Life in the Spirit
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Good evening, well turn with me in your Bibles to .
I cant believe we are already in chapter 8. We saw back in the beginning of this series how the apsotle Paul began to talk about the problem of sin. By the time he got to chapter 7 last week, the whole issue of sin had escalated to the point where Paul kind of just blurted out OH WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM
WHO IS GONNA SAVE ME FROM THIS BODY OF DEATH?
The reason there is such a big problem is bc last week Paul brought the fact that there is a big problem, and that is that the law is spiritual but we a re fleshly. We are very carnal people, do you know thta about you?I hope so bc we are all very carnal people.
We are very tied to the flesh.Bc of that we can do nothing to keep the law. Thats the same thing Paul realized,you cant keep the law, the law is spiritual and i am fleshly so the only thing the law does is condemn me.
I inherited that from my forefather Adam and we all did we inherited condemnation. Thats basically where were at, we are all condemned by the law, so what are we gonna do about that?
Paul asks the question: WHOSE GONNA SAVE ME?
Well today we get the answer:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:
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, 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, 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. 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. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 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. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
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. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 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. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 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 children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 8:2-
(Let’s pray) “Lord please open our hearts and minds to understand your word....”
Paul begins this chapter with a verse that for alot of people is probably a verse that is their favorite verse in all the Bible. Some people like to adopt what they like to call a life verse...
This is a huge statement for Paul to make!
THERE IS NOW THEREFORE NO CONDEMNATION FOR THOSE IN CHRIST JESUS
Why is this so important?
BC He has been spending 11 chapters that were condemned! In fact he has ben showing us that the law has a right to condemn us in fact. He has bene explaining the right of the law and he has been saying that we prove everyday that the law has every right to condemn us by our actions.
By failure to keep the law I basically prove the law is right in its judgement of me that truth that we are condemned and now Paul drops this grace bomb on us and he says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
We are all kinda like WOW thats really good news whats that all about?
How are we no longer condemned by the law?
He explains
For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
Now to understand this verse you gotta understand that when Paul uses the word law in verse 2 he isn’t talking about the law of Moses but He is describing the law of a power over you. It would be like the law of gravity, if you climb up on the roof and jump off the law of gravity will have the power over you to bring you to the ground.
So you could literally put the word power in here over the word lawe. Let me read the verse that way. FOR THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT HAS SET YOU FREE IN CHRIST JESUS FROM THE POWER OF SIN AND DEATH.
THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT this is the essence of Paul message here, and it is important because we have been dealing with the futility of the flesh. Paul has just mentioned his power his might and his ability something like 40 times in the previous verses and he ends it with WHO IS GONNA SAVE ME!
Now he is making a drastic shift of thought in this study of Romans. The answer to this question of who is going to save you and I THE HOLY SPIRIT.
So lets look at what abilities and blessings and benefits the Holy Spirit brings to us.
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,
Now Paul has already said nothing is wrong with the law but it was weakened in that my flesh couldn’t follow it. The law came out and said do this, well I couldn’t so my flesh weakened the ability of the law to change my life.
The law tells you things but it doesn’t empower you, legalism doesn’t work in changing our lives I keep repeating that bc in the body of Christ we keep repeating the error.
We keep on thinking it can!
How many times over the years that the church has been around how many times have we fallen into legalism? How many times have we relied on rules to get us through.
do this dont do that...
It doesn’t work, it never will work.
So its only through the power of God’s Spirit that you and I can live a Christian life. rules dont work, all they do is tell you what you should be doing or shouldn’t be doing but you cant
Thats why Paul launches into that statment the things I wanna do, those arent the things I do, its the things I hate that I end up doing. So god has done what the law couldn’t do, through the spirit.
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,
Jesus didn’t come as sinful flesh He came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh but he himself was not sinful he took on our sin. But it says that bc he was sinless God the father could then put the penalty of our sin on him.
Why did Jesus have to be sinless?
bc if he sinned he would have had to pay for his own sin, but bc he was sinless he was free to pay for yours when you dont owe the debt yourself you can offer to pay someone elses debt. but if you go to the bank and say I wanna pay off so and so’s debt, they will go Im sorry pal but you owe a debt yourself.
so this dq’s you from paying someone elses debt bc you owe a debt yourself. thats the way it is with sin, Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh he looked like us, but he was not sinful, he was sinless therefore he could take our sin, and our sin was condemned in him for us.
he just answered the question of why you and me are no longer under condemnation.
You and I are not under condemnation anymore bc Jesus bore that for us! he was condemned FOR YOU AND FOR ME AND WHEN WE TAKE THA UPON OURSELVES AND NOW THERE IS NO CONDEMNATION FOR US BC HE WAS CONDEMNED IN OUR PLACE!
But it doesn’t stop there!
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.
This is amazing, you Christians you dont keep the law… people will say to us.
Paul says the righteous requirements of the law are fufilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit I want you to notice Paul did not say the righteous reqirments of the law are fulfilled by us he said they are fulfu=illed in us very important
You see the legalist thinks the righteous requirements have to be fulfilled by their actions. We dont believe that we believe they have been fulfilled in us by God as we walk and keep in step with the spirit.
so whats the point?
THE SPIRIT DOES THE WORK IN OUR LIVES IT IS NO BASED ON OUR OWQN ACTIONS
The only way the righteous requirements of the law can be kept is by Jesus living in you!
How does this work?
There are alot of churches that are scared to death of the Holy Spirit they are afraid that the Holy Spirit will bring chaos and people will be runnin around screaming, but the Holy Spirit does not do that but brings peace and order to the chaos, and joy and understanding.
So the Spirit of God within us the Holy Spirit within us, I want you to remember something.
He is the Spirit of Jesus, he goes by many names, Spirit of the living god, Spirit of Christ.
He now lives within you, what did Jesus do when he came to this Earth? He lived a perfectly righteous life, guess who now lives within us? Jesus lives inside of you through the person fo the HS
What you and I couldnt do He did, and now He lives in us.
He lives in you, you are a temple of the HS that is mind blowing!
But theres more
He is now able to empower us as well, its not just Jesus lives in us and He fulfills the law, but He enables us to live according to the law.
It hasn’t been very long ago where i had a very serious diuscussions with someone about keeping the sabbath and dietary laws and this man was serious when He said we as Cristians were not keeping the law and I am here to tell you we are not under the Mosaic covenant we are under the New covenant of the blood of the lamb!
this is what Paul is describing for us here
The HS now living in you can enable you to live the life that is in keeping with the law, how?
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Galatians 5:
Didn’t Jesus say the same thing when they were talking to Him about you know what is the best and greatest commandment?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind soul and strength andf love your neighbor as yourself all the law and the prophets rest on those.
The power of the Spirit has now come to live inside you and me to enable us to do those things. As we do we live according to the law.
When we love God and love our neighbor thats the law right there.
That is why we cannot say we love God if we do not love our neighbor.
When we live according to the Spirit we can do these things. Do not tell me you are walking by the spirit if you dont love other people.
Yeah we mess up but when we do we can always come to Jesus and get it right.
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
There is this constant flow of cleansing happening that comes from the cross.
We mess up sure but there is a continual spring of life and cleansing!
We come to Jesus and we say Lord I messed up and I need your forgiveness cleanse me from this and let me start over again.
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.
For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
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.
bc it is totally fixated on pleasing self and thats why he says those who ar ein the flesh canot please God. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE SINGLE MINDEDLEY focused on the flesh and please God
Your focused on gratifying the flesh, and there is no way you can live a life that is pleasing to God you cannot do it.
But Paul says
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.
If the Spirit of God isnt living within you then you are not a Christian simple as that.
Why?
The spirit is the one who makes a born again child of the king how do you think you become a child of God by the Spirit it births you into the family of God!
He says we need to fix our minds on the things of the Spirit
Do you know God talks about this in the OT we think of the New covenant and what it offers to us as a such a NT truth but God foretold that He was going to do a work of the Spirit back in the OT
“Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
Jeremiah 31:
“Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put My teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.
The writing of the law on our hearts is what Paul refers to as the power or the law of the Spirit.
God takes the law and puts it in our hearts and on our hearts
Moses used to carry the law around on stone tablets, and its interesting they were on stone tablets God doesn’t do anything by accident, the fact they were on stone tablets is interesting bc stone is stone and stone is hard and it is external to us. We are flesh we are not stone, I need the law to be flesh to me, but in the OT it was not flesh it was rock and it sat there and I could look at it but it couldn’t change me.
It could help me bc it wasn’t in me it was outside of me. so God is looking at us and he decides to write it on our hearts.
Its going to be directing you, guiding your course
There were 10 commandments that were written on those stone tablets but there were a ton of laws, someone onece decided they were gonna count all the laws that were given back then 613 laws.
Can you imagine keeping 613 laws?
I cant imagine keeping 6
But you know what even with 613 laws they cant cover everything can they?
Naw
smoking marijuana
R rated movies
Your not gonna find a law on that
People come all the time asking what the Bible says on something like that.
Are you a born again Christian.... yeah?
Whats He telling you?
your conflicted about something!
The law giver is now one with you and chances are you are asking me about these things because God has already put on your heart it is wrong and you are trying everything to justify your sin
What it means to follow the spirit it means to listen to His voice and obey! To listen for that conviction!
Conviction is that still small voice that says don’t click on that link.
That still small voice is the one telling you that conversation you were having with this person started off fine but you know what this has deteriorated into gossip and you know it and you need to end this.
That voice that says I love you but you haven’t picked up your Bible in days
you haven’t been feeding your spirit
When we pass our Bible and leave it sitting on the table
Do we listen do we respond
The Spirit tells us what is right and wrong
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
you already know what to do
Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Romans 8
And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you.
So then, brothers, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh,
This is good we are debtors but not to the flesh we dont have to listen to it!
for if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
All those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”
The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children,
and if children, also heirs —heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—seeing that we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
Romans 8