THE DELIVERANCE OF THE SPIRIT LIFE
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THE DELIVERANCE OF THE SPIRIT LIFE
Intro: Have you ever noticed that there is a difference in a person who has trusted Jesus as their personal Savor? Have you noticed that they think different, they act different, they walk and talk different? The reason this is true is that they have been invaded by a Being from another place. At the very instant of salvation, the child of God is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, . When He comes in, He does so to abide with that new believer forever, . When the Spirit of God comes into a life, that life is forever changed! This the essence of our being made a new creature, . It is this life in the Spirit that is the focus of this eighth chapter of Romans.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Up until now, Paul has been reminding us that in our natural self we are sinners and that we are under the wrath of God. He has told us that we cannot save ourselves by our goodness, or by our religious works. He has told us the great truth that salvation is the product of God's grace alone. Now, after describing the life of sin, the life of religious works and life lived under the Law, and after showing us how each of these falls far short of being able to save the soul, he turns his attention to the new life in the Spirit of God.
This whole chapter, which is one of the greatest in the Bible, is all about Experiencing New Life In The Spirit. In these first four verses, he tells us about The Deliverance Of The Spirit Life. He tells us that we have been delivered from three elements of the influence of sin in our lives. It is those three areas from which we have been delivered that is our focus this evening. Join me in these verses as we see for ourselves The Deliverance Of The Spirit Life.
I. V. 1 DELIVERED FROM THE SENTENCE OF SIN
A. A Promise - This verse reminds us that when we are saved, we are saved from the wrath of God. No longer are we lost sinners living under His condemnation and doomed to an eternity in Hell, ; ; . When we come to Jesus by faith, we are delivered from the threat of divine retribution and are delivered from the specter of Hell, .
B. A Place - Note the words "In Christ". Jesus is the One Who makes all the difference. You can be in the church and die lost. You can be a good neighbor and die lost. But, when you are in Jesus, you are saved to the uttermost and fully secured from an eternity in Hell, ; ; . Jesus is the ONLY refuge for the soul of man! He is the only safe harbor where we can find salvation, forgiveness, hope and everlasting life. To know Him is to be a partaker of life eternal, .
C. A Proof - Some people tell us that this last phrase shouldn't be in our Bibles. They say it is a translation error and that it is not found in the "best Greek manuscripts." Well, it is found in the best English manuscript and we must deal with it!
Some see this as a conditional statement. In other words, we face no condemnation only so long as we are walking in the Spirit and not the flesh. The people would have us believe that the moment we fail to live a perfect life, we fall from grace and have lost our salvation. However, I do not this that is the thrust of this verse at all!
In stead of this being a conditional statement, I believe that it is a statement of fact! I think Paul is telling us that those who have trusted Jesus will walk under the leadership of the Holy Spirit and will not be controlled by the will of the flesh. This does not suggest that we are to be perfect after salvation, only that the Lord will be in the process of perfecting us in this world, and that we will be in cooperation with Him as He works in us!
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
The wicked shall return to Sheol,
all the nations that forget God.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
I. Delivered From The Sentence Of Sin
II. V. 2 DELIVERED FROM THE SLAVERY OF SIN
A. The Law Of The Sin Life - The lost sinner is under the control of three masters. They are: the flesh, the world and the devil, . Any person who has never trusted Jesus as his Savior is not in control of his own life, but is being controlled by these three evil influences.
Of course, lives are affected in different ways. Some lost sinners are led into lives of unspeakable wickedness and evil. Others are church members and good, upstanding citizens. Yet, they are all lost and headed to the same hell! This is a wretched existence! Yet, it is an existence shared by billions around the world!
B. The Law Of The Spirit Life - When Jesus comes into a life, He changes everything! Now, in Him, and by the power of His Spirit, we are given the ability to stand against those three terrible enemies of the soul! We are delivered from their bondage and are allowed to live a new life in Jesus Christ. This is the lesson we learned from Paul in ; ; . It is a glorious truth, but one that few believe, we have indeed been delivered from the slavery of sin. We have, in Jesus, been given the tools we need to life a holy life for His glory! For us, the secret lies in using the tools He has given us and in learning to say no to sin, but yes to the Spirit!
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
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.
I. Delivered From The Sentence Of Sin
II. Delivered From The Slavery Of Sin
III. V. 3-4 DELIVERED FROM THE SICKNESS OF SIN
A. The Weakness Of The Law - The Bible makes it clear that every person who has not trusted Jesus as Lord and Savior is sick. In fact, they are terminally ill! When a person is sick, they will often try any remedy they think will work to make themselves better. Sometimes, those radical remedies work magic in the lives of the physically ill. However, for those who are afflicted with spiritual illness, only one remedy will effect a cure.
Verse 3 makes it clear that where the Law failed, Christ prevailed! The Law could not make men righteous. In fact, all the Law could do was to point out how sinful men really were . Jesus, on the other hand, was born in a human body that He might die for sin, . When He did this, He provided a cure for the sickness of sin, .
Now, all those who trust Him by faith are forever delivered from their spiritual sickness and are made whole. But, it gets better than that!
B. The Work Of The Lord - Verse 4 moves on to tell us that when we are in Jesus, that is, when we are saved, the whole righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us. According to the Word of God, when a lost sinner trusts Jesus Christ as Savior, that lost sinner is made right with God. They are declared righteous by God Himself. It is as if they had never sinned and would never sin again. They are justified, .
What this says is that people like you and me, people who aren't even as right as a stopped clock that is at least right twice a day, are declared to be perfect in the eyes of God. Not by our works, but by the work of Jesus on the cross and by the work of the Spirit of God in our hearts. In Jesus, we are made exactly as we should be to be pleasing to the Lord. When He sees you that are saved this evening, He sees you like as being just as righteous as He is! That is enough to make a Baptist come unglued!
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.”
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Conc: Such is the life of deliverance in the Spirit of God. It is a new life. It is a better life. It Is a glorious life! It is a life like no other and it belongs to every person who will trust Jesus for salvation.
Have these things described you this evening? Are you "in Christ Jesus"? Are you trusting Him for your soul's salvation? If so, rejoice, for your standing before the Lord is special and blessed. If not, then you can be saved if He is calling you to Himself. Let's search our hearts this evening and see whether ours is a life lived in the flesh, or a life lived in the Spirit. Then, let's do as He would have us to do!