WWUTT 1261 There is No Condemnation? (Romans 8:1)

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Romans 8 .1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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Romans 8 .39. There is nothing in all creation that will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

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Lord, when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text studying

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God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Find all our videos online at www .wutt

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.com, as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of the book of Romans. This week we start chapter 8, and I'm going to start by reading the whole thing.

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This is Romans chapter 8, verses 1 through 39. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

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For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending his own

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the

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Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the

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Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the

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Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised

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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

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Spirit who dwells in you. So then, my brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

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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.

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For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the

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Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry,

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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.

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For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

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For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

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For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the

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Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

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For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees?

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But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

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Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the

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Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the

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Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love

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God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

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For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his

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Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called.

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And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

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What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

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He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he also not with him graciously give us all things?

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Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

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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.

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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

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As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

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No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

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For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. And there you go, if you followed along with me, you have covered an entire chapter of the

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Bible today. This is a beautiful chapter that we have set for us in the context of Paul's letter to the

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Romans. But one of the things that we find here, I don't know if you noticed some repeating themes that were coming up as we went through the chapter, but the word

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Spirit came up very often. In fact, the Holy Spirit himself is mentioned 20 times in this chapter, in Romans chapter 8.

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If you were to do a systematic study on the Holy Spirit of God, you would have to include

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Romans 8 in a good chunk of that study, for the Holy Spirit is mentioned more here in this chapter than any other chapter of the

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Bible that mentions the Spirit of God. We start off in Romans 8 .1

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with a beautiful verse, and one you have surely had memorized, something that you've reminded yourself over and over again.

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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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And if you're a person that likes to underline or likes to highlight, yeah, check that out. Underline that one.

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Memorize it. Remind yourself of it constantly. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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Now that statement works on its own, but you notice there were a few words there at the very beginning that mean something, that point to something we just finished up studying.

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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Well, what are we referring back to when we say therefore?

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Well, you know what came at the end of Romans chapter 7 if you were with us in that part of the study last week.

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So Paul says in Romans 7 .21, So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is right, evil lies close at hand.

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For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, 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.

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Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Verse 25.

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Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh

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I serve the law of sin. As we are growing and walking in sanctification, as we are desiring to be holy as Christ is holy, those occasional instances in which our flesh dwells upon the things of this world, our flesh condemns us.

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As I've heard Alistair Begg say, that you never feel farther from God than when you are indulging in a particular sin.

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You can have the passions of your flesh, you can entertain those things that you want in this world, or you can have assurance of salvation, but you cannot do both.

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I'm trying to remember exactly how he says it. Something like, disobedience and assurance are not friends.

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They do not stay in the same house together. You can either disobey God, or you can have assurance in Christ.

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And oftentimes when somebody comes to me and says, how do I have assurance of salvation? Sometimes I might probe a little bit to wonder if they are walking in any particular sin.

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Is there a sin that they're desiring that they can have, but also have assurance of salvation?

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If they're doubting their salvation, there's the possibility that they may be going after some sin. Now I'm not going to say that that's what that always means whenever somebody asks me that question.

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It's not what I assume. But as a pastor, I still want to probe a little bit. Because I'm trying to help you.

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I want to help you understand this dilemma. How can I have assurance of salvation?

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And if you think that you can sin a little bit, dabble in this world, go after things that your flesh wants, and still have assurance of salvation, you will find that those two things are incompatible.

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So once again, you can either obey God and have assurance, or you can disobey God and you will not have assurance.

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Jesus said that whoever abides in my word, you are truly my disciples,

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John 8, 31. And then he goes on in John 15, 7 to say, if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

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You ask God for assurance of salvation. You ask him for the strength to be able to resist that temptation.

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You are doing that according to the word of Christ that dwells in you, because you know that you must call upon God for the strength to be able to resist those things that our flesh would otherwise lead us astray in.

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1 John 2, 14. I write to you fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.

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I write to you young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

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So it is by the word of Christ dwelling within us that we desire to obey and walk in, that we are able to resist the schemes of the devil, even those things that play upon our flesh.

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Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. And then when we get to Romans 8, 1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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I'm sorry, I skipped a verse there, because it says, Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord. I missed the rest of the verse.

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So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh

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I serve the law of sin. So once again, if we are desiring sanctification by the power and strength of our own flesh, we're never going to get there, as we were talking about when we were going through Romans 7.

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In fact, dwelling upon those things in our flesh is just going to awaken the sin desire in us.

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The example that I gave is if you get tempted by something, and you just focus on that temptation, almost as if you're trying to do some sort of mind over matter thing.

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I'm just going to look at this. I'm going to try to solve the problem. I think I can do it myself.

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I can solve this issue, and I can overcome this temptation, and then I will be sanctified. Well, see, if you try to do that by your own power, you're never going to get there.

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You're actually awakening in yourself the desire to sin, because where is your focus? It's not on God.

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That's where it needs to be. You focus on God. You turn to him. You cling to Christ.

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The devil will flee from you. If you're looking at the sin, then your focus is not on Christ. You're looking at this sin over here and trying to find in yourself, mustering up in yourself, some ability to overcome that and sanctify yourself and make yourself more holy, which you can't do.

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God is the one who makes us holy. He is the one who justifies, and he is also the one who sanctifies.

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So we must turn to Christ. By turning to our own power and our own strength in our flesh, we serve the law of sin, the law of God with my mind, the law of sin with my flesh.

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How is it that I'm able to overcome those things that by my own power I cannot overcome?

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Romans 8 .1, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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So those struggles, those conflicts that we have in our flesh as we are growing in sanctification should not cause us to despair.

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The moment that we sin should not make us think, well, there it went. I just lost my salvation.

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It's gone. I don't have it anymore because I just sinned. So that's the proof that I've not ever really been saved because didn't

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Paul just say back in Romans 6 that if we are alive in Christ, we are dead to our sin and sin will have no dominion over you since you are no longer under the law but under grace.

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Well, if I've just sinned, then apparently I'm not under grace, so I'm still under the law, and I've lost my salvation.

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Again, by your flesh, you're never going to be able to find assurance of those things regarding the salvation that we have in Christ.

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It's focusing on Christ that we have our assurance. It's focusing on Christ that we have our sanctification.

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Romans 8, 1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, the context of this verse here is not that others are condemning us.

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Paul is not saying this in the face of other people who are ridiculing us and condemning us and making fun of us for the faith that we have.

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That hasn't been the context here. We've been struggling and wrestling with things within our own flesh up to this point.

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So you yourself cannot condemn yourself even when you fail to achieve the sanctification that can only be achieved in Christ.

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It doesn't mean that you've lost your justification. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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Turn to Christ. He's the one who will keep you steadfast. He will grow you in holiness.

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He will keep you to the end. That's what we have throughout this whole chapter. That's really what

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Romans 8 is about. It is showing us Christ and knowing that in Christ we will always be in Christ because it is by the power of Christ that we're in Christ.

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And Jesus is never going to let us go. Therefore, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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Not even God condemns us. Because He has given His Son for us as an atoning sacrifice.

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So whoever believes in Him will never be condemned by the

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Father. He receives us as sons and daughters of God. We see that come up a little bit later on that by the power of the

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Spirit that is within us, we have received adoption as sons and daughters and it is by the

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Spirit we cry, Abba, Father. Verse 15. We know God as Father through this adoption that we have the

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Spirit that dwells within us. The amazing power of the Spirit in the

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Christian's life is what we're going to see through Romans 8. But it's bookended. It starts and ends.

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Romans 8 begins and ends with a focus upon Christ. And having that focus on Christ again is the

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Spirit. The Holy Spirit showing us the Savior. For He is the one who testifies to the truth as John talks about in 1

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John 5. So look at the head and the tail of the verse. Very beginning, or sorry, of the chapter.

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Very beginning of the chapter, very end of the chapter. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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That's Romans 8 .1 and then Romans 39. There is nothing else in all creation that will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. We're beginning and ending the same way. Just Paul is saying it two different ways. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

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Nothing in all creation will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. And then what a wonderful journey through Romans 8 we have in the rest of the chapter between those two statements.

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I'm going to go ahead and stop there though. And we'll pick this up again tomorrow coming back to Romans 8 .1 and continuing on at the start of this chapter.

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We'll be in this for a few weeks because this chapter is just so wonderful and full. Let us come to the

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Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness. Thank you for the salvation that we have in Christ and your

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Spirit who dwells within us. And may we be obedient to the

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Spirit. May we focus upon Christ. The Spirit testifies to the truth, shows us the

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Son who reveals to us the Father. It is this love for the

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Trinity of God that we have because of what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us in our hearts through the

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Word of God. We have salvation by this Word. We have assurance of our salvation by this

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Word. We have sanctification by this Word. So grow us in this Word and by your

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Spirit that dwells within us. For as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2 it is the

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Spirit that discerns spiritual things. The Spirit of God reveals to us the things of God. And so I pray that we see you all the more even as we go through this day.

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Help us to be reminded that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Let us not be ashamed before God but receive our washing, our cleansing of those things that we have done wrong that we may walk before you in righteousness and holiness.

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1 John 1 .9 Whoever is faithful to ask forgiveness for our sins,

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God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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Cleanse us today, God. Teach us to walk in uprightness and holiness before you.

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In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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If you'd like to support this ministry visit our website www .wutt .com and click on the

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Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand The Text.