lust, a temptation toward pride, a temptation toward anger, a temptation toward smoking cigarettes, or alcohol, or drugs, or anything. There isn't any sin that you're a slave to.
Scripture says so. Now, do you believe in the Scriptures? That's a matter of faith. That's your decision. See, we were once a part of the body of Adam that
caused sin to enter the world and death to enter the world, and death has spread to us who had sinned; but through Messiah, righteousness entered the world, life entered the world. Life is given to all who believe. And so by Adam and all of our association with him, we died. But our association now with Messiah, our oneness with Him, we are given grace and we are given life. And when we associate with Adam, we were judged and under condemnation, but we associate now with Messiah. We are one with him. We are given a free gift that results in our being declared righteous. And through Adam, we were under a death sentence and
death rained over us, had power over us, but we've been joined to Messiah and by Him we have a gift of righteousness reigning now and ruling over us. Through Adam, his one offense caused our condemnation, as we repeated that, Yahushua's one righteous act of giving his life for us caused us to be justified. By him, Adam, we we're called sinners. By Messiah, we are called righteous. By Adam, we're alive but we're enslaved to sin and our end is death. But Messiah, we are already dead to sin and now we're alive to Messiah. We were a part of the body of Adam and now we're part of the body of Messiah. So practical steps to overcome temptation.
Number one, you have to hate the sin and love Yahweh. If you love the sin, you're not gonna wanna fight against it. We have to have a relationship with Yahweh and love Yahweh, so when sin comes knocking we don't say, "Alright, here it comes." We say, "Oh, no, no, you don't." And we're gonna fight it. We're gonna see it as an enemy. We're gonna hate it. We're gonna see it for what it is, an enemy. And so here's some helpful tips to overcoming temptation. I don't claim perfection. I don't claim I've never made a mistake in the last two weeks. I have. I'm just telling you. This is where the power is, if we're willing to take on and put on Messiah. Number one, this usually works. This is it right here. This one right here, most of the time, it works. I reject that in the name of Yahushua Ha Mashiach. You can even say it before you go into Walmart, "I know there's sin in there. I reject it all right now, in Yahushua's name.
Every principality and power I bind up, you can't tempt me, you can't harm me. I hate sin. I don't want no part of it. I just want Messiah only in me. I reject all those things in Yahushua's name." If you have a problem with alcohol or whatever and you're driving by the old bar you used to go to, before you even go by, "I already reject it in Yahushua's name. I already reject it. I ain't gonna look at you." I'm telling you, this is powerful. That first step, it works numerous times. It works. Alright.
If it keeps wanting to rear its head at you or something and keep going, keep tempting you, here's something you can do. We're gonna rise up in faith. Now statement number one's already a summary of statement number two. But as a good reminder of who you are in Messiah and what Yahushua did for you, you're going to repeat back what Scripture has already said is true of you, and you're gonna believe it. You're gonna say, "I reject that in Yahushua's name for I am dead to that. I am dead to that.
In Yahushua, I am dead to that. That's not me. I believe in the good news of Yahushua. It's no longer I who live. It's Yahushua who lives in me and the life which I now live I live by faith in the son of Elohim who loved me and gave himself for me. He wouldn't do those things. That's not me." "I reject that in Yahushua's name.
I'm dead to that. It's not a part of me. It's not who I am. It's not my identity." Alright, temptation is still coming for some reason, step number three.
"I reject that specific sin, and you can actually use a Scripture to explain exactly why that particular sin is a sin, for it is written, for it is written this and it is written that. I reject that in the name of Yahushua Ha Mashiach. I am dead to that. I choose to believe in the good news of Yahushua. It's no longer I who live, it's Messiah who lives in me and life which I now live I live by faith in the son of Elohim who love me and gave Himself for me. I'm called to suffer. I'm called to suffer through these things and bear the marks of Messiah. Get behind me, Satan. Yahweh rebuked you for it is written." Whatever it might be, whatever Scripture condemns that particular temptation. I'm telling you this stuff works. I'm telling you it really does. Scripture says it does. What did Yahushua do? He got his sword out. Pulled the sword out of its sheath. It is written. The enemy always tried to attack his identity. If you're really the son of Elohim, then do this. But this is our identity. I choose to believe the identity that Yahweh has given me. Who I am in Messiah. There was an old man one time who was alive, he's dead to that stuff.
Enemy's still coming. Doesn't usually get to this step. Very rarely. But just cry out to Yahweh. "Yahweh, deliver me from my enemies!" And keep praying because the name of Yahweh is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10. Psalm 143:9, "Deliver me, O Yahweh, from my enemies. In you, I take shelter." Sometimes even in prayer of all places, the enemy is still trying talk to you. You keep praying. Here's an effective step right here I think. Number five, start praying for people who need to get saved. "Oh, I really pray for so and so. My lost son or lost daughter or my friend." I've really been hoping that person will come to salvation and as long as you keep praying for somebody else you think the devil's gonna wanna keep talking to you? Probably not. Start singing praises. Because this is what happens. 2 Chronicles 20:21-22. There was a king named Jehoshaphat. It says, when he consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to Yahweh. And who should praise the beauty of holiness and as they went out from before the army and were saying, "Praise Yahweh, for his mercy endures forever." Tell you what, this is a powerful thing to see.
Hallelujah. Ki L'Olam chasdo. So Hodu Yahweh ki tov ki L'Olam chasdo. So when they began to sing and praise, Yahweh sent ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, Mount Seir, and who came against Judah and they were defeated. Start praising Yahweh and the enemy can't stand that. That's why the unclean spirit departed from Saul. When David began praising Yahweh, he just didn't want anything to do with Saul at that point. And I've never known step five to ever have to go back beyond step five. So say with me and repeat after me, "By faith, I am free from the devil's power over me." Say with me and repeat after me, "By faith, I am free from the flesh. I am dead to sin. Sin has no power over this body." Say with me and repeat after me, "I am alive to Yahweh. I am dead to sin." We have that identity. And so this takes us back to some of the things I share in our previous segment. We examine parts, Romans Part Four and Five.
Life in Messiah is not so much walking around in fear that Yahweh's standing behind us with a big shepherd's rod ready to whip us at the slightest infraction. It's really, Yahweh is in front of us. He's leading us. He's guiding us. He's showing us the way. It's a love for Yahweh and a desire for a relationship with him that we pursue his steps. And if we're trying to live under the law, we'll never really have assurance of our life.
Condemnation's a very poor motivator. It only takes us away from the relationship. And builds walls in between us and Yahweh. But if we walk out from underneath the law and we receive the gift of grace, we'll not only be set free from condemnation, we'll also be empowered to walk in righteousness. We're not under the law in its condemnation, we have faith in Yahweh's acceptance of us. And that gives us the hope and propels us to good works, by faith. Because we love the Father, we fear doing something that would damage the relationship. We fear our Father being displeased with us because we just love Him so much. And so we accept His standing offer of love. If we can receive that love and forgiveness, it will compel us and propel us to love Him in return, because we don't want to hurt Him again. We want His forgiveness and we want His love for us to result in bearing good fruit for Him.
Faith in His love is what causes us to want to walk in love. Having faith in His love for us, believing Him when He says He offers forgiveness and causes us to realize there's hope for us. And His love for us compels us to want to love Him in return. And it's faith in what He's done through us, through Yahushua dying for our sins, it drives our faith in His love. And that same faith in what He's done for us is also going to empower us and give us strength, because of what He said He's done for you.
Do you believe what He's said He's done for you?
If you believe, you will be empowered by Messiah
Yahushua to do the good works and to overcome whatever temptation comes your way, through the power of His Spirit that dwells in you.
O Yahweh, Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, be Your awesome name. Your word is so amazing. Your promises are so amazing. We stand in awe of what You have done for us and we receive it. If there's any here who...
Somehow there's a... Heavens are like bronze and just can't seem to receive that what You said is for them, I pray that You would take down the barrier.
Destroy it, that the freedom of relationship, the freedom of Messiah might just flow out onto them and pour them, overwhelm them, with the anointing oil of your Spirit.
Let it be their identity does not come within, of the approval of men and what they say about us. Let our identity come through what You have said about us. What You have said You have done for us.
Yahweh, build up and strengthen Your body, the body of Messiah. Strengthen the body of Messiah to receive freely what You have said You are doing for us, that we might be those overcomers in the Book of Revelation, having overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Our testimony is Your word. The things that You have done for us.
For truly Yours is the kingdom and power and glory and majesty and all praise, honor, and worship belongs to You. Yahweh Eloheinu. Yahweh our Mighty One. Forever and ever. In Yahushua's great name, we pray all these things
and we believe. Amein