Book of Romans, 8:2 - The Truth of Our Righteous Walk, Pt. 3 (01/05/2020)

Park Meadows Church

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And we will have a good discussion. So let's go into Romans chapter 8.

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And we've been talking about the first 12 verses of Romans chapter 8, but really the whole time, for probably 6 -8 weeks, we've really been talking about one verse,

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Romans chapter 8 verse 1. And I'm just about to the point where Katie has freed me up to have time to write some books.

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We've got smart people running everything at the company, companies, and so that's my

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New Year's resolution. And so I've been praying about which, like I've got a thousand of them in my head, which one do

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I do first? And one thought popped in my mind this morning, but I don't know if it's the right one.

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But you remember one time I had a message, in fact I did it across the country, I talked about it.

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The most misunderstood verse in the Bible, anybody remember that? Who can remember what it is? Right.

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John 3, 16. So I thought, well maybe a book about the most misunderstood verse is, and talk about the popular verses that everybody thinks they understand, and how little they've looked into them, and then go into detail like that.

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So Romans 8, 1 could be one of them, right? But that'd be a whole book if we put all the sermons for the last several weeks in there, couldn't it?

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So I don't know what to do. We'll see. I won't live long enough to write one book, probably. It would be hard, because if I can,

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I mean you should see what I have just for one sermon, but I mean, imagine for a book it would be just coming out the house and out into the front yard, papers everywhere.

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No one will read the book, but I'll have fun writing it, that's for sure. Well, this particular verse,

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I had a thought while you were singing, Brother Ron, I need to think what that thought was. It was a good one. That was it, that was it.

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Thank you. Let's have a vote. The problem is you're the only volunteer, so no one will take your job, that's for sure.

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Maybe I'll think of it in a minute. Well, one of the things, here's what the gist of this whole thing with verse 1.

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Let me read the verse. We do have a few visitors that haven't heard it read the last six Sundays, so I'll read it again.

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Romans 8, 1, There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the

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Spirit. There are many, most of the new versions of the Bible, or many new versions, don't even include the last phrase in that verse, they remove it, and they say that God made a mistake by putting that in there, because the same phrase is also at the end of verse 4, if you'll notice, who walk not after the flesh, but after the

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Spirit, is exactly the same word for word at the end of verse 4, so they say, well, that's a mistake.

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The funny thing about saying that is that I've spent two years studying manuscript evidence when

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I was in my 30s, and one of the things I studied a lot were the copyists, the men who copied the

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Bible through the thousands of years, because we didn't always have printers, did we, and computers, so they hand copied them, and when you read about the practices and the life of these people and how holy the people were that were selected to do this, like I'm just going to say, for them to have a phrase within this much space of each other and make a mistake is impossible, because if they found a mistake like that, even if they had already copied 4 ,000 pages, they would burn it all and start over.

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That's what they did. Like if they made a mistake, halfway through the work, they burned it and started over.

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Think how many man hours they just threw away right there, but that's how accurate they were, so they did not make a mistake in copying this.

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God not only promised he would breathe his word to us, he said, I will keep it safe,

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I will preserve it to the last generation, so it's supposed to be there. When you see

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God say something twice, what does that say to us within, say, four verses of each other? He says it twice, what does that say?

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It's an emphasis, right? So woe to those who try to remove it, it's still there in the

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King James Version, and it's still there in the best Greek, underlying Greek manuscripts, and it should be there.

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So what does it mean, though? And what we've been talking about, like the second phrase, if you want to call it chapter 8, verse 1b, is that the cause of our salvation, or is it the effect?

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And that's what we've been talking about, and I think Bill mentioned that in Sunday school this morning, we've been talking about that a long time, because a lot of people would read this verse and say, well, wait a minute, you

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Baptists like to say that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but you leave the second part off, it says, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.

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So unless you have that part going on, you are condemned. That's how they would read that. That's not what the verse means, though, and how do we know that?

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Because we never preach a verse. Have you ever seen me preach a verse? We preach books, all right?

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Context is the whole thing. Context is almost everything. There's nine other rules of Bible interpretation, but context is the most important of all of them.

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What's the book talking about? And more importantly here, what is chapter 8 talking about, even though there aren't chapters?

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You have to look at chapter 7 and chapter 8, they're all one thing. There's no chapters. It's all the same person.

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Paul talking at the end of chapter 7 is where he said, you know, I find myself doing that which I don't want to do, doing that which

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I hate, and not doing what I want to do. That same person is the same person that has no condemnation in verse 1, because there's no chapter divisions.

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It's the same person. So that same person who found himself doing what he hated has no condemnation.

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Now, if you want to say that the second part of verse 1 is the important part and that's the cause, then you've got to throw out all of chapter 7, and chapter 6, and chapter 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, lift off, right?

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You've got to throw it all off, and you can't do that. And furthermore, you would have to take verse 2, which is coming up next, all the way through verse 12 and remove them in order to make verse 1 mean that.

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But that's what preachers do, because they don't bring those verses in. They just put verse 1 up and say, well, look what it says here. You can't walk after the flesh, you've got to walk after the spirit or else you still have condemnation.

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Because that's what takes the condemnation away is when you walk after the spirit and you never walk after the flesh. If that were true, brothers and sisters, we have no gospel.

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Because the word gospel means good news, and that would be really bad news if that's what that meant. But it doesn't mean it, and that's what we've been talking about for weeks, weeks and weeks.

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If you notice, verse 2 starts with the word for, which means because, and then going all the way down through,

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I don't know, about verse 8 or so, there's at least four of those. So what we discovered is when you put verse 1 and verse 4 together, using some laws of logic and math, you can actually realize that it's really the whole thing is talking about being in Christ.

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That's the cause. Being in Christ is the cause. The effect is that we walk not after the flesh but after the spirit, and we've discovered that throughout the

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Bible, especially the New Testament, that means a predominant direction we're walking. It doesn't mean every minute that we're perfect.

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And there's so much evidence in the following verses that means it's not that we're perfect. It's not like we never walk after the flesh.

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That's not what it's saying. It's a predominant direction of the life change. When we got saved, we turned our back on the world system and on our own flesh and on the devil, and we're walking towards the glory of heaven and our

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Savior, and that's the predominant walk. That's who this person is in verse 1. But that walk, that predominant direction, is an effect, not a cause.

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The cause is because we're in Christ. It's the only reason we ever do anything good. It's the only reason we ever avoid anything bad.

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Otherwise, we find ourselves as the best Christian who ever lived, the Apostle Paul, saying, I just did that which

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I hate. You see? But he didn't lose his no condemnation status.

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In fact, he's the human penman who wrote this verse. He didn't lose it.

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He gained it. He has it to gain, and he has gained it. So let's go on. We'll get down into some new material here.

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Verse 2 there, I need glasses. I've got font 18.

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That was pretty good for 2019. Now I'm going to have to switch up to 20. Pretty soon I'll have 50 pages with words this big.

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It'll be like Brother Otis, remember his? Big fonts. He got 400 font.

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So, verse 2 tells us the first idea of what this does not mean.

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If we want to look at what, who walked not of the flesh but of the spirit, what does that not mean? The first thing it doesn't mean is, it doesn't mean that the only way we don't have condemnation is if we keep the law.

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It doesn't mean that. It can't mean that because look what verse 2 says, because, why is it true that those who are in Christ have no condemnation because the law of the spirit of life in Jesus Christ has made me free from the law.

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So apparently it's not keeping the law that makes me have no condemnation because the very next verse says that.

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We're free from the law. So that means if I'm free from the law, see now here's the big error that's out there and it's everywhere.

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A lot of Baptists, it's everywhere now. You've got to be so careful because Satan is always bringing law back into the gospel.

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And Jesus, in case you didn't know it, he nailed the law to the cross when he died. We're dead unto the law and it's dead to us.

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But what they'll say is, well no, the whole idea of Christianity, the whole idea of being in Christ and walking with Jesus is so that now and being indwelt by the

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Holy Spirit is so that now we can keep the law. That, you know, the whole idea is so that we can keep the law.

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And they'll try to then bring law back into the church by saying that one tricky phrase. It sounds good, don't you think though?

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And you've heard it. You've heard preachers say it, had friends say it, a little couple of women in Mahea teaching it big time, starting their own little cult over in Mahea and they're people

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I grew up with. I mean, I can't believe they're doing it, but they're bringing law back in. And the way they're doing it is, well, we're supposed to fulfill the law, it's just that being saved and having the

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Holy Spirit helps us do that. That's not what any of this is saying. And we'll prove it as we go through here.

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It doesn't say that, it doesn't mean it. It obviously says I am free from the law. We have to examine what does that mean, what does free mean, all right?

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So we are free from the law. So it is not saying that keeping the law makes us to be justified or to have no condemnation.

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It's not saying that. Secondly, look at verse three.

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Here's another for, another because, here's another reason because being in Christ takes the condemnation away, is because what the law could not do in his own son, he sent

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Jesus to condemn sin in the flesh. So this whole idea of not being condemned is something that is done to us, not by us.

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You can say it this way, sanctification, where we're changed to be more like Christ and less like we used to be, is something that is done to us, not by us.

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And you're going to see that as we go on down through this scripture. So for the law couldn't do it, so he sent his son to condemn sin in the flesh.

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Why did he do that? Look at verse four. He did that so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.

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Now here's where we have a problem. That's the verse that they use that sounds like it means that the whole reason we get saved is so we can keep the law, doesn't it sound like it means that, right?

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But if you know a little bit of Greek, you don't have to know a lot of Greek, just a little bit of Greek, you know it can't say that because what's interesting there in verse four is the word fulfilled is in the aorist tense, but it's in the passive.

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It's aorist passive. Passive means someone bigger than you did this to you.

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It's not something you did, it's something God did to you. So look what it says. Why is it true that there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ, who are the same people by the way, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit?

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We're continually proving that that's what that means. For what the law could not do, he sent his own son to condemn sin in the flesh.

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Why? So that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. That means so that God does that to us.

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God fulfills the righteousness of the law in us. Not that we go about to do it. It is done in us.

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It is done by him. Now what's interesting is the word fulfilled is pleiroo, which means to be totally filled and totally satisfied.

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So the righteousness of the law is totally and completely filled in us, but not by us, but as for us, by God, as he works in our life, in this life we're living.

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None of this is teaching that he saved us so that we could keep the law. We don't keep the law.

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The greatest Christian who ever lived, right before verse one was written, the end of chapter seven was written, he said,

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I find myself doing that which I hate and not doing which my mind agrees that I should be doing.

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It doesn't mean that. And yet people will take verse one out of context and make it mean that and they'll sure take verse three,

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I'm sorry, verse four, there where it says that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled.

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They'll take that verse out of context all the time, but you can't do it. In fact, it's passive, which proves

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God does it to us. It's not us doing it and it's aorist, which means it's not a process. Aorist means without regard to time.

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It's like, it's just done. God just did this. God just made us righteous.

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God fulfilled the righteousness of the law in us in the very second that he placed us into Christ, which is a work he did, not us, while we were yet in our trespasses and sin.

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He quickened us. He saved us. He put the Holy Spirit in us in less than a nanosecond of time.

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It has nothing to do with time. It's just done. Matter of fact, it's always been done in the Father's mind. That's why it's in the aorist and that's why

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Greek has that because God chose to put it in that language so that he could express himself better because it's hard for us to speak because we're in time.

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So God invents aorist and sticks it in Greek and then kills the language so it doesn't change like English and then writes the

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New Testament in there so that we can understand it. It's all amazing, isn't it? Then we went in to back up this idea.

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We went in to Galatians to let other scriptures shed light on this scripture. I'm not going to go over it all because we did it last

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Sunday, but let me hit the highlights. Look at Galatians 5 .1. There are some warnings right here in this chapter of Galatians and it fits right in with what we're talking about in interpreting

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Romans 8 .1 properly. Don't try to make it say that you've got to keep the law to keep the condemnation away because once you do that, you just fell from grace.

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You say, well, you can't fall from grace. Well, you can if you never had it because that's what the phrase means in the

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Bible. Those who fell from grace means they never had it because they refused to take it as a free gift.

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They wanted to bring other stuff in with it like circumcision, like baptism, like keeping the law.

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Whatever you bring with it destroys it. Galatians 5 .1, stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith

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Christ has made us free. Doesn't that sound just like Romans 8 .2?

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For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law.

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Galatians 5 .1, the Holy Spirit says, in case you didn't get that in Romans, I'll say it again.

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Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

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What does that imply? It is very natural for Christians to go back again into something they've been freed from.

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Very natural. Paul said don't do it. Now go down to verse 5. So the first warning here in Galatians is don't revert to the law ever.

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Never revert to the law. Second thing, look at verse 5. For we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

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Do you know what that teaches? I mean, you may say, why do you review all the time? I'm not reviewing. I'm learning new stuff from last week's sermon.

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Y 'all asleep or what? I would figure someone would laugh at that, but they didn't. So it tells me you're kind of already getting sleepy.

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But you're tired. It's not the sermon, you're just tired. Now think about it.

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You don't, listen, none of us grasp everything there is to be grasped in any one word, let alone a whole sentence.

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Look at what we missed last week on verse 5, because we didn't make a comment on this. For we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

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What do you think that means, the word wait? And what do you think the word hope means?

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Well, hope means you don't have it yet, but you expect to get it. Now it's not the modern day meaning for hope, which is bad.

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Like I hope the Dallas Cowboys win, but I know they won't because they're stupid, right? They should have won everything this year, they had the best team.

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But no, they're the Dallas Cowboys, so I hope they win, but they won't. That's what hope means now.

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The old English word meant totally different, it's totally changed meanings. It used to mean this, and it still means this in the

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Greek word for hope. It means the joyful expectation of a certain future event. Totally different meaning, right?

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Well, so look at this here. Now what does this mean? For we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness, of being righteous.

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Where David Mitchell is actually righteous. Okay, let's just put it, let's use a human example.

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If Charlotte were here, it'd make it so much better, because she really knows me. Joe knows me pretty well now, because we're golfing buddies.

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So what we do at golf, we stays with golf, right Joe? So like he knows me pretty well.

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One thing Joe knows is I'm just a person, I'm just a real person. I'm not like a man of the cloth,

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I'm not a seminarian produced preacher, I'm just me. God gave me the office of preacher, because he called me to do it.

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Doesn't mean anything, by the way, I've already voted since we don't do things by vote anymore.

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I'm losing this for 2020, we're gonna put a big screen in that corner. I figured out where to put it this morning.

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How to do it, I don't know yet. The young men will figure that out. And that way I can put scripture up there like I do at the tradeway meetings.

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Very more effective than using stuff like this, where you can't see it. And I'm getting rid of this.

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This separates the clergy from the laity, and that's not biblical. This used to, they'd put these things up like you'd have, if you go to Europe, you've seen it.

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Where this would be like 20 feet high up on a podium, they'd put the pulpit where the preacher is higher than everyone else.

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That is satanic, all right? It's not real. Anyway, I'm on a great rabbit trail here. But you think, you take

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David Mitchell as an example here of a righteous person, okay?

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Like you look at Isaiah, he says, was he the one that said,

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I'm a man of unclean lips? Who was it that said, send me?

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Okay, so I'm a man of unclean lips. Remember the whole story? All right, then you've had others say, well,

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I have unclean hands, right? Or I'm not fit to serve you, my feet are dirty,

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I can't serve you. That's true of all of us, all the time, that's true. We are not fit to do anything with or for or to please a holy

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God. In and of ourselves, we're not fit, only in Christ. But when you understand what that means is, then chapter eight, verse one, where it says, we walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit, cannot mean that that is the cause of our no condemnation -ness.

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It can't mean that or we all failed already. We're already dead, we're already going to hell if that's what that means.

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And yet so many people say it's what it means. Or verse four, well, we're in Christ so we can keep the law, then we're all going to hell because we're not doing that yet, all right?

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So exactly what verse five here says, look what it says. For we through the spirit wait.

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That means it ain't here yet, we're waiting on it. For the hope of righteousness, what is it we're waiting for?

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To when David Mitchell is righteous, that's what everybody's waiting for. Because right now, you're going to be very, very disappointed.

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Now, everybody in the room could say that about themselves and would say it in an honest church. You're going to be very, very disappointed if you look at our secret mail or you look like when we're by ourselves.

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I mean, you don't even want to go there. I'm talking about you now, not me. Let's switch subjects, right?

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I mean, so what are we waiting for? Through the spirit, that means, okay,

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I remembered what I was thinking when you were up here talking, because it fits right here. What does it mean, the earnest?

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That the Holy Spirit is placed in us by God. At the moment we're saved, he puts the

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Holy Spirit and seals him within us until the day of redemption as the earnest of our salvation.

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What does that mean? Down payment. That means the whole thing, like you're not even totally there yet.

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Just a little bit of it is showing in us. Just a little bit of it is there, the earnest part.

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The fullness of it will come when he comes back and the flesh falls off of us on the way up, right?

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We ain't there yet. So don't tell me chapter 8 verse 1 means you're there yet, and that's why you're not condemned.

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It doesn't mean that, it can't mean that. Verse 5 won't let it mean that here in Galatians chapter 5.

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For we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness. It's something that's coming, it's not there yet. Now positionally it's there, but in time it's not, and that's what confuses people.

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Positionally, before God the Father, if you were to tell him you were sorry for sinning today, he would say, what are you talking about?

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He does not know you ever sinned, nor will he ever know you ever sinned. Isn't that nice to know? He has forgotten your sins because of what

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Christ did for us. Christ took our sins upon himself. He removed them, he took them away.

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We don't have them, and that's our standing before the Father. But in time, you and I know we still have sin, right?

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We know that, and Jesus knows it, and Satan knows it, and our neighbors know it. It really confuses them.

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But that's okay, it's not our job to save them. It's our job to try to be a light and be salt the best we can.

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Well, chapter 8 gives us some information that helps there. So verse 5 shows us very clearly here in Galatians chapter 5 that our sanctification is not instantaneous, it is a process.

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It's something we're waiting on to be finished by God, do you get that? All of this is proof of chapter 8, verse 1, in my mind.

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Now, if you go to Galatians 5, 8, this very clearly, verse 8 and 9, very clearly shows that the concept that we are saved so that we can now have the power to keep the law is a lie.

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The fact that that is a lie, and let me say it again, the concept that we're saved so that we have the power to keep the law, that is a lie, and good people, even friends of mine have implied this.

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They're just wrong about it. The fact that it's a lie is proven in verses 8 and 9 here in Galatians 5.

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It says this, this persuasion, this idea that you have to keep the law, cometh not from him that called you.

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Who called us? The Holy Spirit specifically. So he did not propagate this idea that we add works to our faith for salvation.

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He did not propagate it, and verse 9 says, a little leaven leavens a whole lump, means if you let a little bit of that into the church, a little bit of legalism in the church, it'll just permeate the whole church and ruin it, all right?

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So, now drop down to verse 16 there in Galatians 5, and what I see here is it talks about the present mode of operation for sanctification.

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This I say then, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. There's the mode of operation, that's how you do this.

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It's not by being perfect, it's not by trying to keep the law, it's simply by walking in the spirit. We've said it a hundred ways a hundred different times in the last six or eight weeks, right, from many different verses.

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By walking in the spirit, you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. That's how it's done now.

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It's not by making a list of rules and trying to keep them. That won't work, it's been proven by an entire

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Old Testament. That's why we have a New Testament. All right, so that's the mode.

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Now verse 18 is just another reminder. But if you be led by the spirit, you're not under the law.

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Another reminder, it's not about keeping the law. You're not under the law, you're not going to fulfill the law in and of yourself,

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God will fulfill the righteousness of the law in you. And it doesn't say he'll fulfill the law in you, it says he'll fulfill the righteousness.

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He will get, listen, if you get picky on the grammar, what it's saying is that God will make you righteous as if you had the righteousness of keeping the law perfectly, which you don't.

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But he's gonna make you that righteous by what Jesus did for you. Do you see the difference? He made you, in God's eyes, you are as righteous as a person who never broke the law, but you're not such a person, but only in God's eyes are you such a person, because God did that for you in Christ, hallelujah.

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All right, look at verse 25, and here is sort of a final exhortation in this passage in Galatians 5.

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If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Now look at the math on that, okay? He says, number one, if you walk in the spirit, you can't walk in the flesh at the same time.

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That's the mode of operation, not keeping a bunch of rules, just reach up and take his hand and walk with him throughout the day.

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That's how we do it now. And verse 25 says, well look, it is a fact, and we're gonna go back into Romans 8, believe it or not, in a minute, and it's gonna give the fact.

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It is a fact that we're in the spirit. It's not like if you're in the spirit.

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You're in the spirit if you're saved, cuz if you're not, you're not even saved. So if you're saved, you're in the spirit. But he's saying, if we live in the spirit, if we have life in the spirit, then walk in the spirit, and that's an exhortation, which means sometimes we don't do this, but he's exhorting us to do it, right?

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So kinda has to do with that hope of the future of where we get to a place where we always walk righteous, when we meet

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Jesus and the flesh falls off, there'll be nothing left of sin in us. But now there still is.

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So now it's an effort, it is a process. And the process, so far, we've seen is get saved, which you can't get you saved.

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That's a misnomer we heard growing up, and we still say it. He's gonna get me now, Mary Ann, he's gonna get me.

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Brother David, did you say get saved? Well, how do you do that? Think about it.

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You can't do it. You can't do it, only he, yeah, you can go on YouTube. Yeah, and you would find the wrong answer there.

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But it has to be done to you, it's not something you can get, right? You can't go get it and make it happen.

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But anyway, that's a whole other sermon. But if we're saved, and we're born again, and God does many things to us in a nanosecond of time, including giving us

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Jesus' faith, giving us God's love, giving us the Holy Spirit to indwell us, then we ought to walk by the

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Spirit. That's the exhortation. Look, you're alive in the Spirit, so walk that way. Try harder at walking that way.

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What is it we're trying to do then? Look how hard this is. Take my hand,

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Jesus. But it seems hard, doesn't it? Because we kind of like the flesh. Why do we stay in it?

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We like it. It's natural. But we love the spiritual things, too, don't we?

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We really do. We really do love them, because that's the real us. So what a battle we have going on.

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And I'm not going to read it. We did it last time. Galatians 2 .20 is the conclusion of that whole thing. It's one of the most beautiful verses, so I just lied.

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I'm going to read it. I am crucified with Christ. Here's the whole answer to the whole thing.

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All right, I'm going to reach up. I'm going to hold his hand, OK? I'm already saved. I'm going to hold his hand right now so that I can preach for a few minutes in the

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Spirit, all right? I am crucified with Christ. That's a fact. It's past tense, already done, it's finished, positional, right?

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Nevertheless, I live. So even though I died in him, I'm alive. Yet not

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I, if it's good, it ain't me. It's Jesus, right? But it's

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Christ living his life in and through me in time and space right now in this world.

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And the life which I now live in the flesh, and that doesn't mean in the bad sense, it means in this body, the life that I'm living while I'm in this body,

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I live by the faith of, not in, the Son of God.

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So I live by his faith that God gave me, who loved me and gave himself for me individually.

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Wow. Oh, man, why did I not just pick that to preach on today? And verse 21 says this,

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I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

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Let's drop that subject. I think it's done, don't you? I think that's done. So now let's go back into Romans.

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All right. Now, see, that shed a whole lot of light on Romans chapter eight, and that was Galatians chapter five. It sheds a whole lot of light on Romans chapter eight.

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All right, now, look at verse five, another for, another because.

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Why is it true that being in Christ is the cause of our salvation and walking not after the flesh, but after the spirit is the effect and it's not the other way around?

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Why is that true? Number five, verse five, Romans chapter eight, because they that are after the spirit mind the things of the spirit.

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Now, if you want to talk about mode of operation like Galatians just did, well, how do we operate now then? If it's not about trying to keep the law, how do we operate?

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Well, we reach up, take the hand of Christ and we now are in the spirit.

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So let's walk in the spirit. And John, the first John chapter five says we can't sin when we're walking in the spirit.

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So look what Romans eight five says. They that are after the spirit mind the things of the spirit.

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What does that mean? They think about the things of the spirit. So there is, there is a great key in how to walk a good life is make sure when your mind goes off of the things of the spirit that you bring it back.

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You, then the real you, the new man, the spiritual you is in control of your mind and needs to stay in control of it.

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So when that mind wanders, it's just a computer. It's got all kinds of bad stuff in it. When it wanders into that bad stuff, you bring it back away from that.

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And you say, and there's a very good prayer formula for that spiritual warfare prayer formula. Just say this, Lord, you said in the scripture that you've given me the mind of Christ.

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So give me the mind of Christ right now. Let me think about this person in this situation or whatever, like he would think about it.

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And it just flees, the bad stuff just flees instantly, instantly flees. And there we have it.

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So those who are after the spirit mind, in other words, think about the things of the spirit.

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Um, those who are after the spirit, the word after in the Greek is kata, which means those who are according as something.

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Those who are about something, those who are about the Holy Spirit, who live according to the

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Holy Spirit, they think about the things of the spirit. Now this word where it says they mind the things of the spirit, it literally means an exercise of the mind.

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So it's a willfulness to think about certain things. So you willfully think about the things of the spirit if you're saved now.

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So even there it is a duty, but at the same time we get help.

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You see, God would never leave our, uh, future in our own hands.

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He keeps it in his hands. So one reason he put his spirit in you is to guide us and to keep us safe and to keep us moving in the right direction, to bring our mind back to God and away from the things of flesh.

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So there we see that clearly in verse five, that those who have the spirit, those who are in Christ, think about the things of the spirit.

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All right. Now, verse six gives another thing for, in other words, because to be spiritually minded is life in peace.

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So the whole result of this walk of holding the Lord's hand and walking in the spirit is that we have peace in our life.

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Now, does that mean we're sinless? No, we don't. But in the midst of this storm that we're living in, in a cursed world, in a cursed body, with Satan after us all the time and the world hating us, in the midst of all of that, we can sit down at a table as if we're beside a stream of still waters and beautiful green grass and we can have a meal with the

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Lord. We have peace. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ, who walk not after the flesh.

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It's the same people. The same people who are in Christ are the people who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.

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They who are in Christ walk after the spirit because, number one, verse two, because the law of the spirit of life in Christ has made me free from the law.

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So I can be in Christ and I have no condemnation because his death freed me from the law.

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Number two, the second reason is found in verse three, because what the law couldn't do, he sent his own son in the flesh to condemn sin.

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So rather than sin killing me, Jesus killed sin. That's another reason verse one works.

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And the third reason is found there in verse five, for they that mind or think about the things of the spirit, those who are in the spirit, mind or think about the things of the spirit, not the things of the flesh.

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And then in verse six, we see another one where it says, for to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

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So I not only have life when I walk this walk, but I have peace in my life.

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Now I'm going to skip verses seven, eight, just for a minute because they're sort of parenthetical and I want to keep this, this mindset of the different fours.

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In other words, because, because, because, because here's why all this works because of this, because of that. So I'm going to skip down to verse nine and we'll come back to verse seven here in a minute.

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So Roman chapter eight, let's skip down to verse nine.

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Now proof once again, that part of verse one, the first part, if you want to call it chapter eight, verse one, a is the cause of the fact that we have no condemnation.

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It's the cause of it. And at part B is the effect. In other words, we are in Christ.

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Therefore we walk in the spirit, not after the flesh. It's going to be totally proven with verse nine here.

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So verse nine, just flat out says that those of us who are in Christ are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, therefore being in the spirit is the effect of being in Christ.

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Now think about that for a minute. Let's read it. I know that's hard, but that's why I want to put the screen up there where you can put it up there where you can see it.

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It's easier, but let me read the verse. But you are not in the flesh.

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Now, don't you see now, if that had been moved up closer to the front, we couldn't have preached for six weeks on this.

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It'd been like been over and I wouldn't have had near as much fun. You had to get all the way down to verse nine to prove totally that verse one

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B is not the cause of your no condemnation. This it's a result of being saved because look what verse nine says.

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You're not in the flesh. Now let's just leave it at that. In other words, if you're saved, you're not in the flesh.

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Well, verse one says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh.

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And this verse says you don't walk after the flesh. So apparently what we have here is God's definition of what that means rather than ours, because the human definition of what it means to walk after the flesh would mean if you mess up one time, you don't have, you don't have it.

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You're still under condemnation. You got to keep the law perfectly. That's what humans love to think. Why?

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Because that's humanism. Humanism teaches that humans can do that. Humans can reach a level of righteousness that could approach a holy

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God. Every major world religion other than biblical Christianity has been built on that concept that you just get better and better and better and better till you can sit right there in the presence of God in and of yourself as a human.

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They all teach that except Christianity. Christianity teaches that's impossible in that part of you had to be crucified and a new man had to be risen or a new woman in order for you to even come near God.

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All right now, so verse nine clearly says you're not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so, be that the spirit of God dwell in you.

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So all you got to do is ask yourself this. All right. What is one of the first main things if we say God did about 33 things to us in a nanosecond when he saved us?

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What's one of the first things we think about he did to us? Yeah, the first thing, what's the next thing?

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And really, it all happened at once, it wasn't in sequence, it's all at once. But what's another major thing? Yeah, he did that.

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What else? Gave us Jesus's faith, what else? Who said that?

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Ben said the indwelling of the Holy Spirit was at about number four. So, but it didn't happen in sequence.

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It just, it just, it just is. We just had the whole package in one nanosecond or less.

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It wasn't even in time. All right. So the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So would everybody agree that if you're saved today, you've already been indwelt by the spirit.

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This is not talking about being filled. That's different. There, there's a, there is an obligation for us to be filled, which, you know, but that's not talking about that here.

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This is talking about the indwelling. So look what it says, but you're not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so, be that the spirit of God dwells in you.

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So that's the indwelling. Now, if you're saved, he does. In fact, look what the next part says.

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Now, if any man has not the spirit of Christ indwelling in him, he is none of his, he is not a saved person.

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So this is not talking about filling. This is talking about the indwelling of the spirit, which is not something you have a responsibility to do because it's something

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God did to you. Do you get me? It's all the grammar. It's like math. You can't mess with it. It's passive.

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You can't mess with it. God did it to you. He indwelt you with his spirit when he saved you and you didn't even understand it yet.

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For years, you didn't understand it. Studying the word, you still don't fully understand everything this means.

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It is obviously something he did to us and it clearly says you're not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if you've been indwelt.

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Does that turn a light on for anybody? You see? So when someone comes to you and says,

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Oh, well, you know, the Lord just saved you and spirit indwelt you so that you can now keep the law.

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That is not what any of this teaches. This teaches the opposite. It teaches you can't keep the law.

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You're not going to be perfect. It is a hope that you have in the future when the rapture comes and the flesh falls off.

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Yes, it is a hope of righteousness that you have, but you're not there yet. So what's the mode we live in now?

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The mode we live in now is you're indwelt by the spirit. So therefore, walk like that. And when you do keep that rule, the world is not as confused.

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But that's not what saves you. It's not what saves them, either. But the point is here, from the father's viewpoint, you don't walk in the flesh.

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You're not a person who walks in flesh. That's why Otis refused to call any of us sinners. He said we are people who sin, but we're not what the

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Bible means by the word sinner, because that's a goat in the Bible, especially in the

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Old Testament. A sinner is like a goat. It's a person who will never get saved. It's a tear. Save people.

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I don't even like the phrase anymore. Sinner saved by grace, even though I understand what it means. And there's Paul sort of said that about himself.

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I just don't like the phrase because people misunderstand it. And it's so easy to say, oh, I'm a sinner saved by grace.

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Therefore, I can go out and sin and be OK. You know, that's bad thinking that way, isn't it? It's not

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OK to sin. But the truth is, God doesn't see us as if we're in the flesh, if we're in dwelt by the spirit.

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So if we are in Christ. We are not in the flesh because the spirit of God dwells in us, the

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Bible says. In fact, if this were not the case. If the spirit of God did not dwell in us, then we would then be in the flesh and not have the spirit of Christ, and therefore we would not be his.

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We would be lost. So the next two verses discuss the dynamic of salvation and sanctification.

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Look, look there at verse 10. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead.

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You see, it doesn't mean like this is positional. God counts it is your old man is dead.

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So that's why the father doesn't see any sin you do anymore. He's like your old your old man's already dead in his viewpoint from the father's viewpoint.

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So if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, sin is what killed it.

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Sin is what made it need to be that way. And so God crucified our flesh and put it in the grave.

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But the spirit is life because of righteousness and that's something having being in dwelt by the spirit is where our life comes from, not through keeping the law.

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Being in dwelt by the Holy Spirit of God is where a real abundant life comes from. Even while we're still in this flesh, we can have abundant life now because we're in dwelt by the

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Holy Spirit and we can make a choice at any nanosecond to be filled with the spirit. And when we make that choice, we don't sin.

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And we're we're walking a life life rather than a death life at that moment. So this body, this old man is dead because of sin.

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But if Christ be in us, our new man, the real us is alive.

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So the carnal mind is dead because of sin. The spiritual man is alive. Now, here's an interesting thing.

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Look at the end of verse 10 there. Yeah, time's going by.

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You can see it on the faces. And it's not your fault. It's mine. I wasn't paying attention to the clock.

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But look what it says. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin. That's a fact.

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It's already dead. So how can it bring you under condemnation? Think about that. If God sees your body is dead, can it bring you under condemnation?

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No, it can't. And it won't. But the spirit is life because of righteousness.

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What's interesting about that word righteousness, if you look it up.

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Deca use soon a kind of a mouthful. Do you know what that Greek word is usually translated as in English?

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Justification. So read the verse that way. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin.

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But the spirit is life because you've been justified. Now, what is justified mean?

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That's something God did to you. Not something you do for him. He made you just as if you've never sinned, which means he made you to be righteous in his own eyes, which means he fulfilled the righteousness of the law.

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Not the law, but the righteous of the law has been fulfilled in you already. In his own eyes, which makes it the truth.

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So the carnal man is dead because of sin, but the spiritual man is alive because he has been justified by God.

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Isn't that amazing? We are successful as Christians because our old man was buried with Christ and our new man is risen with Christ three days later.

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Period. You're not successful because you try to be successful. We ought to try to be successful, though, shouldn't we?

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Doesn't he say if you walk in the spirit, I mean, if you live in the spirit, let us what walk in the spirit.

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That means we ought to try to be successful. We should pray all the time, gentlemen. God, make me a good man.

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Don't let me be carnal, worldly, like all the guys I grew up with. Make me a good man and women make me a good woman.

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We should be working on that, but it's not what makes us righteous before God. People get that so wrong.

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It's what Jesus did that does that. He accomplished it all. He finished it all with his blood.

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It's his blood plus nothing. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the same spirit which raised

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Christ from the dead works in us bringing our mortal bodies to life by the same spirit which dwells in us.

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And that's what verse 11 says. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken, bring to life your mortal body.

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So this sinful body that you live in, God can bring it to life because he saved you and put his spirit inside of you.

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And now it, this not perfect body, can serve God and accomplish all that God wants it to accomplish in this life, even in the state we're currently in.

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Isn't that something? That's encouraging, don't you think? We're going to fail, but even the failures were predestined.

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And as Otis would say, when it left God's hand, it was meant for good, those mistakes that you made, those mistakes that I made.

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It was predestined that we would learn something from those mistakes and be molded into the person we have to be the day that we meet

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Jesus face to face. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, that same spirit will also quicken your mortal body.

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And that's in time and space now. This is not talking about that hope that we have in the future. That's talking about now. We're made alive now by his spirit that dwells in us.

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All right, so let's stop there. I thought I could finish this, but I can't. So let's just stop there. I think that's pretty sufficient for a day.

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Your minds did a lot of good work, but that kind of work is important.

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That's what makes the church the pillar of the truth. The local church is when we take things in context and we ferret through it so that we understand it and we can be salt light, which means we can explain it to other people.

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All right, so leave it up to you to put all that in a nutshell for people. Let's stand and have prayer together.

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Lord, we thank you for your word, especially today. We think of Romans chapter 8 and Galatians chapter 5 and the encouragement that you give us while we're still.

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You've placed this great treasure in these earthen vessels that we live in where we fail you. We fall short and we, our own selves, know it more than anyone else knows it.

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And yet you encourage us by showing us that our very righteousness does not come by what we do in this flesh.

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Our righteousness has been done to us by what Jesus did on the cross and what you did when you applied his blood to our lives that day that you saved us.

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When you quickened us and brought us to life and indwelt us or placed your spirit within us so that we might be indwelt.

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And Lord, you walk with us every day. You awaken us when we go into the flesh as if we were asleep.

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You awaken us to your presence and your holiness time and time again throughout each day.

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Thank you for that. Thank you that you've promised us that even in these earthen vessels, we will accomplish your will for us in this life.

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Thank you for that. Lord, thank you for each other, for the fellowship that we have with each other. Help us to take from this little bitty church light and powerful voice of the truth from scripture and send it out around the world according to your will.

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Go with us into our time of fellowship now. We ask you to bless the meal in Jesus name. Amen. See you.