Romans 8:1-4 & 16 • Calming Storms
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
We are very thankful for our musicians who help us to excell the amazing grace of our Lord and no better place in Scripture to observe that grace than Romans chapter 8. Let me ask you to turn there.
Romans chapter 8 is such an amazing statement of the grace of God and necessarily so because it comes out of a passage of deep darkness.
As the Apostle Paul, wrestling with recognizable storms of conscience, simply acknowledges what I want to do that I do not do and what I do not want to do.
I do.
Wretched, man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
And then the light begins to dawn.
Christ be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And then the sun at full shine in Romans chapter 8 verse 1, "Therefore there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus our Lord." Let's stand as we consider this amazing grace of our Lord Jesus.
Romans 8, 1 through 16, because we'll be doing the deep dive into this chapter from now until Christmas.
I'm not going to read every word of verses 1 through 16, even though we'll cover much as we go. The Apostle says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
For God has done what the law we can by the flesh could not do. By sinning His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, He condemns sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."
And what are the implications of that? Look at verse 15, "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, "Abba, Father!"
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Your Son, who indwells us by the Holy Spirit, that we might have the witness that we are Your very children.
Would You grant us the hope and the strength and the peace of that truth this day, we pray,
in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated.
I am a freak!
The Word said with anger, clenched fist, raised to heaven, as a leader in our church, a husband,
a father, who is struggling with pressures at work and at home, seeking some relief, some release, yielded to the pressures, and sought some respite in a same-sex liaison that He thought He had given up forever.
When the shame of that and the guilt of that so pressured Him that He felt He could not return to face His wife and family, He took what meager savings were in the family's bank account, checked them out, got in the family car, drove to the edge of town, got a supply of food because He intended...well, He wasn't actually sure what He intended.
So He just sat there in the car, and that's where I found Him.
"Jim, let me take you home."
No response.
"Jim, let me take you to my home."
He came.
And it was there that the despondency and the rage ultimately came out. I am supposed to be a Christian leader. I'm supposed to take care of my family. I can't even control my own body.
I betrayed my wife.
I ran out on my kids.
I am a freak.
I am no good.
I'm not strong.
I cannot belong to God.
I tell you of the storm of His own soul, not for your pity, not for your anger, but for your identification.
Because you cannot be a believer in a broken world and not have moments of serious sin in which you call out to God saying, "How could I possibly be yours if this is what I've done? If the guilt is so great, if the strength is so weak, how could I be your very child?" And what the Apostle Paul is doing in this passage is he is taking the Word of God into that storm of conscience as those winds of self-rejection and self-doubt begin to assault our souls.
He takes the message of the same Savior who spoke to the wind and the waves, "Peace be still," and says to every one of us who know those storms, "Peace be still and know that I am God who saves you from your very sin."
How does he do that? What does he bring to bear? He first calms the storm of self-condemnation by casting the very gospel, the Word of God, into our lives. Verse 1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." You have to be very clear about what the Apostle does not say.
He does not say there is no sin.
It wasn't so bad.
Other people are doing it. It's accepted nowadays. Don't worry about it. None of that. He does not make light of the sin. Instead what he says, rather than there is no sin, he says, "There is therefore now no condemnation."
As though he wants us to understand the sin has to be great for the grace to be amazing. If you're not saved from anything, why is it grace at all?
And so we face the reality of the sin that we all have to deal with. At the same time, the Apostle tells us why there is no condemnation, the beautiful end of verse 1. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There it is again.
This wonderful, brief little phrase of the Apostle whereby he pours the whole gospel into what it means to be united to Christ. Yes, you are sinful. Yes, you have failed. But in Christ Jesus, again that image of the Russian nesting dolls inside another, because you are in Christ, hidden with Christ in God. Though your sin is real, though the guilt is upon you, yet the status of Christ has become yours because you are in Christ Jesus. So serious is the Apostle about that understanding. He uses the phrase over 200 times in his epistles. As if to say, "I want you to get it. The sin is yours, but so is the identity of Christ that covers you." And because of his identity, you have no condemnation, even where the sin is real. Why? Verse 2, "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." There's a new law in the land of your soul.
What was the old law?
You're on your own.
You fix it. You leave. You live good enough to make God happy. You just measure up.
But the new law of the Spirit says by dynamics, we can't even fully comprehend or explain, that the Holy Spirit identifies us so much with Christ Jesus by faith that we are united to Him, the Spirit in us, but Christ Himself covering us. His status, His righteousness, His goodness is what God comprehends as He perceives us. How does it all happen? Verse 4, "This was in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be met in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for our sin." So He condemned the sin. How did that happen?
Christ Jesus died.
He took the penalty, and as He took the penalty of our sin, we were made right with God. It's the double transfer, Christ's righteousness to us, our sin to Him.
We have trouble comprehending it, so I think God just gives us example after example in our lives to try to pull it back together.
I can tell you one, but you have to keep it a secret for a couple of weeks.
So our son-in-law who works for the Defense Department was not going to be able to come for Thanksgiving, too short a leave, too expensive for their budget to be able to come.
And so a couple of weeks ago as I was getting on a plane, it was one of those planes that was overbooked.
So they said, "If somebody will take the penalty, give up their seat, we'll give you credit that you or someone you love can use."
I jumped out of my seat.
I took the penalty.
Josh gets the credit. We'll see him at Thanksgiving.
We love it.
We're meant to love it, that Christ took the penalty for my sin and yours.
And at the same time, the righteousness, the merit that is His, is given to me. So I who only see that I am freakish in knowing all that I know about God, His standards, His goodness, His work in my behalf, can actually confess to God, "I am not good and still here from Him, but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." He took the penalty. You get His righteousness. So what?
It becomes necessary for us to claim it. I recognize at times people expect things from me as a pastor. They will, "Will in good conscience come?" And they will say, "Pastor, I did this thing. I committed this wrong. I hurt my family in this way." And I know the expectation at times is, "Just tell me it's okay.
Just tell me it's all right."
And I see eyes just kind of flash open and surprise when I can say, "That was awful!
You really did that?
How terrible!"
Cheer up.
You're as bad as you're ever going to be.
How do I know that?
Because your sin required the death of your Savior. I'm not saying you might not do more wrong things.
But the ultimate separation between you and God was complete in your first sin.
And what makes it right is not your sinlessness, but your Savior's goodness. He has made it right. And when you begin to understand that, "However great is my sin, there is therefore now no condemnation." It makes the heart swell with the goodness of the grace of God so that I want to walk with Him. I want to please Him. I want to serve Him. I want to return to Him. I want to repent of my sin. God, if that's what you have done, you have provided Christ merit for my sin. I want to love Him. I want to love you. I want to serve Him. And it gives us reason to get up and go again for the sake of the Savior. I think of my friend whose situation I described to you, not for pity or anger, but just so that you will know as bad as you may think it be, it is grace that still claims you.
It was not the first condemnation that my friend expected when he had betrayed his wife and family. He had grown up under condemnation, an alcoholic, an abusive father who, when he was on a drunk,
would come home late at night, rouse his children out of bed, get his wife, put them in a circle on the living room floor, put a knife in the middle of the circle, and begin to read the devotions to them, threatening anyone who fell asleep or turned away, and preached to them of the grace of God and the condemnation that was theirs if they did not pay attention.
It got worse because my friend was artistic in temperament and sensitive by nature.
His father began to expect that he would not have the manliness that would make the father proud. And so he tried to beat the queerness out of his own son.
The son did not leave that house until the father threatened his son's own life for not being the man that the father wanted him to be.
It was a man, as many of us know the experience, who lived far into his adulthood trying to meet the expectations and avoid the condemnation of his earthly parent.
And here was God the father still saying to him, "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
And that young man that night, it's hard for me to say to you all that happened, to even say as he shattered with his fist toward heaven, "I am a freak!"
To actually get up out of my chair and to embrace him and to say, "But in Christ there is no condemnation."
And to have him in that moment give up on backbone and strength and resolve and resilience and almost collapse from my arms as if to say, "I've been leaning on everything else."
And now as a representative of God to be able to say to him, "But in Christ Jesus, for the first time perhaps in your adult life to know there is no condemnation as bad as the sin may be, as real as it is, as truthful as is the wrong, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who by faith say, "I'm not going to make this up. I'm not going to make this right. Only Jesus can do that. I hide myself in him, his grace and his goodness, and when that occurs, the great trumpet call of heaven is, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." It's not just the trumpet call for our own souls.
It's what some of us have to learn to trumpet from our own mouths for the spouse who has betrayed us, for the child who embarrassed us, for the co-worker who treated us hatefully and took advantage of us and therefore our own families were hurt by it.
To be able to say from a heart that knows grace, "I need to tell you my family, my friend, my spouse, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The sin is real.
The grace is greater."
But even if that storm of self-rejection begins to fade on the horizon, there is another storm building and you will know it. It is the storm of self-doubt. Maybe God dealt with the past. Maybe he's got that fixed.
But I've got to live this day and tomorrow and the next day.
And I'm not sure that I'm not heading right back into the sin, into the betrayal, into the misery, into the dirt, into the filth, into the weakness. I don't know that I'm going to be able to resist again. It's not just that I'm no good. I'm not strong.
How does God help with that?
By telling us the gospel for our self-doubt as well. Now that begins by acknowledging the helplessness that is true.
But it is the helplessness of those who are not in Christ. That's so plain in the passage. The beginning of verse 5, the apostle says, "Those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh." If you are not in Christ, you're just going to think like the rest of the world.
If you're not in Christ, verse 6 is true of you.
To set the mind on the flesh is death.
Now to use your mind like everybody else's, your destiny is like everybody else's outside of Christ. There is just ultimately death and decay, and desires are like everybody else's. Verse 7, "For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God." You don't want to live for God.
You don't want to do the things He requires. People are offering a better life and more happiness and more reward. Who wants to do the things of God?
So the things that become your idols, you become enslaved to.
So that ultimately we recognize the weakness of the soul is going to characterize us. Verse 7 at the end, "And only as the hostile flesh hostile to God, it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
If you're not in Christ, if your faith is not in one hand, you're still trying to live by the law of the flesh. I'm going to make it on my own. Enough backbone, enough resolve, I'll fix this, I'll do better.
The Apostle says ultimately you will not. Your weakness will take over. Your destiny will be the same. Your thought life will be the same because Jesus made it plain. John 15, "apart from me," He said, "you can do nothing."
There is true helplessness for those who are not in Christ, but the reverse is true as well. You know Philippians 4.13. What did He say? The Apostle Paul made it plain. Yes, apart from Christ, you can do nothing, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. How does that work? Is it just kind of hope against hope? Is it just kind of spitting in the wind, hoping that we won't get caught? What do you mean I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me? How does that work?
I didn't read the end of verse 5, we need to. Verse 5 began talking about those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but there is a contrast.
The end of verse 5, "Those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit." They have other commitments. They know the direction that they are going.
And the Spirit is going to help with that. Verse 9, right at the beginning, "You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." What does that mean? Verse 10, "If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin," it doesn't have ability on its own.
The Spirit is life because of righteousness. What is that righteousness that Paul has been referring to? We've talked about it before. It's not just the good standards of God.
It's the good heart of God. God by His mercy is providing a Spirit that's His to live in you. It's that Spirit of Jesus, and He is going to describe it. Verse 11, "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you."
Now, these are matters of deep faith. As the Apostle is saying, that same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus' dead body from the grave, that same Spirit now dwells in us so that we are given life, power to our mortal bodies. Satan does not want you to believe this or hear it. Satan wants you to believe that all you got, all you got is background and biology and your own backbone. That's all you got.
And yet the Gospel comes along and says, "Not only has Jesus taken your sin as far as the east is from the west, He has filled you with His Holy Spirit." That same Spirit that raised Him from the dead exists in you so that now the Apostle John would say, "What greater is He that's in you than He that's in the world?" Satan comes and says, "You can't help it. You can't fix it. You can't be fixed. You've struggled too long. This was your family's background. This is your parents' background. This is what you've struggled with for decades. You can't be fixed."
And the Apostle comes along and says, "That is a lie. You are no longer a slave.
Sin shall no longer have dominion over you." Why? Because you've been filled with something else, the Holy Spirit of God, and you have to believe that. If you don't believe you can have victory, you've already lost the battle. And so the Apostle says here with strength and power, "Here is God's power. God at work in you." You have to claim that reality, or you will simply say there's no hope for you.
The Apostle will not let you live there. He says, "You are not in the flesh, the body of death. You are in the Spirit, and the Spirit in you. You are given the status of Christ and the power of the Spirit so that you can live a new life.
You're not just dead. You're not just a slave. That's not who you are anymore. There's really life possible. There's another direction to go, and you can do that because the Spirit is changing you, giving you power beyond your own."
I know we struggle it sometimes just to receive that. Is that just preacher talk? Is that just churchiosity? Or is there any evidence that really change is possible in people's lives?
For me, the holiday season as I was growing up meant always going particularly Thanksgiving to my grandparents in Martin, Tennessee from St. Louis, Missouri, which took us across southern Illinois.
Down Highway 3.
And if you think about the holiday time of year and going down Highway 3, you know that you are seeing the waterfowl going down the great southern flyway.
As you get down toward Cairo, some of you will know this, the conservation department on the right side of the road toward the river has planted acres and acres of wheat to feed the waterfowl on their journey. And even when you are miles off, you can look out over the fields and there is this undulating gray carpet, which is tens of thousands, hundreds of maybe millions of birds on the ground feeding in the daytime ready to rise and resume their flight at dusk.
Anyway, wait, wait, wait.
Why would they fly at dusk? They do, you know. They pop out like huge clouds of smoke calling off the ground at one time to resume their flight across the highway.
Why is that? Why wait until dusk?
Because generations of dumb geese have learned the hunters' time limit is up at dusk and they can cross the highway then.
Now listen, if a dumb goose with a little pea brain driven by blind instinct can do enough to save its own feathers, how can we who know the father of the universe, who love the Savior, who have His Word and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit say, "I can't be fixed. I just got to go right toward this path that is death to my family, death to my soul, death to my fellowship with my Savior. I just got to do it." No, you don't.
The Spirit has given you hope, a new reality, and are claiming that hope is the work of the gospel, not just for yesterday, but for today, that tomorrow does not have to be like yesterday, that real change is possible. I can be something different.
The sin does not have claim upon me because Jesus has claim upon me, "I belong to Him."
And when I know that, it gives me love for Him, makes me willing and wanting to act upon the power that He's actually given.
You must know that too. It's not just that ultimately am I made able by knowing I have a renewed status and I have new strength.
I will not act upon my status and strength if I don't love Christ.
If God is just the referee on the sidelines of my life frowning to wait till I get out of line. If I keep hearing the echo, "There is therefore now no condemnation."
Yes, there's sin. Yes, there's right. There is therefore now no condemnation.
So my heart knowing that, wants to walk with my Savior, wants to be with Him, wants to serve Him, wants to please Him, wants to get out of the slavery that I feel so intently at times.
Ultimately, I must know that my God is not going to reject me because I recognize the final weakness of my friend was not just saying I'm no good and I'm not strong. He said and believed it profoundly. If this is what I've done, I cannot be God's. Not God's own child. I cannot belong to God if this is what I've done.
For that reason, we do have to face the reality of our sin. Verse 12 helps us do it. So then brothers, we are debtors.
How are you a debtor?
Christ paid the penalty for your sin.
We are bought with a price. The precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, He paid the penalty we could not pay. So we are debtors to Him. But not, says verse 12, to the flesh. To live according to the flesh. My debt is not to the flesh. I'm not trying to make it up to me or other people. No, my debt is to my Savior who loved me despite my sin while I was yet His enemy. Christ died for me.
I'm not just a debtor.
I have to recognize if I don't live my life in Christ, I am a dire.
Verse 13, "For if you live according to the flesh, you will die."
But that's not what God intends. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, the deeds of the body, you will live.
How do I know I'm going to live?
How do I know that that Spirit is really in me? Because I haven't got perfection yet.
So as I look at my life, am I really living in the Spirit? Am I really living in love for the Savior? How do I know if I still stumble and still fail and still weak at times? How do I still know that any of these promises apply to me?
Because your heart yearns for them to apply to you.
Do you recognize what that means?
It means the Spirit has done something in you. Don't miss the implications of verse 7. The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.
If the Spirit is not in you, if you're not in Christ, you don't want to serve God. You don't want to be burdened. You don't want to be hampered.
But if Christ is in you, something has changed. Do you remember what that is? Verse 15, "You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear." Remember, God has given life to your mortal body. What's the evidence of that? You have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, "Abba, Father!" The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
It's this, "Abba, God, I messed up. I failed you. I hate it that I hurt you. I hate it that I grieved the Holy Spirit. I hate it that I brought damage to the honor of my Savior.
But Father, I love you. You're my daddy. You're my Abba. I want to be close. I grieve that I grieve the Holy Spirit. I hurt that I hurt my Savior."
Do you recognize that that longing to say, "Abba to your Father" is the very evidence of the Holy Spirit in you?
You would not have that longing. You would not have that yearning. Had not God changed something dynamically already in your heart, if you were not indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you would be hostile to God.
But if you are in Christ, your heart is crying out, "Abba, Father!
Abba, Father! Hold me again. Tell me again the gospel. Help me live for you again. Abba, Abba, Abba, Father! I'm yours."
If you're ever trying to evaluate whether you're a Christian based on your perfection,
you will be in deep fear.
We don't evaluate our Christianity based on our perfection. We evaluate its legitimacy based upon our affection.
Do I love the Father or am I hostile to Him? Do I long to please the Savior or do I not care?
Because the care in your heart is the evidence of God doing a work in your soul.
I fear I'm not being what I ought to be. What does that concern you? Well, yes! Praise God. You are what you wanted to be.
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are a child of God. What is the witness?
My heart cries out, "Abba, Father!"
When your affections are after Christ, you have the confidence of His love, of His power,
and of His peace.
When I was growing up, one of my brothers really struggled to learn to read.
It was before our communities talked a lot about things like dyslexia and special needs.
And so my parents and the school put all kinds of pressure on him believing that he was not trying.
I look back on those years and grieve for us all.
The pressure, the hurt, the stress.
When I began to recognize in moments of profound stress what my brother would do to show it is when he blinked, he would squint his eyes at the same time.
Like that. It was the pressure.
Of course, as I got older, I vowed never to treat my children that way.
I would not do what my parents had done.
Early in my son's schooling, he brought home a friend.
"Dad, can I show Tommy my room?"
You know what little kids want to do? Show the room, show the toys. Sure. But listen, the baby's asleep in the next room.
Go and be quiet. Don't make any noise. Okay, Dad.
He was not there one minute before I heard the beds being used as a trampoline and shrieks of sheer joy. I went up there and I said to my son in front of his friend, "Now listen, the baby's asleep.
You be quiet. You can be here and show your things, but you have to be quiet."
Turned around, I wasn't halfway down the stairs.
And I heard some plastic baseball bat bop against a child's head, and my son at the top of his lungs say, "I got you!"
I hauled back into that room. I looked at my son, and I don't care who is here. You have to obey me. Now listen, son. The baby is asleep. Not my volume. The baby's starting to wake up.
I don't care who's here. I don't care what you have to show. You have to obey me. Do you understand?
And he looked at me and he said, "Yes, sir."
And he squinted back at me.
And it cut me like a knife, the thing I did not want to do, I had done.
I did not represent my heavenly Father very well that day.
And I confess that sin to Him as I do to you, and maybe some of you had some things to confess as well, that maybe you have not done what you thought you would do.
But I will tell you something else about my sin and my heart that day.
Though I did not represent my Father very well that day, I still longed to call Him Abba, which meant He still delighted to call me His child.
And knowing that, I could get up again and love again and live again and tell you His grace again.
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
But in Christ, wondrous strength as the peace of our souls becomes the joy of our hearts,
and the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Father, work Your word into our hearts, we pray, that we who think we know the gospel so well would look to our hearts also and recognize the moments when we do what we do not want to do.
There is yet a God who sent a Son, and amazing grace still applies for those who turned to Him. And not just grace of forgiveness, but the grace of power as the Holy Spirit indwells us and He is greater than whatever's in this world that threatens us. Help us, we pray, to know these truths that we in the peace that is our deepest security might live for you in the joy that is our strength.
Grant, we pray, the good news of the gospel for each of us this day, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.