Deo Gloria
Sermon for March 22, 2020
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Romans 8:1-10
Theme: Jesus Christ Has Set You Free!
- From death
- For life
- Through the Holy Spirit
Does the name Harold Morris ring a bell? Maybe you’ve read his book Twice Pardoned, or maybe you’ve heard him on the radio or seen him on TV. He ended up being convicted and spending time in prison for murder, a murder he did not commit. Try putting yourself in his shoes for a moment. There you are, locked up in a maximum security prison. You’ve pretty much resigned yourself to the fact that you’re going to be spending the rest of your life behind bars. But then one day a man steps into your cell. It’s the warden. “Mr. Morris,” he says, “there’s a gentleman here to see you. His name is Jerry Donaldson.”
Jerry Donaldson—how could you ever forget that name? He was the district attorney who served as prosecutor on your case. The man steps into your cell. “Mr. Morris,” he begins, “I don’t quite know how to tell you this, but you’re a free man. It seems the man who actually committed the murder you were convicted of turned himself in the other day and confessed to the crime. I guess we got the wrong man. You are free to go.”
At first you don’t believe him, but after a few moments you begin to realize that these guys are serious. And the truth begins to sink in. “You mean it? I’m free? I’m really free?!” You can hardly control your emotions. You don’t know whether to shout for joy or break down and cry. Imagine the joy, imagine the excitement you would feel.
As Christians, you and I can relate to someone like Harold Morris. We know that wonderful feeling of joy and excitement, because like Mr. Morris we too have been set free. Jesus Christ has set us free. He has set us free from death. He has set us free for life. And he has done so through the Holy Spirit.
In order to understand what Paul is saying here in Romans ch. 8, it’s important to know how these verses fit in with those that precede them. So let’s review a bit. In chapters 1-4 of this letter Paul talked about justification. He emphasized the truth that before God no one is righteous. Nor can anyone be righteous by observing the Law. The Law simply shows us how we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In his grace and mercy, however, God did for us what we could not do on our own. He declared us to be righteous on the basis of Jesus’ work of redemption. He has justified us, that is, he has declared us to be “not guilty.” And this righteousness is credited to us, as it was to Abraham, through faith. Then in ch. 5 Paul talked about some of the results of our justification. He talked about the joy and peace that are ours since we have been justified. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”(v. 1). Next, in ch. 6 Paul talked about sanctification: how we are to live in view of what God has done for us. In v. 2 Paul made the striking statement: “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” And in v. 13 he urged us not to offer the parts of our body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but instead to offer the parts of our body to God, as instruments of righteousness. But doing that is always going to be a struggle.
That’s the point of ch. 7. Living a God-pleasing life and doing what God wants us to do is always going to be a struggle, because as Christians we have a kind of dual personality. On the one hand, we have our new man or our new self, created in us by God at the time of our baptism. On the other hand, we also have our Old Adam, our sinful nature. Our new self wants to follow God and do what God wants. Our Old Adam wants to follow Satan and do what he wants. The two are in constant conflict. And that’s why we still sin. We want to do good. We want to do what’s right, but then our Old Adam gets in there and opposes the good we want to do and tries his best to lead us in the other direction. And all too often he succeeds and we sin. In ch. 7 Paul talked about this struggle with sin in his own life: “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing”(vv. 18-19).
And because we still sin, our consciences still bother us. They make us feel guilty and afraid, afraid that God might still punish us for our sins, afraid that he might still condemn us to hell. At times we may even be tempted to throw up our hands in despair and give up: “What’s the use? No matter how hard I try to do what’s right, I still sin. And then I feel guilty and afraid. What’s the use?”
That’s why Paul writes what he does in ch. 8: to comfort us. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”(v. 1). Whew! What a relief! We don’t have to despair over our sins. We don’t have to worry that God is still angry at us because of our sins or that he might condemn us to hell. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Yeah, but what about the law? The law points out my sins. The law says, “Do not murder,” “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not steal.” The laws says, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law”(Gal. 3:10). I don’t do everything written in the Book of the Law. I’ve broken those commandments. That means I’m guilty. And the law also states the punishment I deserve: “The wages of sin is death.” How do I get around that?
You and I can’t, but God can. And that’s Paul’s point in v. 2: “Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” You see, you and I are not under the old law anymore, the law of sin and death. God has set us free from that. You and I are under a new law, the law of the Spirit of life.
Maybe an illustration might help. When U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan a number of years ago, the Taliban was driven out of the capitol city of Kabul and people began doing things that were illegal before. Women no longer covered their faces when they went out in public. People began playing and listening to different kinds of music, including western music. Girls started going to school again and learning how to read and write. How could they do things like that when before they were illegal and forbidden? Because they were not under the rule of the Taliban anymore and their oppressive laws. Instead they had a new government and new laws, laws that granted them much more freedom.
The same is true with us. You and I are not under the oppressive rule of sin and death anymore. Through Christ Jesus, God has defeated these enemies of ours, these evil oppressors. He has set us free from sin and death. Now we are under the law of the Spirit, the control of the Spirit, the Spirit who gives us life instead of death.
“But why was it necessary for God to do this?” we might wonder. “Was there something wrong with the law?” No, there was something wrong with us. You and I could have attained righteousness and eternal life if we could have obeyed the law perfectly. The problem is we couldn’t do it. Oh sure, we could obey some of the laws some of the time. But we couldn’t obey all of the laws all of the time. We are sinful by nature. So no matter how hard we tried, the law could not lead us to glory. It could not bring us into a right relationship with God, because we could not obey it.
But what we could not do, what the law could not do because it was weakened by our sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son. Jesus lived a righteous life, the kind of life we should have lived. He obeyed every one of God’s commands. He never cursed or swore. He never disobeyed his parents. He never hated anyone, or stole from anyone, or lied to anyone. Jesus obeyed God’s law perfectly. He was truly righteous.
And the best part about that is: He is our righteousness. The righteous life he lived God credits to you and me, to all those who believe in Jesus as their Savior. The way God sees it, you and I have obeyed his law. We have fulfilled every righteous requirement. Through Jesus we are holy and righteous.
And for all the times we did sin, for all the times we failed to obey the law, God sent his Son in our likeness, in the likeness of sinful man, that he might be a sin offering. Yes, the law does say that the wages of sin is death. So Jesus became our substitute and took that punishment on himself. He suffered and died in our place and offered a perfect sacrifice for all our sins.
So, you see, sin cannot condemn us anymore. Sin cannot point its accusing finger at us and say, “Guilty! You are guilty! You cannot live with God in heaven. You have broken the law and sinned against God. You deserve to die.” Sin has nothing to accuse us of anymore. Through Jesus Christ our sins have been removed and the law has been obeyed. We are not guilty.
“So what you’re saying, then, is that it doesn’t matter how I live anymore. I can sin all I want to and it doesn’t matter because Jesus obeyed the law for me and died on the cross to take my sins away, right?” Wrong! While it is true that God has set us free from the power and control of sin and death, we can place ourselves back under their power and control. Like Harold Morris, God has set us free from prison, but we can live our lives in such a way that we end up back in prison. How? By going back to a life of crime, by living according to the sinful nature, by setting our minds on what our sinful nature desires, by indulging ourselves in sinful pleasures. Paul warns us where it will lead: “The mind of sinful man,” he says, “is death”(v. 6).
Do you want to die? Do you want to end up separated from God in eternity? Do you want to spend the rest of forever living under the power of death, under the power of the devil? Then go ahead and sin. Go ahead and live according to your sinful nature. Indulge yourself in sinful pleasures. Fill your mind with sinful thoughts, your ears with sinful music, your eyes with sinful pictures and images. Go ahead. Have yourself a good ‘ol time; but it won’t end well. “The mind of sinful man is death.”
Maybe that’s what you have been doing lately, living according to the sinful nature. You have had your mind set on what your sinful nature desires. In fact, you could hardly wait. You could hardly wait till Friday night so you could go out drinking with your friends and really tie one on. You could hardly wait for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to come out so you could fill your mind with lustful thoughts. You could hardly wait to call your friend and tell her all the latest gossip you heard at work, every juicy tidbit. You could hardly wait for that uncle of yours to die so you could get your hands on that inheritance money. Confess those sins to the Lord. Confess that you have been catering to your sinful nature and ask for his forgiveness. That’s why he died on the cross, is it not? He gave his life as a sin offering for your sins too.
And then be sure to ask for God’s help to resist those sinful desires and to live according to the Spirit, the Spirit who lives inside you. You know that, right? The Holy Spirit lives in all of God’s children, all those who belong to Jesus Christ. He took up residence there when you were baptized, when he brought you to faith in Jesus as your Savior. As long as he remains there, you are under his control. You are not under the control of the sinful nature anymore. Sure you still struggle with your sinful nature. Your sinful nature remains hostile to God. “It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” As Paul says in v. 10, your body is dead because of sin. It’s still infected with sin, but not your spirit. Your spirit is alive, alive because of righteousness, the righteousness earned for you by Christ and credited to you by God.
Like Harold Morris you’ve been given a second chance on life. You’ve been given a new life to live. This too took place at your baptism, when the Spirit created a new person inside you, a new nature that loves to do what God wants, a nature that wants to do what’s good and right and pleasing in God’s sight. Live according to that nature. Keep in step with the Spirit, and he will give you life.
Imagine the joy, imagine the thrill of being set free from prison and having a new lease on life! You and I know that joy and excitement. Freedom from sin and death, the joy of new life now and eternal life beyond the grave–that joy is ours, because Jesus Christ has set us free. Amen.