Romans #8
Romans #8 • Sermon • Submitted
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Transcript
Good evening, well it is good to see everyone this evening.
(Let’s Pray)
“Heavenly Father I thank you for this time to come together around your Word and seek Your face. Father there are so many things we want to know about you, we want more of you and Lord I ask that you would open our eyes to the truths found in your word.
we love you and we look forward to what you will teach us in Jesus name I pray Amen”
Last week we did the first half of we were dealing with Paul’s argument that god has not only saved us from the penalty of sin, but He has also saved us from the power of sin.
There are alot of Christians who dont connect the dots on those two things. We thank God that we are saved from the penalty of our sin, but when it comes to understanding that the power of oursin has been broken over our lives it is a new way of thinking.
Thats what Paul has been talking about here in this chapter.
Romans is all about our salvation and Paul is explaining all about how we are saved and these are important things for us to learn, and if you’ll remember Paul ended with this statement.
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Sin will not be your master
The reason why Paul says you are not under the law but under grace is because the law can do nothing to give us power over sin. The law is a mirror it will show you where you are with God and how your doing with righteousness but it can do nothing to improve your life.
That only happens through God’s grace
It takes all the pressure to perform away, sure obedience is key and we should desire to obey and we should strive to obey the commands of God, that is proof we know Him and love Him but our standing with God is not based on our performance.
It is like my children, It’s not like I love them when they do but when they do bad I cast them off and god which is a much better Father than I am, will not cast us off once we have been adopted into His family.
But alot of people do not understand Grace you know the Jews living in Paul’s day did not understand Grace and theres alot of people today that dont understand Grace.
There is actually a modern day writer who wrote a book which tried to obey every single command found in the OT, now this was a man who was not a believer but he even went as far as throwing little rocks at people when it speaks of stoning people who dress a certain way.
As ridiculous as this sounds there are people today who simply do not understand our faith and what we believe about following the Lord.
They do not understand because they dont understand grace.
It is God’s grace which allows us to live the Christian life, it is God’s grace which allows us to live a life of holiness and sanctification it is God’s grace which empowers us to say no to sin.
That is what Paul has been saying in the first half of it is only by God’s grace that you are going to be able to say to sin and yes to God. But the Jews didn’t understand that, and they would really mess with Paul when He would teach this, and they would get these people called the Judiazers and they would come around after Paul had visited a certain place and they would stir up all kinds of trouble, and they would say yeah this apostle Paul guy He is telling you about the grace of God and stuff like that and he is telling you your’e not under law didn’t he say that too?
Yeah he said that to us.... THATS RIDICULOUS THEY WOULD SAY
The only thing you do when you get out from under the law is you end up with lawless people. You gotta be under the law, the law gives us guidelines the law gives us rules, the law gives us safety.
Its ridiculous to say your not under the law, but thats exactly what Paul was saying, you not under the law your under grace.
They would say how can that be?
They said that because they didn’t understand grace, they did not understand the power of grace. They didn’t understand te ability of grace to change our lives. Theres alot of people dont understand that grace and Paul wants to talk a little more about that here.
So he has been talking about true believers who are under grace are not just going to give in to a life of sin. Remember he argued last time because the reason were not going to give in to a life of sin is bc we have been baptized into Christ or immersed into Christ and in Him we join in His death, and bc we share His death we have been set free from the penalty of sin bc we died to sin.
Used to be we were dead in our sins and now we have died to sin, and sin no longer has dominion or control over our lives.
Well we not only died spiritually speaking but we were given new life!
This is hard to understand bc people understand that once I come to faith in Christ I dont stop sinning, and here you are Kyle telling me that the sin has been broken off my life and the power of sin is no longer in control of my life, well then why do I still sin?
Thats a big problem for a bunch ofChristians “well I keep messing up....” Well so do i. But heres the point the reason you and I still sin as followers of Jesus is bc we choose to, we choose to sin.
You used to be enslaved to sin, and what that means is you had no choice in the matter, you just sinned because you were a slave and thats what slaves do they obey their master.
The Bible tells us that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. So isn was just like breathing but then we come to Christ and we accept Him as our Savior we enter into his death, and through that death, we die to sin, we die to the power of sin to control our lives and now suddenly we are free to choose not to sin.
we didnt have that freedom before but we do now, and now we can say NO Im not gonna do that.
(Kade)
Im getting these urges....
Were free to say no now, but you know what else we are free to do?
Were free to sin!
Because if your not free to sin then your not really free, right, so why do I keep sinning?
Bc I am free to sin and I want to
Thats why we do it
so I have to relearn what this freedom is all about that God is giving me, to say no to the sinful nature within me and to say yes to God.
He starts with another question
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
The Jews would say well yes if you tell people they are no longer under the requirements and the regiments of the law then they will just do whatever they want, they are just going to sin!
Paul says NO!
BY NO MEANS GOD FORBID ABSOLUTELY NOT ARE WE GONNA DO THAT
Then he goes on
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
This is a powerful argument for why we who are under grace no longer desire to give in to the old flesh and the life of sin, bc we understand this principle that whatever we give ourselves to we are a slave of.
We understand that that is the fact of the matter, when we give into sinful things we become slaves to them. It’s just a spiritual principle, and we understand that we can either be slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness.
Now again, before you knew Jesus you did not have that choice. You and I were slaves to sin and there was no option.
Except to come to Christ and be set free but now you have come to Jesus and He has set you free from that slavery, to sin.
People ask themselves well how do I know what I am a slave to?
What does slavery look like?
Do you know what slavery looks like?
It looks like obedience.
It looks like whatever snaps its fingers it causes you to move. It causes you to do something.
Whatever says jump and you say how high, thats what your a slave to.
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
We all have all kinds of passions and thoughts and desires and things that come into our minds and try to force their way in. All of us have them, we all have urges but we are free now to not obey those anymore.
If we obey them we show that we are a slave to that thing whatever it may be.
So the question is, who or what are you obeying?
We would all every one of us would like to be able to say very clearly I obey God.
But the fact of the matter is thats not the case, and we need to also understand another Biblical principle that Jesus gave us.
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Now the context in which he gives this is about God and money. He basically said you cannot serve two masters God and money you will hate the one and love the other and you might say well isn’t that kind of wrong to use that verse out of context?
But there is nothing wrong with using a verse out of context when the verse is universal.
It is a fact, you cannot serve two masters
I dont care what context you put God is love in it is always going to mean God is love.
There is never a point where you can serve two masters you will always only be able to serve one master. It is a Biblical principle, whether it is god and money, God and drugs, god and power, God and pleasure.
You cant serve both of the things.
For all of us who have been born again tonight we have been baptized into Jesus meaning into His death and bc of that we have beren set free from slavery to sin.
We have bee liberated
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.
You see for the child of God this freedom from sin has been activated it is a done deal.
When you come to Jesus there is a freedom that comes into play whereby you and I are set free not from the ability to sin but from the mastery of sin.
I have never said when you come to Jesus your going to stop sinning, I am saying when you come to Jesus the power of sin to control your life has been killed.
Now from this point on you choose to sin bc you want to.
or bc you are addicted to it, and we get addicted to things.
Addictions are big these days, and addiction is nothing more than a deep rut in your life thats all it is.
We can all develope these deep ruts of sin, but it is not bc you haven’t been set free, to live a different life but instead there are these deep ruts that you have to learn to navigate out of.
Now were told you can be a slave to God instead of a slave to sin, so this is something I think about often I wanna go hard towards the Lord in the same way I ran hard and fast away from Him before I knew Him.
There were times I would stay up doing ungodly things to all hours of the night and now that I am redeemed its ok to stay up and labor in prayer
I used to waste my money on trash now I wanna give toward the kingdom work of the Lord.
As hard as I ran after sin I wanna go that hard for the Lord
As I learn to walk in this freedom and embrace it, then I begin not to have urges to sin like I used to but rather I have urges to have more of the Lord.
Being a slave of God is the only kind of slavery in your life that will produce freedom in your life.
Slavery to God produces freedom bc he is the only free being in the universe
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
But God is the only one who is free
When I was younger I was made to go to church every week and i hated it, all through highschool, I remember thinking when I turn 18 and move out of this house I am not gonna step into a church ever.
Ha Ha Ha jokes on me
This is a good thing to remember don’t ever tell God you are not going to do something, bc you will end up doing it everytime.
But how do I change when there are these deep ruts of sin in your life well Paul talks about that here but it is called walking out your freedom.
It’s learning to live like a free person thats hard when youve lived your whole life enslaved and suddenly JEsus comes along and says your free and your like yay what does that mean!
What does that even look like?
Now you are free to live the life you wanna live but there is a warning he gives. You are free to go back and live a life of sin if you want to but let me tell you where that leads, it leads right back to slavery.
Or you can choose to truly be free and walk in that freedom that cost Jesus His blood!
I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Paul just made all this really simple and he kind of calls us dumb, lol He says Im speaking in human terms bc your limited.
He says remember how you used to live your life for sin and you would present your body for sin, go just as hard for God!
He says you remember how you used to give yourself to sin, now give yourself to God!
The word present is a daily thing, its a daily thing where I come to God and say I know you have set me free from sin but i have to once again come to you and present myself before you abd say Lord I give myself to you.
I used to use my voice to curse and to gossip but I present myself to you that I will only speak life to people even when they hurt me.
Lord I used to give my eyes over to lust and look at things I ought not look at but now Lord I give them to you, to help me see people as you see them and help me to see your face as well.
Lord you remember how I used to use my ears to listen to all the garbage that the world was saying and singing Lord I give my hears to you today to hear good things, to hear the things of the kingdom.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
You have to do this daily because if you dont there are so many temptations out there that will tempt you to take what you have presented to God and take it back to use for your own selfish purposes
We have to start walking like a free person
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Dont go back and do that, why in the world would you do that?
Galatians 5:1
Why would you go back to the slave quarters why?
Your not bound to that life anymore?
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
Heres the question Paul is asking
what did you get out of that life of sin, what was the fruit of thiose things?
DEATH
Why are we sitting and wishing we were doing the things we used to do when all they brought about was death?
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.