Announcement: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Waking Up to Grace podcast, where we celebrate and explore the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Tune in to the Waking Up to Grace podcast on every major platform. You can also listen to our episodes and read our full transcripts at wakinguptogracecom. And now here's Lenny.

Lenny: 0:22

How does God see you right now? How would Paul the Apostle see you right now? How do you see you right now in your relationship with God? Are you a sinner or a saint? The answer to all of these questions should be the same, and Paul wanted the recipients of his letters to know this important fact. In the opening lines of Romans, paul reminds these Christians of his identity as an apostle of Christ and their identity as believers in Christ.

Lenny: 0:54

Let's read our Romans passages to start off this episode. Romans, chapter 1, verses 1-7. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the holy scriptures concerning his son, who is descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ, our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith, for the sake of his name, among all the nations, including you, who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lenny: 1:44

If you keep up with my podcast, you might remember me saying that we would be moving on from the first seven passages of Paul's letter to the Romans. Well, it looks like God had something different in mind for me. A few days after I said that, it came to my realization that I missed a major topic. Paul wrote this as well as other letters to the saints. This is no small detail to be aware of, so I had to talk about it.

Lenny: 2:09

Some people feel a little funny using the word saint to describe themselves or others. I would imagine this mostly comes from the Catholic usage of the word. The Catholic religion has turned the status of saint into an achievement, an achievement that is always going to be far out of your reach. You have to be legendary to get this title. Protestant religion is not much better here. The identity most carry in the Protestant religion is sinner saved by grace. When we read scripture for ourselves, though, we find something very peculiar.

Lenny: 2:42

Paul refers to everyone who believes as saints, even those who are struggling with sin in their lives, even those struggling with false doctrine. To Paul, anyone who has believed and received Christ has been awarded the title of saint, the identity of saint. I think that's all the more reason to use it in its proper context. When you believed in Jesus at salvation, you became a saint. That means you no longer identify as sinner to the Lord of Lords, and it's how he sees us that really matters. It's not what we hear out there in religion that actually defines us. By definition, a saint is a person who is holy to God.

Lenny: 3:22

We see the term used in the Old Testament to describe the faithful as well. It was never used to describe the unfaithful of Israel. This is a major clue about the remnant of Israel that served by faith. Not all of nation Israel were considered saints. It was only those who believed in the Lord by faith. In the ESV Bible translation, the term saint is used about 21 times in the Old Testament, which represents the first three quarters of our Bible. In the New Testament ESV translation, we see the term saint 61 times. Proportionally, the term saint is used about 75% of the time in the last 25% of our Bibles.

Lenny: 4:03

All who receive Christ by faith are now called saints or God's holy people. What was once a remnant of nation Israel has become every person in the body of Christ. Think about that for a minute. The biggest problem we face today is that our identity has been hidden away by bad doctrine and nobody's really looking for the truth. They're looking to be fed by what we see as the professionals of our day, not the Holy Spirit who was given to us for counseling. It seems there will always be a remnant. The remnant of our day are those who actually understand the grace they've been given and thus can live a life guided by that grace.

Lenny: 4:42

The idea that you are a saint can sound really confusing at first. If you're new to the concept, you might say I'm certainly not a saint. I still struggle with sin in my life. But when your heavenly father tells you who you are, are you going to argue with him? It's not as if God Most High has somehow become blind to your behavior. It's that he has changed who you are. You can now say that you're a saint who struggles with sin at times. But knowing you are a saint tells you that you have a much higher calling than a sinner. There's something about you that's very different. Sin no longer makes sense to a saint. Sin no longer benefits a saint. Sin is going to trouble a saint and cause problems in their lives. A saint can still sin, but they have a new master and a renewed mind.

Lenny: 5:30

When we were regenerated at salvation, we saw sin the way God sees it. We can't unsee that. We can try to ignore it, but we can't unsee it, and the Spirit of God will bring these things to our remembrance. Yahweh has set us free from the bondage of sin. Each and every one of us has racked up more sin debt than we could ever pay back to our Most Holy God. He wiped all that out for you at the cross and promised to stop counting sin against you any longer. As Paul described in 2 Corinthians 5.19,. He even killed your old self and made you a whole new creation, according to Romans 6.6 and 2 Corinthians 5.17.

Lenny: 6:11

So, now that our slate is clean, shall we continue to sin? Paul asks this same question for the sake of the saints in Rome. What then, are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you, who were once slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. That's Romans, chapter 6, verses 15 through 18. In Paul's analogy, we were slaves to our sin and are now slaves to Yahweh. Yahweh set us free so we can serve him. We cannot serve our Lord without being free from our old master, sin.

Lenny: 7:07

Interestingly, paul uses the word obedience here, just as he did in our first seven verses of Romans, describing the obedience of faith, and the context is no different. In verse 17, we read but thanks be to God that you, who were once slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. This obedience from the heart is representing the obedience of faith that was given to us at salvation, that initial renewal of our minds that opened our eyes and allowed us to see sin how God sees it. Do you understand what a blessing this is? The law allowed Israel to see the holiness of Yahweh, but kept them in a state of bondage to their sin, according to Galatians 3.22. They were not set free from sin. The law was a constant reminder of that, according to Hebrews 10.3. Were the Gentiles who didn't have the law in any better position? About the Gentiles, paul writes remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Ephesians, chapter 2. I would say they were in no better position. What a blessing to see sin how God sees it, and what a blessing to see ourselves how God sees us.

Lenny: 8:27

When I first realized just how right with God I was, I thought being called a saint was just about the coolest thing ever. Prior to this realization, the thought of ever being a saint seemed about as close as the Gentiles were to God before Christ. I mean, how does one earn such a status? We don't. That's the beauty of it all. Christ Yeshua earned it for us. About this, paul wrote to the Corinthians or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6.19.

Lenny: 9:08

Sexual immorality was a problem in Corinth. Despite this major issue, paul was confident that the Lord was working in these people. They were regarded as saints. Paul's rebuke to them shows us another part of the analogy of being slaves to the Lord. We were bought at a price, paul writes. We were set free by the sacrifice of Christ. Our body is now a temple of his spirit. This is no small thing. Think about the old covenant. Think about how holy the temple of God was. The high priests had to go through great measures to prepare themselves to go into that inner room called the Holy of Holies. If anything wasn't right, they would just drop dead. We're free from all that. We have the Spirit living in us now, but think about the significance of your body being as holy as the temple of God was to Israel. This works two ways. You're holy to God now, and anyone messing with your temple is messing with God. According to 1 Corinthians 3.17, those who are killing Christians in other countries are essentially killing Christ over and over, to their own destruction, not his.

Lenny: 10:19

It is critical that we see ourselves as saints in order to understand just how holy we are when we disregard ourselves as holy, and let to understand just how holy we are when we disregard ourselves as holy and let sin reign in our members. How do you think this will go for us? You are so incredibly holy now that sin is just not going to be compatible with you. When we use our holy bodies to sin, we're going to have trouble. The pieces just don't fit together the way they seemed to before. This is the defense mechanism that we were given at salvation. Sin is like a virus to us now. What used to come so naturally no longer comes so naturally to us Even despite how easy it can be to fall into. The Holy Spirit is now acting as our immune system. We can sin as much as we want. It's going to make us sick. We're not going to be well.

Lenny: 11:08

The law did not help Israel overcome sin as a whole. They would always default back to unfaithfulness. Yahweh desired faith all along. He can see the heart of man, according to 1 Samuel 16.7. Rather than obsessing about our sin, our Heavenly Father gave us a much better focus His Son. This was actually supposed to be the focus all along, but instead of humbling the people of Yahweh, the law created pride and unfaithfulness in the masses. God took that stumbling block out of the way for us at the cross and wiped it out at the parousia in AD 70.

Lenny: 11:47

Paul told the saints in Rome be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Romans, chapter 12. It's that mind renewal that we received at salvation. Christ Yeshua paid the price and we need him. He's counseling us now by his spirit that's living in us. So how do we keep focused on that? That's going to be different for everyone. We're free, so we have to call on the counselor for help with that.

Lenny: 12:13

Discipline in this life is not automated. It doesn't happen all on its own, and the knowledge we receive at salvation will only sustain us if we are guided by it. We are the temple of God now and we were made to live by grace and worship Yahweh. He is not laying out rules and regulations for you anymore. You are free of that, but you cannot change for you anymore. You are free of that, but you cannot change who you are. You are holy now and living like it is the key to peace in your life and the key to waking up to grace. Discipline is good. We need structure in our lives. That's the way we're designed. We don't need 613 commandments to worship our Lord. We need desire.

Lenny: 12:51

When you desire something, what do you do? You find a way to make it happen, don't you? When you're lost and in need of direction, what do you do? If you had a counselor, you'd go to them, right? Well, we do have a counselor. God may also lead us to people who we can confide in and work through them to help us spiritually. The Spirit must help us discern these things. If something great happens in your life, what do you do? You want to express that joy with others? Right, and we should also be considering giving thanks to our Lord who made it all possible. The apostles go as far as to be thankful for suffering because they knew that God used that for their good. I think it is extremely gratifying to look for what God is doing in our lives and the lives of others through times of suffering.

Lenny: 13:35

I want you guys to be well aware that I don't promote being free in Christ as a means of having no desire to live a holy life. Just the opposite we are free to serve and worship our Lord in all kinds of ways. There's nothing holding us back. We can take things much deeper than they do out there in religion, because those systems don't create a sincere heart, we can let the spirit of god lead us all throughout our lives. We don't have to go to church to be holy to god. We are the temple. Those buildings are worth nothing if the things taking place inside of them aren't guiding us by grace or providing a means of true spiritual growth.

Lenny: 14:16

You can't learn the deeper things about grace from a teacher who has one foot out the door all the time telling you to get right with God, and you're out of fellowship with God if you don't do this or you do that. That's cognitive dissonance, not grace. If you listen to my podcast regularly, you already know that people teaching Christians that they can be in and out of fellowship with God is something that I speak out against regularly. I never really let it go when the topic comes up in conversation. There seems to be a mechanism in me that takes over my body and causes me to correct the teaching. It's uncontrollable. If you hold to the concept of being in and out of fellowship with the Lord, you're going to find yourself in and out of fellowship with my podcast.

Lenny: 14:56

The gospel of grace brought us into a perfect fellowship with God Not each other, but God. Anyone that tells you different is selling you something and putting you into bondage, no matter how pretty it looks on the surface. No matter how pretty it looks on the surface. That's just not grace and it doesn't set you free. Those who teach those things make themselves hypocrites before the church.

Lenny: 15:21

I really want you to notice something about Paul's letter to the Romans as we go through each verse throughout our study. I want you to carefully recognize that Paul never once tells a Christian that they are out of fellowship with God. Recognize that Paul never once tells a Christian that they are out of fellowship with God. That's because the whole purpose of his gospel was to bring us into an unbreakable fellowship with Yahweh. Paul's ministry was the ministry of reconciliation, not the ministry of self-cleansing. That's something that was made up along the way by religion. We're supposed to believe that 1 John 1-9 was written as Christian instruction, when it was actually written about the Christ-rejecting Pharisees.

Lenny: 15:57

Sadly, most today superimpose a wrong view of fellowship with God onto all of Scripture due to this one passage the Gospel of Christ Yeshua has brought those who believe into a perfect fellowship with the Lord. That's the difference between the Old and the New Covenant. When we try to carry over views from the Old Covenant into the New One, we run into issues. If you want to find the teaching of how to stay in fellowship with the Lord in Paul's writings, you'll have to put that in there yourself. Being in fellowship with God is the place where a saint resides and never leaves. God doesn't turn away from the saints. Yahweh never turns his back on his precious children. It is when we fall into sin that we might need him the most. He may seem far away when we're closing our eyes, but he's always right there in your temple. The God of the New Covenant is the God of the Old Covenant. Yahweh has been the same all along. It's those who believe in him that have been changed. Even the faithful under the Old Covenant were changed when Christ Yeshua finished his work, but regeneration did not have the same benefits under the Old Covenant before Christ.

Lenny: 17:09

Before you get upset at me, let me bring a few questions to your attention. Before you get upset at me, let me bring a few questions to your attention. Was a single person before the cross crucified with Christ and given his life, as we read in Romans 6, verse 6, and 2 Corinthians 5.17? Was a single person before the cross of Christ called a new creation, the way Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 5.17?. Did a single person before the cross of Christ receive the Holy Spirit and have that Holy Spirit sealed for their redemption, like we read in Ephesians 4.30? Was a single person reconciled to God before the cross, as we read in Romans 5.10? Had anyone ever been cleansed of all unrighteousness or been made perfect forever before the cross, the way we read in Hebrews 10.14? The answer to all of these questions is a great big no.

Lenny: 18:05

Prior to the cross and resurrection, saving faith resided in what was coming, not what had already come, and what was coming and not been given during the ministry of Yeshua. It began at Pentecost after the cross and resurrection and, if we're paying attention, not all the faithful received the Holy Spirit right away. We see examples of this in Acts. One of these people was Simon the Sorcerer. They believed the gospel the way it was preached by John the Baptist, but there was something lacking in the message or in the timing of the message. The Spirit of God had not made its dwelling in these people yet. They didn't know about the Holy Spirit and therefore still had Old Covenant faith. That faith was salvation, but it was not reconciliation. No person received reconciliation until they received the Spirit of God. The New Covenant began at the cross. The benefits of the New Covenant were distributed after the resurrection and from Pentecost on. Christ defeated death and thus distributed his life force to the faithful, making them eternal beings. A person was not reconciled to God until they received the Holy Spirit.

Lenny: 19:20

Perfect fellowship did not exist in oldvenant relationships with Yahweh. Sin would always get in the way. Old Testament faith certainly required a type of regeneration. Faith had to be given, eyes had to be opened. The same spirit of God was at work in those days, but it was not doing the work it does in the New Covenant. It was not making a permanent dwelling in the faithful. The people under the Old Covenant did not have a counselor living in and through them, guiding them daily, unconditionally. Their salvation did not include a perfect fellowship with Yahweh. They had a secure salvation, but their relationship with God was hindered by sin. A penalty always had to be paid for sin. Anyone who reads the Sermon on the Mount and goes on to believe they can maintain fellowship with God through behavior is lying to themselves and to those whom they impose this teaching onto.

Lenny: 20:13

Grace is bigger than salvation. If grace simply secured salvation and we were in charge of the rest. Then what changed in our lives on earth Is the new covenant age of grace, an age where we no longer need animal sacrifices, but we still need to self-cleanse ourselves weekly, daily, hourly, to be holy. Did Christ die merely to save animals from being sacrificed so we could cleanse ourselves at our own convenience, or was it something bigger? The Old Covenant believers were saved by faith in what was coming, not what had come. They had faith that they would be reconciled to God by the Messiah, not that they were reconciled. Today we have faith in what has come, as Paul writes to those who are still abiding in the law, but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian Galatians 3.25. Is Paul saying that faith didn't exist prior to Christ? Not at all. We receive by faith what the Old Testament believers waited for. By faith, they believed God would do it. We believe God did do it.

Lenny: 21:23

An evangelical free church that my wife and I attended for a few years never taught us that we were saints. Instead, they focused on reminding us that we were sinners saved by grace on a regular basis. All I knew was that I was a sinner. The foundation of their teaching was based around how to change your life to please the Lord, how to stay in fellowship with the Lord. Being out of fellowship would mean that the Lord has turned his face away from you. Due to your sin, you are no longer part of the relationship and would have to earn your way back in by earnestly begging for forgiveness and correcting your behavior. If you didn't correct your behavior, you were not serious about your sin, and God would see that, after all, he knows the heart of man.

Lenny: 22:07

According to churches like these, fellowship with the Lord is earned by works. In order to have a relationship with God, you had to behave according to their rules. If not, your relationship with Yahweh is just in your imagination. Your prayers would be nothing more than dust in the wind, and you would receive no blessing in your life. Of course, the good behavior required included some things that pertain directly to the institution, such as giving a minimum of 10% of your income to the church in the form of a tithe, which was actually an old covenant law mandated to Israel to support the Levitical priests who operated the temple. That did not partake in the inheritance, and then a weekly church attendance at a minimum, was also required in order to consider yourself in fellowship. The attitude of the institution is, without the guidance of a certified pastor, to fact-check your belief system.

Lenny: 23:00

How could anyone ever understand what scripture means in order to know how to behave as a Christian? But why did the apostles teach the opposite of this? Peter wrote His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him, who called us to his own glory and excellence. 2 Peter 1.3. Then Paul wrote For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age. Titus 2.11. Then John writes but you have been anointed by the Holy One and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you don't know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth. 1 John 2 20.

Lenny: 23:50

It was because they understood grace that the apostles did not teach that way. It was because he understood grace that Paul didn't teach that Christians can be out of fellowship with God. He knew what sin was and he knew that Christ made us right with God by his sacrifice, just like we read in Hebrews 10.14,. Paul also taught us to use our freedom for good. And in Galatians he writes If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Galatians, he writes. In other words, be guided by the Counselor, seek his guidance.

Lenny: 24:32

Then to the Ephesians, paul writes and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. In Ephesians 4.30, we see that it's not just our spirit living in us now, in union with the new spirit God gave us at salvation, the spirit of God also resides within us. We read about this in Ezekiel 36.26. We are now guided by the life force of Christ Yeshua. So we should never be ignorant of this fact. We should never strive to please our Lord independent of His guidance. When we behave in unholy ways, we grieve the Spirit whom resides in our holy temple, our body. Knowing that our spirit is in union with the spirit of Yahweh, we can conclude that we will grieve ourselves as well.

Lenny: 25:18

When we turn to unholy ways in our lives or become self-seeking rather than seeking our Lord's direction. It can be easy to be afraid of what the Lord might think sometimes. Have you ever been afraid to ask him for his will to be done. We should fight this fear. Christ wasn't afraid to make that request, even in the face of torture and death. And look what resulted from his courage and dependency. Death wasn't an issue that his father couldn't fix, was it?

Lenny: 25:45

In Matthew 6.19, yeshua says Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. I'm not seeing this as about actual money. I don't think Christ Yeshua did either. It's more about focus. When we sin, we lose our focus. As saints, our life is Christ. When you accepted Christ at salvation, your focus was on Him. He had your full attention. But then you have the whole rest of your life to go on maintaining that focus. This is impossible if we're not calling on Yahweh for his help. When we lose focus and start building on sinful behavior, we no longer store up wrath from God. He's reconciled our sin account, but he's also changed us. This new self does not run well when fueled by sin. We run on a different fuel. Now we were made to live for Christ, we will suffer from sin, and there is no exception to this rule.

Lenny: 26:52

Paul taught us to keep a clear conscience. He knew that this would lead to bearing much fruit in Christ. In Acts 23 we read and looking intently at the council, paul said Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day. When we read this, we must understand that we can't go by the statement let your conscience be your guide. You can't trust your conscience unless it's been trained. Paul knew God well and lived his life before God with a clear conscience.

Lenny: 27:21

The Christ-rejecting Jews wanted Paul killed for his teaching, but he knew he had done nothing wrong because his mind was trained by truth. It's critical to know that a fresh start is always awaiting us. God is always there for us with open arms. It doesn't matter how far we've fallen. We will always suffer consequences for our poor decisions in these mortal bodies. We should always aim to keep a clear conscience in order to keep our prayers from being hindered, not because of fellowship, but because of the distraction of guilt and sin and the energy we lose when we allow that into the members of our holy temple, despite beliefs in error and despite behavior not always being in line with their holy identities.

Lenny: 28:01

Paul was always honest about who his brothers and sisters were in Christ, who they were to God. Paul was always honest about who his brothers and sisters were in Christ, who they were to God. Paul was always honest about himself. Are you being honest to yourself? Are you being honest about yourself? Are you being honest to others? That's what I got for you guys for today. Notes on this episode can be found on my episode page at wakinguptogracecom. I have a link to that page in the episode description section of this podcast for quick navigation. Check it out and see all the verses referenced, and don't be afraid to drop me a line there and let me know what's on your heart. I'd love to hear from you guys. May God bless your week until the next time.

Announcement: 28:38

Thank you for listening to the Waking Up To Grace podcast brought to you by the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you enjoyed today's episode, we would love to hear from you. You can send encouragement our way right from our episodes and transcripts page or reach Lenny privately from the contact form at wakinguptogracecom.