THE UNIMAGINABLE JOURNEY

Introduction

-{Romans 8}

-In the book and then movie, the Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit that is living a quiet, contented life like most hobbits do. They don’t do much that’s exciting, and they most certainly do not go on adventures. That is, until the wizard Gandalf hires Bilbo to be a thief to help a band of dwarves retake the Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug and reclaim their rule of that land. Once convinced to join them, Bilbo started a great journey that promised plenty of adventure and reward at the end. And, as the first movie is titled, it was an Unexpected Journey.

-We often refer to life in general as a journey. The problem is that most folks don’t know where to start or where they’re going on this journey. Life just sort of happens. But there is a whole lot more to life than just stagnation. God calls people to a great journey, but only a very few join Him. I guess to mix a bunch of metaphors together, most people prefer the slaughterhouse than the castle. They want to stay where they are comfortable, even if it means their death, only to miss out on the glory that awaits.

-But God calls us to join Him on, what I call, an unimaginable journey. I call it that because no human could imagine or think up what God has in store for them. This journey has it’s ups and downs like Bilbo’s did. In fact, John Bunyan in his classic work Pilgrim’s Progress describes what the journey looks like. It does have it’s perils and dangers, as well as its fun and excitement. And we are invited to take that journey, but God is the one that determines how to join Him and then where you go. The question is if you will join Him and what will you do with your journey—will you try to follow your own path to great frustration, or will you follow His path which, while not easy, is the source of true joy and contentment?

-Paul talks about what the journey of the Christian life is all about—there is great promise with great reward, but we are called to take His path, not our own. When we join God on the Christian journey, our conditions do not necessarily immediately change, but God gives us everything we need from start to finish. And so we see that God calls us to the journey and gives us guidance for the journey. The question is, will we follow Him and His instructions?

Romans 8:1–11 ESV

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 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. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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.

-{pray}

-In the preceding chapter, Paul described the frustration of trying to follow God’s laws and commands in his own power and strength. He laments that what he doesn’t want to do, he does. And he laments that the good he wants to do, he doesn’t do it. This living life on his own, in his own power, isn’t working. Who is going to save him from this hamster wheel of nonstop motion without progress? He gives the answer, and describes the Christian journey. There are three aspects of the journey he touches upon. We first see that...

1) The journey begins at the cross

-At the end of His previous chapter, he cries out wondering who will save him from the body of death that cannot follow God’s law? He doesn’t have the strength to do what God requires, so is there no hope? Yes there is, and he gives the answer, it is through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so many of us are frustrated like Paul—I want to do good, but I don’t. I want to not do bad, but I do. And I know that this leads to my death, so what do I do? What’s the answer? His answer is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

-And in our passage today, Paul tells us the great promise that is given when you do that. Yes, you live life and you have rebelled against God and you have broken God’s law so you are under judgment. But now, you are under judgment no longer if you come to Christ, because THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION FOR THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS! You, who are lawbreaker…you, who has no power to do good, you are not under the judgment of God’s condemning wrath? How is this possible?

-In v. 2 he says that in Jesus Christ you have been set free from the sentence that you deserved. He further explains in v. 3 that God’s law which determines what is good and bad could not empower you to follow and obey. All the law could do is tell you how you broke the law. But you have been set free in Jesus Christ. God sent His Son to take on sinful, human flesh—but in that sinful, human flesh He did not sin. As Paul says elsewhere, Christ who knew no sin became sin for us; and here it says that sin was condemned in Christ’s flesh through His death on the cross. Christ became our sin so that the condemnation of sin would fall on Him, not on us.

-The only way you can walk with God is if the burden of sin and lawbreaking is dealt with. The only way you can join God on the journey He has for you is if the condemnation you deserve is lifted off of you—you can’t journey in chains, you have to be free. But God can’t just take it off of you and still be just. He had to put it on another—and that other is Jesus Christ. God has to condemn the sin of a sinner. So either the sinner pays the price or another pays the price, and Jesus is that other.

-And so, you start the journey after the burden of your sin is lifted off of you, and you are free. It is absolutely freeing to know that your sin (past, present, and future) will not end in your condemnation. God does not look at you as an object of wrath, but an object of eternal love. And there are a few takeaways from this fact I want to quickly give you.

-First, I want you to find peace that in Christ you are eternally secure. Once God’s condemnation is taken away from you, it will not return. You don’t have to wonder—if you have truly trusted in Jesus Christ, then you are truly secure and not under condemnation. And this frees us to live out how God created us. But now, that doesn’t mean we become sinless, but it means that we don’t have to keep looking for God’s gauntlet to fall down on us. To help us understand, Charles Spurgeon has this to say about the promise of v. 1:

“It does not say there is no ‘accusation’ against us. It does not say there is no ‘corruption’ or ‘nothing worthy of condemnation... Nor does it say they shall have no affliction, trouble, or fear of condemnation. But [it says there is] ‘no condemnation.’”

-But another lesson from this is that if God does not condemn the Christian, who are we to condemn another Christian? It is not for us to judge others who are on this journey (I’m talking about other Christians). Yes, we help and correct and encourage, but we are in no position to judge or condemn those who are Christian.

-But now, with the threat of condemnation gone, you are free to go on the journey. But this is only the beginning, because next we see that...

2) The journey continues in obedience

-A good portion of the book of Romans has to do with the relationship of God’s law to humanity. And he spends time talking about the fact that everyone is condemned under the law because everyone has broken the law. And he talks about the fact that you cannot get saved from God’s wrath by following the law because you already broke the law and you have no ability to follow the law. And he had just talked about the frustration of trying to do the good and avoid the bad as the law says, and then not being able to do it. But herein lies another problem. He also says that the law is good and righteous, and it really does tell us how we are supposed to live.

-So, the law is good, but you can’t actually do it—before Christ. So, you start the journey by faith in Christ. But then Paul says in vv. 3-4 that Christ condemned sin so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. So, hear this. By faith in Christ, we have a right, legal standing with God as if we had followed the law (even though we didn’t). But now, by faith in Christ we actually are given the ability to follow the law. The law we couldn’t follow before, now we can follow. How in the world does that happen? Paul says it is because of the Holy Spirit that we are given when we come to faith in Christ.

-According to v. 2, the Holy Spirit applies Christ’s saving work to us when we first believe. And now, with the Holy Spirit, we can fulfill the righteous requirement of the law—not in order to be saved, but because we are saved. And what Paul says is that a successful Christian journey is walking in the Spirit, which is living in obedience to God. He contrasts two ways of walking—there is the way of the flesh and there is the way of the Spirit. The way of the flesh is living according to the sinful nature. The flesh is blind to God’s ways and deaf to God’s words. The flesh wants its own way, and will do its own thing. The flesh cannot please God, the flesh cannot obey God, the flesh will not follow God on the journey, and the flesh will not think the thoughts of God. In fact, according to v. 7, the way of the flesh is hostility from God and toward God.

-But it is the way of the Spirit where you are able to fulfill the law and think God’s thoughts and obey God’s ways. In the Spirit your eyes are open to God’s will and your ears are open to God’s words. When you are in the Spirit you seek to please God and fulfill His purposes above anything else. It’s when you are in the Spirit that you please God and obey God and follow God and have the mind of God. And Paul says in v. 9 that if you are a Christian you are in the Spirit, not the flesh—if the Spirit of God resides in you. But if you don’t have the Spirit of God, you do not belong to God. And so, as I have described the contrast between the two, you can figure out for yourself whether you are still in the flesh or if you are in the Spirit. If you are in the Spirit, you will fulfill God’s commands.

-Now, there are a few aspects about this point we need to mention. First, we don’t follow the law in order to be right with God or to get in His good graces. In fact, that’s kind of the opposite of grace. But, we follow the law because it brings a smile to the face of our heavenly Father. We obey Him because it pleases Him and nothing gives us greater joy or pleasure than to please Him. Or, as John Piper puts is, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” We so love our Father because of who He is and what He did for us in Christ, it is our joy to please Him—not out of obligation, but out of love.

-Another aspect worth mentioning is something that has become very blatant in our politically charged times. It is the claim of some to be Christian and yet excusing the flagrant breaking of God’s law…and not just excusing it, but applauding it. That is not living in the Spirit. Looking at the contrast between flesh and Spirit in our passage, when you walk in the flesh (meaning, you are living in the sinful nature) you then take on the mind of the flesh (meaning, your thoughts reflect the sinful nature), which is the path of death (meaning, spiritual, eternal death) because you are still hostile toward God and God is still hostile toward you. If you had the Spirit you would not walk that way or think that way. And so those who are on that path need to refer back to my first point—salvation and freedom are found in Jesus Christ.

-Another aspect worth mentioning is that since we have the Spirit, we can walk in obedience and we can think the thoughts of Christ, and we can follow the law, but we’re not perfect at it. We can’t beat ourselves up when we fail—and again I refer you to the previous main point, there is no condemnation for us even when we fail. But, we cannot allow our tendency to fail to give us an excuse to not walk in the Spirit and not obey. Paul’s point is that in Christ, in the Spirit, we are able to fulfill the law. And can I just be honest with you this morning, the reason we fail more often than not is not because we don’t have the ability (because in Christ, in the Spirit, we are able), rather it is just plain spiritual laziness.

~We fail because we have come up with a million excuses to justify our failing—and when it comes to excuses, I am king. I mean, to look at other aspects of my life: I am fat and out of shape. I very easily could lose some weight and get into shape. There is no physical reason for me not to do it. I don’t have some injury keeping me from it. So, why don’t I do it? Because I’m lazy, and I will come up with a million excuses not to. I may wake up early in the morning, and I could easily get up and do something, but I’ll come up with some crazy excuse; I’ll be laying there: I COULD GET UP AND WORK OUT, OOOO FACEBOOK. We pull the same stunts spiritually, and we are going to have to start holding each other accountable for it because you can’t go far on a journey when you are spiritually fat and lazy.

-The journey starts at the cross, it continues in obedience, and then...

3) The journey ends in our glory

-When you are on a journey, there is always a destination. Bilbo’s destination was the Lonely Mountain. Christian in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress left the City of Destruction to journey to the place known as the Celestial City. And there’s some destinations along our journey, but they all have to do with the concept of life. The flesh leads to death, but the Spirit leads to life.

-In one sense it leads to spiritual life in the here and now—as it says in v. 10 even though the physical body is dead because of sin, the Holy Spirit gives us life because of Christ’s righteousness. We are alive spiritually even though our body is dying. But ultimately it is talking about eternal life, which is both spiritual and physical. The journey leads to our eternal glorification where we are given new physical bodies and in a moral sense we are no longer susceptible to sin. We are given a great promise in v. 11 that the Holy Spirit who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies. Just like Jesus rose from the dead bodily, we will someday rise from the dead bodily, and that is how we will exist for all of eternity.

-As I was pondering the journey metaphor, from one angle the journey ends at our death. We will no longer have to strive against sin and strive to obey because sin will be gone and we can do nothing but obey. But from another angle it is at our death that the journey really is just beginning, and everything we did on earth is kind of a primer for it. We will spend a whole lot more time in eternity than we will on this earth. In eternity, we won’t have all the struggles and trials, but what we did with the journey on earth I think has a determining factor in the journey we have in eternity. I mean, all Christians will be in the new heaven and earth serving the Lord forever. But what we do in service to the Lord in eternity is somewhat determined for us by what we decide to do with our journey here on earth.

-Don’t get me wrong, whatever we do for the Lord in eternity will be joyous and satisfying. I mean, you might end up being a street sweeper for God, but you’ll be the happiest street sweeper there ever was. But the greater the faithfulness on the journey on earth will lead to greater reward in the eternal state. But just the thought of being in a glorified state gives us something to look forward to. So, knowing that this is our destination, it ought to move us and motivate us to greater faithfulness while on the journey. I really hope that it impresses upon us that we want to finish strong.

Conclusion

-I’ll close with this thought:

In thinking of famous books and movies about journeys, you can’t help but think of the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy starts at the beginning of the yellow, brick road, which will lead to the Emerald City. The yellow, brick road is filled with trials, hardships, and obstacles. I mean, my goodness, you got them creepy flying monkey coming after you. But the journey also led to new friendships. And you find that the journey itself really shaped the characters in the end because the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion became the very things they thought they weren’t (smart, compassionate, and courageous) and Dorothy grew to value the life she had.

-Our own journeys will shape us as well, if we don’t fight God every step of the way, but walk with Him in Spirit. And when you do that, you will become the very thing you aren’t right now, but can be—more like Christ.

-Christian, come to the altar and pray for God’s guidance and empowerment for the journey.

-But if you aren’t on the journey yet, it begins at the cross. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and begin the journey not only of a lifetime, but a journey of eternity...