The Sons of God Are Led by the Spirit of God
Grace and Peace: Welcome One Another As Christ Welcomed You • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Introduction:
Introduction:
Religious people like rules, don’t we?
Why do we like rules so much?
Something about rules makes us feel safe.
We think, even bad rules keep people in line
Here’s what many of the Jewish Christians in Rome were asking in the 1st century…
Won’t a Law-less people become a lawless people?
Won’t a Law-less people become a lawless people?
If the Law of Moses isn’t there to keep people in line, what will keep people in line?
If you teach people they aren’t under the Law of Moses, it will descend into chaos.
What will mark the boundaries of who’s in and who’s out?
What will mark the boundaries of what’s right and what’s wrong?
This was a terrifying proposition to the Weak.
Biblical Text:
Biblical Text:
Here’s part of Paul’s response…
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
Paul is using “I” and “me,” but he isn’t talking about his own personal struggle with sin
He is using a rhetorical device
He is playing a character
He is talking about Israel receiving the law
Or the weak receiving the law
Or maybe even Gentiles receiving the law
But this is also what happened in the Garden, isn’t it?
This is what it means to be Adam’s kids
This is what Sin does, it uses the opportunity of Law to create a new desire
Paul is arguing that in the heart of a natural person—a person of the flesh, unchanged by the Spirit’s power—the Law actually provokes sin.
skip down to verse 17
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Again, he is not being personal, he is being rhetorical
He’s exposing the problem of the argument of the “weak”
The Law can’t fix people’s problems
All it can ever do is expose the problem
But in exposing the problem, it exacerbates the problem
The problem isn’t that humans lack the desire to do good
It’s that we all lack the ability
It’s the presence of sin in our flesh
Just adding rules isn’t going to give us the ability to overcome the power of the flesh
Get circumcised
Observe the Sabbath
Eat kosher foods
Don’t do this, this, this, this, or this
Bringing order to your life will keep you from sin - NO IT WON’T
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Again, he’s exposing the weakness of the Law
People want to do what’s right
But they are captive to the law of sin
If you try to force them to keep the Torah, this will be their experience
This is the case with the weak themselves
Even though they judge the strong for not keeping the Law
They know that they don’t keep it either
They have this question as well
Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
The answer is Jesus Christ our Lord
He frees us from the cycle of sin and death
He frees us from slavery to sin
You have to choose…
Serve the law of God with a renewed mind
Serve the law of sin by continuing to serve in the flesh, in the old way that leads to death
keep reading…same context…
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.
No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
Not just because we are forgiven
But because we are actually BECOMING the people God wants us to be
Not by the Law, but by the Spirit
The righteous requirement of the law
what the law requires is right and good
we should want to do what the law requires
but it isn’t the law that empowers us to fulfill it
When we walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit
we fulfill the law’s requirements
“not according to the flesh”
not being self-indulgent
not being ruled by rules about superficial, surface-level, fleshly regulations
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.
This is both for
the weak and the strong
the Jew and Gentile
Tempted to be a Rigid Religionist
Tempted to be a Self-indulgent Sinner
What does it look like to set your mind on the Spirit?
Love
Joy
Peace
etc.
The Law of Moses does NOT bring LIFE and PEACE, but the Spirit does
peace with God
peace with one another
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.
Those who are in the flesh
mind set on the flesh
hostile to God
cannot submit to God’s law
cannot please God
But if you have the Spirit of God
your mind is set on the Spirit
submit to God’s law
please God with your life and choices
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.
This body is dead and dying, it is not the answer
I cannot do anything TO or WITH this body to bring about my rescue
I need rescue from outside
That was the problem with the Law (circumcision, food, etc.) it was trying to bring about transformation through fleshly regulations
I need the Spirit to dwell in me
to empower me
to give me life
The Spirit will eventually give life to this mortal body
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
The Spirit
empowers us to put to death the deeds of the body
brings us life
Saying that we are led by the Spirit
doesn’t mean we do whatever we feel like
it means we are empowered to do God’s will
love one another
live at peace with one another
no longer be slaves to our desires and impulses
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 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!”
You don’t have to be afraid!
The reliance on the Law was an act of fear
We are all children of God
Because the Spirit of God lives in us
We all call him “Father”
So, we should all call each other brothers and sisters!
Application:
Application:
Original question: Will a Law-less people become a lawless people?
Not if they have the Spirit
Not if they walk by the Spirit
The Spirit is the solution
here’s what the Spirit does
The Spirit empowers our obedience and identifies our family.
The Spirit empowers our obedience and identifies our family.
Spirit-filled people are better Law keepers than the Law promoters
they are more obedient, not less obedient
they do what the Law requires, even without the Law
because the author of the Law dwells within them
This Spirit-empowered obedience marks who’s family and who’s not
NOT traditions
NOT customs
NOT culture
NOT language
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness…
Invitation:
Invitation:
How does this answer point us to Jesus?
How does it encourage us to put our trust in him and not in ourselves?
