Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness Part 2 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue
Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness Part 2
Romans Part 2 from the Grace For Today TV program. In this episode, Pastor Lawson shares how he received a revelation of Grace. When you get ahold of Grace it will change your life too!
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The Romans Package contains the CD, USB, and Book versions of the series, Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness. If you have a revelation of righteousness, a revelation of what God has given you through Jesus, it will change your life. It will cause you to live the life you were created for! Package includes:
- Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness Book
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Romans Part 2 Transcript
Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you connected with us today. We are sharing on Romans chapter two. I’m gonna be talking about the revelation of grace and how I received the revelation of grace. It wasn’t until I’d been pastoring for six years, that I got a revelation of grace, but it completely changed my life. And if you get ahold of this in this program, God Is No Respecter of Persons, it’ll change your life, just like it did mine. Blessings.
I’m so glad that you’re here today, friends. I’ve got my son, Aaron, and we are sharing on Romans, the revelation of righteousness. And we began yesterday in Romans chapter one, where Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation, to everyone who believes it, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, according as it is written: the just shall live by faith.” Did you know if you have no revelation of righteousness, you have no revelation of the gospel? And if you have no revelation of righteousness, you don’t really know how to live the justified life. And so praise God, when you begin to understand that you are the righteousness of God in Christ, it will revolutionize the way that you live your life. And we’re moving right on down into Romans chapter one, verse 21. I ask if Aaron would share. We’ve briefly shared on this yesterday, but I ask him if he would take off here and share a little bit. It’s talking about the world and the Gentile need for righteousness. And so just take off there in Romans 1:21.
Yeah, it says, “Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man in birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.” So sounds like some, how the world is working out today.
Yeah. And so in verse 21, it says they knew God. Basically, Paul is saying in verse 19 and 20, that everybody, every created being knows there’s a creator. And he says in verse 21, when they knew God, if they do not glorify God for being God, and they’re not thankful. So the first thing we need to do, that’s a unholy progression. Is we need to glorify God for being God. And when we begin to glorify him, one thing we can do that really glorifies God is be thankful. And when they were unthankful, they became vain in their heart, and it was darkened. Their imaginations went into a negative thing. Now, most of the time in the Bible, the word imagination uses negative, like it is right here in this context. But, if you’ll glorify God for being God, if you’ll be a thankful person, you can have good, positive imaginations and that will bring light and understanding to your heart. So you can use this negatively or use this positively. And basically, it’s what do you do with the gospel? What are you doing with Jesus? Now, he’s talking about the Gentile need for righteousness and how they were unrighteous. And it says in verse 22, “They professed themselves to be wise, but they became fools.” That’s like the world today. They have philosophies. They’ve developed whole ways of thinking and teaching that are completely ungodly. And, for instance, the doctrine, the philosophy of evolution. There is no fossil record whatsoever. Evolution is a lie. It is not true.
Yeah, there’s a lot of, just a lot lies out there today. And I was just thinking about when Paul wrote this, I don’t know the exact year that Paul wrote this epistle to the Romans, but my wife and I, when we got married three years ago, we went on a honeymoon to Rome and we went to Rome and then to the Amalfi coast and the last day we went to Naples and on the way from Amalfi to Naples, we stopped by Pompeii, which is where Mount Vesuvius erupted. I think it was around 70 A.D., around the time that Paul wrote this and just walking around the streets of Pompeii, you know, it was preserved under volcanic ash. So you just see exactly what the Roman empire was like during Paul’s time. It was a very ungodly place. There were brothels everywhere. There are actually male genitalia carved into the sidewalks, pointing in the direction of the brothels. It was very ungodly. We live in a very ungodly time today. The year 2022 is a very ungodly year, but there’s nothing new under the sun. You know, the disciples asked Jesus what it would be like in the last days and he said it’d be as the days of Noah.
Yes, and when you look at this, look at what he says. The same exact thing that was happening in Rome that you just explained.
[Aaron] Yeah.
“They professed themselves to be wise, became fools. They changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image.” Philosophy and then idolatry, right? “Like corruptible man to birds, four-footed beasts, creeping things.” Verse 24. This just explains what you said that you saw in Pompeii that happened in those Roman times. “Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanliness through the lust of their own body, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.” He goes on and explains what this would be, “Men working with men, that which is unseemly.” So, he talks about these sins that we see today, right, that they’re trying to flaunt themselves. They’re trying to say, “This is natural. This is normal.” It’s not natural. It’s not normal. He basically says it right here. So philosophy, idolatry, lust, all kinds of sin and ungodliness.
Well even Paul, when he was in Ephesus, they hated him in Ephesus because one of the ancient wonders was there is the temple to Diana.
[Pastor Lawson] Right.
Or Athena. And they had temple prostitutes there because she was a god of fertility, a goddess of fertility. And they wanted to keep it–
Idolatry and lust.
Yeah. It goes hand in hand, so.
It fits right here. And the sin of the world, he says, “They change.” He goes on to say this in verse 25. “The truth of God into a lie and worshipped the created being more than the creator, who is blessed forever.” You know, if it feels good, do it. That’s a worldly philosophy. That’s a worldly idea. That is worshipping yourself rather than worshipping God. He says that “More than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen.” And then he says in verse 26, “For this cause, God gave them up to vile afflictions, affections, for their women even did change their natural use into that, which is against nature.” This is against nature. It’s not natural. It’s not normal. It’s not from God. Anybody that believes anything else doesn’t believe the truth. And he says, “And likewise, the men leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another; men working with men, that which is unseemly.” It’s not right. It’s not proper. “And receiving in themselves a repayment of their error, which was sufficient.” So I personally don’t believe they’re ever gonna find a cure for that kind of sin and the results of it. He says, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” They tried to reject God and his knowledge. “God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” There’s people that have a reprobate mind. They’re going their own way, “to do those things which are not convenient.” Not normal, not natural, not convenient. “Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness.” That’s hatred. “Full of envy.” We love people, right? God loves sinners, right? He loves people that are caught up in all kinds of sin, no matter what it is. He says, but they’re “full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, death whisperers.” Now here, we get into church. “Whisperers, backbiters, haters of God.” Don’t be a whisperer. Don’t be a backbiter. “Despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to their parents.” Rebellious. We see that in the world today. And he talks about all these kinds of sin. This is, he said, “Listen, this is the world’s problem. They’re caught up in philosophy, idolatry, lust, all kinds of ungodliness.” We call it sin. What is sin? Sin is overstepping God’s law. Sin is missing the mark. They’ve definitely missed the mark. He says, “Without understanding covenant breakers, without natural affection, hard-hearted, implacable, unmerciful.” God wants us to be merciful, right? “Who knowing the judgment of God and they who are commit such things are worthy of death.” The wages of sin is death. He says that plainly in Romans chapter three. And he says, “Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they commit such things are worthy of death.” Not only they do them saying, but have pleasure. They’re just living like that and saying, “This is the way we go. This is how it is.” Well, it’s not how it is. It’s not the truth. It’s a lie. So we’ve gotta go by the word. You know, Jesus said this in John 17, verse 17. He said, “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” But it’s not only the Gentiles that have a sin problem. In Romans chapter two, he begins to talk about the Jews, or religious people. There are people in the, I’ve seen some church people, you know what, they make the world look nice. The church I grew up in, they were meaner than snakes, some of those religious people. And I don’t want to be that way. And one of my good friends said this years ago. He said, “In the world, they’ll beat you up, stab you in the back, and run over you.” He says, “In the church, they’ll beat you up, stab you in the back, run over you, and then say, ‘God told me to do it.'” Well, God didn’t tell you to do that. And so we’ve gotta learn how to forgive, learn how to love, learn, and walk by what the fruit of the spirit, and let God lead us. You know, we’re to love the unlovely, we’re to love sinners, He says, now he goes on, begins to talk about this problem in the church or in religious people. In Romans two, verse one, he says, “Therefore, you are inexcusable.” Oh man, whoever you are that judge, for wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself, for what you judge, don’t you do the same things?” You know, the Bible says, if we offend the law, wherein one point we’re guilty of it all. And we’ve all broken God’s law. We’re all law breakers. People don’t realize this, but I’m breaking the law right now. I’m wearing a shirt that’s made out, what, polyester and cotton. In the Bible, you couldn’t have a garment that was made out more than, if you’re gonna follow God’s law perfectly, one type of material. In other words, see it says only purity will stand before God, absolute purity. It’s talking, it’s an outward thing, but he’s really talking about inward things. He says in verse two, Romans two, verse two, “We’re sure that the judgment of God, according to the truth, is against those who commit such thing. And don’t you think this, oh man, you who judge those who do such things and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his goodness in forbearance and long suffering, knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” The goodness of God will cause you to turn away from sin. The goodness of God will cause you to believe on Jesus. He is the goodness of God. But he says, “After your hard and impenitent heart, you treasure up wrath against the day of wrath.” And he’s talking to religious people here. He’s not talking to worldly sinners. He’s talking to religious people, he’s talking to church people, he’s talking to people who claim to have faith in God. He said, “Against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” And then in verse six through verse 10, he really talks about the fruit of our faith. And a lot of people mix this up because they think it’s, this is talking about, you know, you do these things and God will accept you. But he’s saying, no, because you believe, you’re gonna have fruit and what you believe changes what you do. And so he says, “To those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality, eternal life. But to those who are contentious and don’t obey the truth, obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish on every soul man that does evil, to the Jew first and also the Gentile.” So he says basically, the fruit that you have is a result of what you believe. And if you believe on Jesus, you’re gonna have good fruit. You can’t separate this. See, if you take those scriptures out of context of what’s being said, you could make a total doctrine that’s completely different than the scriptures. But a text without a context is a pretext. You have to keep the scripture in context to understand what he’s saying. And the context of Romans is saying that there’s one way to receive right standing with God. And what is that?
Believing on Jesus.
Believing on Jesus. And when you believe on Jesus, what happens?
You’re made righteous.
You’re made righteous. It’s not something you did. It’s something you’re made. Now, we do it. What we do changes as a result of believing. And that’s what he says in verse 10. He says, “Glory and honor and peace to every man who works good.” When you believe on Jesus, you’ll be made righteous. And as a righteous person, do you know what? You’ll have righteous works. So righteous works are a result of who we believe and what we believe. But, righteous works do not lead to the righteous life. However, the righteous life leads to righteous works or righteous actions. So, the only way you can receive the righteous life, the life of Jesus, is by faith. But when you put faith in Jesus, it changes what you do. He says, “Glory, honor, peace to every man who works good, to the Jew first, also the Gentile.” Doesn’t matter whether you’re Jew or Gentile, when you believe on Jesus, you’re made righteous. For he says, “There is no respect of persons with God.” God is not a respecter of persons. He’s a respecter of?
Faith.
Faith. And how can you tell if somebody has faith?
Tell me.
By what they believe.
Yeah. By what they say. And then what they say affects what they do. When you believe Jesus, Jesus comes, takes up residence in your heart, you renew your mind and you begin to live differently.
Amen.
So, faith has works. A faith without works is dead, being alone. So, we have to have works. And that’s what he’s really talking about. But here, he’s talking about, he goes on and begins to talk about the Gentile need for righteousness. And they’re caught up in sin and ungodliness and they need righteousness. And so we’re gonna be back in just a few seconds. So stay with, and we’ll talk about again, the church’s challenge, and I’ve grown up seeing this. I grew up in a very religious church before I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and understood who I was in Christ. And that changed my life. Amen.
Awesome.
Praise the Lord. Friends, I’ve been teaching from my series on Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness. Romans is actually my favorite book of the Bible. And I teach this class. I’ve been teaching it for years at Charis Bible College in Woodland Park with Andrew Womack. And so I’m teaching about the gospel is the revelation of righteousness. You want to get ahold of this. I have a book on it. I also have a four CD mini teaching on it and then most recently we’ve done the 16 teaching USB that you can get just as we’ve been teaching it here on television. And so, you want to get ahold of this revelation. If you get ahold of this revelation, it will change your life. So, Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness. Thanks so much for being with us today. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy this great teaching and you’ll want to share it with your friends. Blessings. We appreciate you. Praise the Lord and we’re back. And so I’m asking my son, Aaron, if he’ll begin reading in Romans chapter two, verse 12. and we’ll read on down through verse 16.
So it says, “For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do the things in the law, these although not having the law are a law unto themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness in between themselves, their thoughts accusing or else excusing them in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.”
So what he’s saying is when you believe on Jesus, it changes your heart. And when your heart changes, what you do changes. So righteous works are a result of the righteous life. However, the righteous life is not a result of righteous works. And that’s what he’s trying to say here. And so you’ve gotta believe Jesus and receive the righteous life of Jesus. And when you do that, it changes your life. And again, then here in verse 17, through the end of the chapter, he continues to talk about this problem in the religious world, the church world. Right? And so not only he says in Roman’s chapter one, that the Gentiles or the world needs Jesus, right? They need righteousness; they need Jesus. And the only way to get righteous is believe Jesus. He says in Romans two, the church or religious people, Jews, right, need Jesus. And the only way you get it is by faith. So read verse 17, Aaron, through verse 23.
“Indeed, you are called a Jew and rest on the law and make your boast in God and know his will and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law and are confident that yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law. You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, do not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through the breaking of the law?
Now verse 23 to me is the key verse of Romans chapter two. And what he is saying essentially right here is if you break the law, you dishonor God. And you may boast, make your boast as religious person in the word of God, right, but you break the law. And everybody has broken God’s law, Everybody has sinned. And really James 2:10 again says, “If you offend the law in one point, you’re guilty of the whole thing.” And so it doesn’t matter how much that you break God’s law. It doesn’t matter. And this is when I got a revelation of grace. I actually was saved when I was eight years old in 1972. And I was saved in the French church in Penrose, Colorado. And then I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, in a Bible study that Andrew Womack was teaching in Lamar, Colorado in 1978. And that’s when I began to get a revelation of, you know, that I am the righteousness of God in Christ. And when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, who I was in Christ, but it wasn’t until 1994, ’til I was 30 years old. So I was saved when I was eight. It wasn’t ’til I was 30, that I got a revelation of grace. And the way I got a revelation of grace, Andrew Womack was preaching in our church I’d been pastoring for that point at, for six years in Kit Carson, Colorado, and Andrew Womack came and he said, “It doesn’t matter how much you break God’s law. It’s like a plate glass window. It doesn’t matter whether you shot a BB through it or drove a Mack truck through it, the fact is that you’ve broken it. And the only way that you can make it perfect is you have to replace it.” And so we’ve all broken God’s law and that’s what he’s saying here. He said, you say a man shouldn’t steal, but do you steal? You say a man shouldn’t commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? You say a man shouldn’t worship idols, but do you commit sacrilege? And so he said, you’ve all broken God’s law. Like I said, the Bible says that if you sow your field with mixed seed, you’ve broken the law. You couldn’t soak, you know. And we do that, you know, people grow different kinds of feed when they’re growing feed and they put different kinds in there and you can’t do that. You can’t mingle the seed; God said it has to be pure. So, for instance, let’s take that and put it in Colorado Springs. We bought a foreclosure and most of the grass was dead. And I told my landscape guy, I said, “Hey, I’m gonna get this back.” So what I did to do that was we just, you know, we started watering it. A lot of it came back and then we took the bare areas and we just sewed seed into ’em. And I’ve got at least six different kinds of grass, probably more than that growing in my yard. And this mixed grass does better than pure grass, but it wouldn’t even matter if I plowed it all up and took it all out and sterilized the ground and then let it come back and plant it only one kind of seed. Some bird would fly over and he’d been eating somebody else’s yard, or sit in my yard and scatter a little other seed from somebody else’s yard and, you know, I would have different grass growing in my yard in a little bit. But it’s impossible to keep the law. God didn’t make the law so you could keep it. He made it to show you that you can’t keep it, that you’re a law breaker and that you need Jesus.
This kind of reminds me of what Jesus was saying in the Sermon on the Mount.
Absolutely.
You know, Matthew five, six, and seven. Jesus gave I think six examples from the law where if you’re keeping these examples, “Well, I’m not, I’ve never murdered anyone, so I’ve kept that part of the law.”
[Pastor Lawson] But you call your brother a fool.
Yeah, and what Jesus was saying, he gives several examples from the law that even if you’re keeping it, it doesn’t make you righteous. Just following what the law says to do can’t make you righteous. God’s after your heart and you could be not murdering, but still want to murder someone.
Or you call your brother a fool.
Yeah.
You’re in danger of the hellfire.
Or he said, you know, people say to love your neighbor and hate your enemies. It actually doesn’t say to hate, you know, you can hate your enemies in the law; they would add that to it. So they said, well, I’m just gonna love my neighbor and hate my enemies and I’m still keeping the law and Jesus said, no, you’re missing the point.
You gotta love your enemy.
Yeah.
Bless those who persecute you. Pray for those who despitefully use you. Perfect.
Yeah, in the Sermon on the Mount, some people again, kind of get it out of context and they think, well, Christ is making the law, adding to the law. But he wasn’t adding to the law. He was showing people that you can’t be righteous by following the law.
Yeah, and so he nails it down in verse 23. He says, “You make your boast in the law, but through breaking the law, you dishonor God.” And everybody has broken God’s law. He says, “For the name of God is blaspheme among the Gentiles through you, for circumcision verily profits if you keep the law. But if you be a breaker of the law, your circumcisions made uncircumcised.” So he says, you’re no better than the people that don’t have a covenant with God. “Therefore, if the uncircumcision keeps the righteousness of the law, shall his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not circumcision, which is by nature, fulfill the law? Judge you, who by letter and circumcision, do transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is won inwardly.” On Romans two, verse 29. “And circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter whose praise is not of men, but of God.” What he’s saying is it’s your spiritual condition that counts. And so, when we begin to understand the gospel, it’s not the physical man, it’s not the outward man. It’s the inward man that counts. And you know what, when you really believe on Jesus, it changes who you are in the spirit. And as you renew your mind to that, guess what? You’ll start living better accidentally than you did on purpose before. You know, I live better accidentally than I did before I understood the grace of God. So thank God for the grace of God. Thank God for Jesus. Thank God the gospel has changed our life when we believed on Jesus. Aaron, go ahead and share something here with the folks.
Yeah, well, I think when he’s talking about circumcision here, he’s talking about a sign of righteousness, but God’s not so much concerned about the sign of righteousness. He’s concerned if you’re really righteous or not. I kind of equate this to like having a degree. I have a Doctorate in music from Rice University and in my office at home, I have my diploma hanging up with the seal and it says, “Aaron Purdue is a Doctor of Music.” And some people are very concerned about those signs or those seals, those signals, but it’s really, that doesn’t really matter. It’s the process of learning. It’s the, with God, it doesn’t. The signs of your righteousness, the signs of your relationship with God, don’t matter so much as your heart and the process of what Jesus has done for you. That that’s what really matters.
Amen. And when you believe on Jesus, you are made the righteousness of God in Christ and he changes your life. Praise God. So we’re not boasting in religious rules or regulations. He says later in Romans 14:17, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy ghost.” We’re boasting and rejoicing in Jesus. If you need prayer, if you want product, if you want to become a partner, give us a call. Thank you for tuning in. We’ll be back tomorrow at the same time. God bless you.
[Narrator] Jesus is the answer for every need that the world faces today. In this package containing Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness CD, USB, and book, you’ll learn how to receive righteousness and what happens when you do. You can get this special package for $49 when you call 719-418-4000 or visit charischristiancenter.com.
Friends, I certainly hope that you’ve enjoyed the program today and it’s ministering to you to move into that which God has for you. And I want to say a great big thank you to all of our partners for helping us share this gospel across the United States and across the world. It’s because of our partners that we can take this message of grace and faith around the world. If you would like to join our partners and receive that blessing, give us a call today. Blessings.
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