How Shall The Righteous Live? ~ Kay Arthur

Romans (The Constitution Of Your Faith)

Program 3 – How Shall The Righteous Live?

Are you ready for a change? I mean, have you looked at life and thought, you know, I’m not headed in the right direction? In fact, it’s getting worse and worse and worse. I need a change. Do you know how to change? Can you change? There can be a change. There was a woman that came up to me and began to talk to me and she said, “I, I’m the one that teaches Precept in the prison. And she said, the women want you to come.” She said, “This is the largest prison in world. It’s out in California. And I’m teaching the Bible there and I’m teaching them to study the Word of God inductively.” That’s what I’m teaching you. And she said, “Their lives are absolutely being changed, transformed.” And she said, “They want you to come.” She said, “Would you come?” She said, “How much would you charge?” And I said, “Honey, listen, I never charge for going anyplace for teaching the Word of God. I never charge. It’s against my policy. So money is not an issue. It’s just a matter of whether God wants me to come or not.” And she says, “I just pray that God wants you to come.”

Well I want you know, God wanted me to go. God wanted me to go. And right then and there He laid it on my heart. We sat down; we set the date so that I could go to the largest women’s prison in the world. And do you know what she told me? She says, “Now listen, when you come into the A yard, when they come in and she says, that’s where they come in and for the first time in their life they realize, they realize that they cannot escape. They hear the door closed. There’s no more manipulating. There’s no more conniving. There’s no more hiding. There’s no more escaping. They have been caught and the door has closed on them and all of a sudden they realize where they are. They’re in prison and there’s no escape.”

And she said, “Would you speak in the A yard? It’s really not bad.” I said, “Honey, it doesn’t matter how bad it is, I would love to speak in the A yard.” And she says, “And what about the B yard?” And I said, “Yes I will speak in the B yard. I would love to speak in the B yard.”

And then I said, “Is there any other place, any other time that I could speak?” And she says, “Well I have 150 students and those 150 students are so learning the Word of God and some of them are such exciting teachers, that Kay, I would sit under their teaching. And they’re going throughout the prison and they’re teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and women are being saved.” She says, “You know, I prayed for two, two lifers, and she says; God has given me five, five lifers. They’re in there for life. But their lives have so changed that they have a ministry.”

As we were talking I said, “I just want you to know, I am so awed with you.” And she says, “Don’t be.” She says, “I can relate to those women because I was a prostitute. I was on drugs.” And I looked this woman and I went “Whoa! You were a prostitute, really?” “Yes, I was a prostitute and I was on drugs.” And she says, “As a matter of fact you know what Kay? When I went to go into that prison, first I checked out the statute of limitations, because she said, I deserve to be in prison and I didn’t want them to find out about me and keep me there.” She says, “But my life has been changed.”

Why has her life changed? Because there is a message, a message of truth that can turn a person inside out. There’s a message of truth that can absolutely transform you. And as we look at Romans, as we look at the gospel of Jesus Christ, because that’s what Romans is all about, in the first 11 chapters of Romans, this epistle to the church at Rome, Paul lays out the gospel. In chapters 1 thru 3:20 he shows them that they’re in sin, and the Bible says in Romans, chapter 5, verse 12, “By one man sin came into the world and death by sin, so then all have sinned and death has passed to all men.” So Romans 1-3:20, he talks about sin. And then in Romans 3:21 through the fifth chapter of Romans, he talks about salvation. So what we have is we have sin and then we have salvation. Salvation that saves me, first of all from the penalty of sin, because the wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it will surely die.

But when you and I believe on Jesus Christ, when we believe the gospel, and we’ve studied what the gospel is. Do you remember what it is? It’s the death of Jesus Christ for our sins, according to the scriptures, according to the Tanak, according to the Old Testament. It is the death of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, Yeshua, all right, so it is the death of Jesus Christ for our sins that saves us from sin, from the penalty of sin and from the power of sin. So where does the power of sin come in? Well, it is not only that I’m not going to go to hell, but it’s also that I don’t have to live like hell in this life. I can live victorious. I can live a life of victory just like my friend in the prison and just like the prisoners that she was telling me about.

So Romans 1-3:20 is about sinners. Chapter 3:21-5 is about salvation. Then in chapters 6, 7, and 8 what we see is we learn about sanctification. Sanctification means this; that you now have been set apart and you have the ability to say no to sin. You have the power to be set free from sin. And then in Romans, chapter 9, 10, and 11, the fourth segment of Romans, what do we see? We see it’s all by God’s sovereignty. So you can imagine God being sovereign. When I’m talking about God being sovereign, I mean God rules over all. So when I talk about His sovereignty I mean this. He’s sitting there on His throne. He’s God and He able to just crook His finger like this and we have to obey. All of heaven, all of earth has to obey because God is God.

You say, well then why doesn’t God tell them to shape up? Listen this is part of the process. Part of the process is you hearing the gospel so that you can shape up and eventually, and you’ll understand it later, eventually the whole world is going to shape up. So Romans 1-3:20, sinners; 3:21-5, saved, chapters 6-8, sanctified, sanctified, set apart, okay, chapters 9-11, by God’s sovereignty. And what is the last segment of Romans, the fifth segment of Romans? It’s chapters 12-16 and the book ends in chapter 16. And it’s this, for God’s service. In other words, God takes you once you know the gospel and He takes you and then He sends you into the world so that you might serve Him. Well when we come to Romans, chapter 1, we see Paul serving God. Let’s go back and pick it up.

And you can pick it up quickly if you’ll look at the booklet that you either ordered from us or if you will look at your Bible. But in Romans, chapter 1, he says that in verse 14, “In order that I might obtain some fruit among you, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.” Now why does he want to obtain fruit among them? He says in verse 9 of chapter 1, “For God whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of God.” In other words, he obtains fruit, lives are changed, lives are transformed. Why? Because he’s serving God in the preaching or the proclamation of the gospel.

Now you think of preaching and you think of somebody that’s standing behind a pulpit and expounding the Word of God. Really what it simply means is that you’re going, wherever you go that when God gives you the opportunity you’re sharing with them, you’re proclaiming. To preach is to proclaim. You’re proclaiming a message that can change a person’s life.

Are you ready for a change? Are you ready for a change? Do you say, you know, I’m headed in the wrong direction I’m just in a state of lethargy, in a state of apathy? I’ve got to get out of this. I’ve got to do something. I’m so glad you’re listening. And it’s not by accident. In God’s sovereignty He’s saying, hey, come here, come on, come on, come here. Listen and learn how to study and I will bring a change in your life.

Okay. So let’s go to Romans, chapter 1 and I want you to see in verse 14, 15, and 16, three things about Paul. Number 1, in verse 14, he says, “I am under obligation. I am a debtor, both to Greeks and barbarians, to both the wise and the foolish.” He says, “Thus for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel. I am a debtor and I am a debtor to mankind. I am eager to preach the gospel.” In verse 16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” He says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” Why is he not ashamed of the gospel? Well first, you’ve got to mark gospel. All right, because we didn’t read this far before. So I want you to make that megaphone and I want you put it over verse 15. “I am eager to preach the gospel.” So put a megaphone over there. Do it in red. Color it green or whatever color you want to use. And he says, “I’m eager to preach it to you in Rome.” Verse 16, “for I am not ashamed of the gospel.” Put a megaphone there.

All right. “For it is the power of God.” So over the it, which is a pronoun that refers to the gospel, put a megaphone. And know this. That if you want to change, you can change, not in and of yourself, but you can change if you’ll believe the gospel because it will transform you like it transformed me and my friend and those prisoners. Okay, have you got your Bible or have you got your book with Romans in it? Okay, we need to mark the gospel again. Okay, and I don’t want you to miss it. But before we do, I’ve got to tell you something. I am so proud of you for listening and I’m so proud of you for wanting to know the truth. And I want you to know that when you seek for God and you search for Him with all your heart, you’re going to be found by God. He’s not going to leave you out there floundering. He’s not going to see you drowning and not rescue you. Romans, chapter 1, verse 16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel.” You’ve already got your megaphone there. “For it is the power of God.” All right, now I want you to mark the word, “power”, not because it’s mentioned again in this passage. But I want you get this word. Now that word for power in the Greek is “dunamis”, “d-u-n-a-m-i-s” and what word to you hear? That’s right, you hear dynamite. You hear an explosive in there and it is explosive. I mean it just absolutely changes and renovates you. All right, so it is the power of God. So the way I mark it is, I mark it like a firecracker. I mean I outline it in black and put that little fuse, to light, on there and then I color it red, okay, because it’s got power.

Okay, so he says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is, the gospel is the power of God for salvation, now listen, to everyone, to everyone who believes.” Now this word belief and we’re going to go into it more later, but this word belief is not an intellectual assent. You know, when George Barna did all of the research on the beliefs of Americans, most of them said that they believed in God. A great proportion of them said that they believed in Jesus Christ, but they didn’t believe in hell and they didn’t believe people were going there. And they didn’t believe that the Bible was the Word of God. Something is eschew. Something is eschew. And it’s because we think of belief is yeah I believe, I believe, I can see the sun shining. I believe it’s day. You know, it’s not that kind of belief. It’s a belief that actually changes the way that you live. It’s a belief that actually changes the way you’re going to respond. We’ll go into it and I’ll give you all the meanings of belief later, but I just want you to see, “it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first.”

And see the gospel is for the Jews. God’s favorite nation on the face of this earth is the Jews. Why? Because that is a nation that He created, out of all the Gentile nations on the earth. He chose Abraham and He says, I’m going to make of you a great nation. And then He goes on and He tells him, I’m going to be your God. And you’re going to be My people. So to the Jew first. He wants the Jews to have this message. Jesus was a Jew. The apostles were Jews. And so He wants the Jews to have this message. “It’s the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also then to the Greek.” Now the Greek is another way for Paul to simply say Gentile. All right now watch what he says. “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith in …,” what? You got it! “… In the gospel.” So you’re going to put a megaphone over the “it”.

For in it, for in this gospel, for in this message, this message that is believed, this message that is embraced, this message that you say I’m going to commit myself to, this message that you’re going to live by, that message, when you believe it produces the righteousness of God.

In other words the reason that many of you want to be changed, or the reason you may want to be changed is simply because your life is so messed up, because you have just really really made a tangled web of where you are as a person or the people around you and so you want out of that web. You’ve been caught like a fly or a bug in a spiders web and he’s woven this web and he’s caught you and you’re struggling and the more that you’re struggling the more that sticky stuff is coming around you and the little spider is coming down and that spider comes down and he begins to spin more of this around you until more and more and more you’re caught and you’re just going down and down and down. What sets you free? What sets you free from Satan’s taking you down and down and down and you’ve got to know he’s very very real. The Bible says, “That the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.”

This is why they don’t like the name of Jesus Christ. This is why they don’t want it mentioned on television. This is why they want the Christians to shut up and get back in the walls of their church and be still. They don’t want them in politics. They don’t want them in social affairs. They don’t want them talking about God in school. Just shut them up and get rid of them. But you know what? When you shut them up and you get rid of them, then you’re not hearing the gospel. And when you don’t hear the gospel you become like, or when you turn away from the truth about God you become like what’s described in Romans, chapter 1, which we’re going to study.

All right, so he’s saying that in it, “in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed …,” how, “… from faith to faith.” Now “faith” is another key word that you’ll want to mark throughout the book of Romans. When you read it and I hope that what you’re doing is that you’re reading it through. I hope that you sit down and just prayerfully read through Romans and say, God just speak to me. Let me see these truths. Because faith comes by hearing and this is what Romans 10 says. “Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,” and because faith is something that you believe and you put your trust in and you act on then I draw a symbol of a Bible.

Is this Book really true? Is Jesus Christ really the Son of God? Whether you’re a Jew or whether you’re a Gentile, whether you’re a wise person or whether you’re a foolish person, whether you are cultured or whether you are just barbarian, it doesn’t matter, wherever you are I want you to know God wants you. God wants you. And all you have to do is come to Him and say, hey God; I want to know what truth is. I don’t want to play the fool. I don’t want to end up in hell when I could have ended up in heaven. He has a message for us and that message is, hey, it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment. And the judgment depends on whether you believe the gospel or not.

Now listen, it’s not just a matter of believing because he says, in it, in verse 17. “In the gospel …,” he says, “… the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” Now when he’s talking about that it’s revealed from faith to faith, he’s saying it’s all by faith. In other words, you receive this message by faith. You finally say, okay, I’m going to believe. I’m going to believe what you say. I’m going to believe this Bible. My friends say I’m crazy but I’m going to believe it. So you believe it and then you live like it and you live accordingly, so it’s from faith to faith.

And it goes to say, just as it is written. Now listen to this. You talk about change, man, for the righteous man or woman shall live by faith. “The gospel reveals the righteousness of God and it reveals the righteousness of God from faith, you receive it unto faith because in it, because it is written that the righteous man shall live by faith.”

You say, righteous, what do you mean? You’re talking Bible talk. That’s right, I’m talking Bible talk. But righteous means this, it means that you do what God says is right. Not what you think is right, not according to what society says is right, but you do according to what God says is right. And the righteousness of God is this, that God always acts in a way that is proper, that is fair, that is equitable. He always acts according to His character and one of His attributes is righteousness. And this means that God is always right. He’s never wrong.

Now isn’t that encouraging to know, to understand that there’s someone that is always right and you can know that someone that’s right. And you know what? If you know that someone that’s right you know what? He’ll change your life.