Romans 8:1-11 God in You

A podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches his series in the Book of Romans, A Righteousness from God. Let's listen in.

Gathering as One Church Under Christ

Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsack, I'm the lead pastor here. And I wanna start off by welcoming all of you. I'm really glad that we have the opportunity to gather together in the name of Christ as a local gathering, as a local church this morning.

I just wanna point out something that I think is helpful for me often on Sunday mornings and that's to remind myself and to remind all of us that we're at one gathering among millions of people around the globe that are gathering in various places all around the world to worship God and to hear from his word this morning.

And so I love it that we get to be a sliver of what God is doing in the big picture of the world. And I do pray for us every Sunday that God would speak to us here in this gathering, that he would speak to us through his word in a way that opens our hearts and opens our eyes to what is true, what is real.

We've received exactly what his, we want to receive exactly what his spirit wants for us. And I hope that that's the spirit with which you have come here this morning, that you want to hear from him, that you are open and receptive to the things that he wants to communicate to you.

I recognize that some of you are here and what you really need is encouragement. And I pray that for you. Some of you are here and you need rebuke and correction. Now you don't maybe want that, but that might be what God has for you this morning.

Some of you are here and you need to hear.

That you are loved.

And I pray that that comes through in this text this morning.

And some of you are here.

And you just really needed coffee and donuts. And I hope that you got some of that this morning too. And really, ultimately, one of the glories of gathering together, because a lot of those things that I just said, you could get by waking up on Sunday morning, sitting in your living room in your pajamas and reading scripture and getting some encouragement, right?

You could have gotten that this morning. Did you recognize that? So why in the world do we gather together like this? And part of it is realizing that we're not alone in this battle, that there are others in this community that are out there slogging it out, day in and day out in this battle.

And we get a chance to gather together, rub shoulders with others, and recognize and just look around you right now. There are others here who are just as needy as you are. There are others here who are just as in need of encouragement and is in need of giving as well as receiving just like you.

And so there's something that's beautiful about the word together, which is really the base of the word church. It really is the idea of the gathering together.

Of God's people.

The Summit of Romans 8:1-11

Our text this morning is like reaching the summit of a climb. That's really what we're looking at today. It's a high point. It's a high point of encouragement, a high point of identifying what we are, what God has given us in our lives to live for him.

And all that's come before in this section, stretching from the middle of chapter six in Romans, has been focused on our sanctification, that is the way that God is making us more and more like his son, Jesus Christ.

And it really is pertaining to his role in grace, our role in sin, and the way that the law and all of those things come together or don't come together in the life of a believer to lead us more toward him.

But all of those things kind of swirling around this conversation about how is it that we live now that we are in Christ? What is it like in the life of a believer? But now all that discussion, all of that conversation that we've seen in the last couple of chapters, reaches ahead in our text in this most glorious and astounding reality of the Christian life that is revealed to us this morning.

I think many of us who have been around the church, and you know this probably to be true of you if it resonates with you, you can state some deep spiritual truths.

With very little wonder. You've been around the church for a while,.

You attended a Sunday school when you were a child, or you've been around the church just long enough to kind of let the wonder and the awe wear off a little bit. So you could say something like Jesus loves me with very little feeling and emotion.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

And I think that there's something about just kind of the aging process, the distance from the enthusiasm, the distance from that initial spark of life when we finally came to realize what Christ has done for us.

We can say something like Jesus died on the cross for me. By the way, could you please pass the salt and pepper? You know, I mean, in just a passing conversation you can just make these sweeping statements that ought to drop our jaws to the ground, that ought to produce within us at least a spark of joy, at least some semblance of wonder and awe and gratitude and thankfulness and a depth of emotion that we often honestly lack.

We can just turn spiritual truth into just another factoid that we've known since we were little kids in Sunday school class. But I wanna encourage all of you this morning.

As we talk about this,.

This really deep thing that probably most of us could state but never have really spent a lot of time deeply considering and thinking about here, I want you to fight for fresh wonder this morning. I want you to fight for wonder.

And I think that that wonder can come from an intentional study of the word of God and asking questions and being curious, taking the time to think about the statements and letting them wash over your mind and let it settle on you what is true, what this text is saying of you.

I think it's not gonna take much work to figure out what in this text, there's a few things in this text that are supposed to draw us into awe and wonder. I think anytime that we read scripture,.

There's something there.

Because we're talking about the very nature of God, we're hearing about how he rolls, who he is, what he does. There's something in this text specifically that is true about every believer that's a game changer regarding our life together with Christ here in this world.

There's a few things in this text, like I said, but there's one thing that I think is often overlooked, particularly in evangelical circles, that is significant, found in Romans 8, 1 through 11. So if you can open your Bibles there, grab your scripture journal, whatever you have there, open up in a device, use the Bible, that's another seat in front of you if you didn't bring a Bible with you or a means to navigate to the Bible.

But Romans 8, 1, and as I read it this morning, Recast, I want you to listen in and to seek that fresh wonder and consider this question, what has God done for his people to bring us into a useful relationship with him?

Romans 8, 1 through 11, and Recast, we are privileged, it is a privilege that we can have access to God's word and that he would speak to us here this morning, so listen in. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin he condemns sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their mind on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him, but if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

Let's pray.

No Condemnation for Those in Christ Jesus

Father, what a joyful text. Beginning with this sweeping statement that is just awe-inspiring, so encouraging. That there is no condemnation for those who are in you, and I just, I can almost feel a collective sigh of relief over that statement and a text that is bookended with the reality of that truth and then resurrection and the tail end.

Father, glorious in the middle is this reality of your spirit that dwells in your people. Father, I pray that you would press that reality deep into each and every one who is yours and allow the reality of your eternal presence with your people to just put us in awe and wonder.

That you would live out the law through us by following your spirit is amazing. It is glorious, it is, it's just hope-inspiring. So Father, I pray that you would allow that reality to settle on us as your people and then help us to worship you even now in spirit and in truth.

That our spirits would follow your holy spirit that dwells within us and with joy and rejoicing we would just together unify our voices in song before you in praise and worship. You indeed are worthy, you are glorious, you are majestic, you are high, and you are our savior, our lord, our master, and the one who is worthy of all of our lives.

And so Father, I pray that our worship to you would be so much more than just this singing time that we have now, but that Father, you would just allow this to be a spark for the rest of our week to remind us that it all belongs to you and that it is all for your glory in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Yeah, you can go ahead and take your seats there, but remember, any time during the message, if you need to, you can get up and get more coffee juice or donuts while supplies last back there. And if you need to use the restrooms, they're out the barn doors, down the hallway on the left-hand side.

But reopen your Bibles or your devices to Romans 8, one through 11, so you have that in front of you so you can kind of follow along and see the things that I'm saying are taking us through that text.

And I'll mention it once in a while throughout the message, referencing it, so it's good to have that open. And if you're distracted at all, let it be because you're reading scripture. I'm gonna make a radical statement here at the start of our text and the start of this message.

I'm going to suggest to you that you can tell where you're at spiritually by your response to reading and understanding this text. You can actually tell, I believe, I believe this, actually. I believe that you can tell where you're at spiritually and whether or not you're in with Christ if you read this and understand this and your heart leaps a little.

I believe that if you belong to Christ,.

You can understand it.

You can not help but have some sense of something going on in your heart when you read this. You'll have a spark of joy, a little bit of gladness, a little bit of a swing to your step, a little bit of encouragement.

You see, the text begins by telling those who are his that the cloud of punishment and judgment over our heads has been removed. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

All of those who have been brought under the rule and reign of King Jesus no longer have wrath and condemnation as their destiny. And the end of the text wraps up in verse 11 by explaining that death will be defeated in the end.

And I'm telling you the book ends here at the start, showing you how it begins and how the text ends because there's a progression to it. You see, our greatest enemy, our two greatest enemies are sin and death.

Do you know what I'm talking about? The battle that you wage all of your life is flavored, all of life flavored in this fallen state is flavored by sin and death. Our days are numbered. Did you already know that?

You already knew that.

And you're also fighting a knock-down, drag-out battle with sin in your daily lives. Did you already know that? Of course you did. And so in reality, that is what this text is dealing with, our two fundamental problems.

First, sin has been taken care of and the consequences, the consequences of sin have been dealt with. But then also the text ends by talking about resurrection and the hope that we have in the spirit through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice.

And in between these two places, we find the summit of glory in this present life. The flow of the text is almost kind of past, our condemnation taken care of by Christ, present, our walk with the spirit in the here and now, our future sealed in Christ for resurrection glory.

That ought to make our hearts sore. That ought to have an impact in us, in our emotions, in our thoughts, and the way that we process and think through this text.

And in verse one, of course,.

We know that he's talking about condemnation because he's just wrapped up explaining that we all still have this war against sin. We need that encouragement.

Because how many of you know that at times.

You see the struggle with sin and you're going, where am I in this battle? How am I doing? How many of you ever just put your head down on the pillow and you're like, oh, I'm glad that day is over with.

And God, would you just please wipe that one off the, could you take that one and wipe that off your record?

Do you know what I'm talking about? Like, you don't even have the time.

To express all of the sins that you committed that day. So you're just like, could you just blanket that one with your grace? Could you cover that one and blot that one out?

Do you guys know what I'm talking about?

Getting a couple of blank stares here. Makes me feel a little lonely. But, too much of me. But, yeah, I mean, you feel that.

You know that.

You get that sense that there are days when you just want it to be done with and the battle and the war is waging. And we've got that war against sin going on in our hearts. And that's particularly true, I mean, that is only true if you belong to Christ,.

By the way.

That battle is what it means to be in Christ because you don't have the battle without Christ, you just do whatever you want without Christ. It's really coming into faith in Christ that causes the distinctions in our lives that cause the battle to rage because you know the good you want to do.

You have a desire to please God now as his child. So we need this encouragement because we all still live in that battle and we all still possess, as we talked about last week in the text, an old sin nature that is eager to draw us back into sinful behaviors and patterns.

And so we recognize that. And so our desires have now shifted in Christ to wanting to please him. But in the flesh we are weak. So Paul begins with what is probably my favorite text of encouragement in all of scripture.

You may have noticed over the years that I quote it quite frequently, just in sermons that have nothing to do with Romans 8, but it's a text that I constantly go back to as an encouraging thing that I just recommend.

It's very simple to memorize and I'd recommend you look at it. But it's basically saying now, in the present, right now, what is true of anybody who is in Christ is there is no condemnation. All condemnation has been erased for a specific category of people.

What category of people? Those who are in Christ. Those who have been transferred from the kingdom of death and the kingdom of sin to the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Condemnation, by the way, is a big word that entails the entire sentence of wrath toward all of humanity who remain in their ungodliness and unrighteousness. All the way back, the problem was set up for us all the way back in Romans 1 .18.

You don't have to turn there, but that's where the problem that all of the book of Romans is addressing was set forward. This is the fundamental problem that he's writing to the Romans to address. He said, for the wrath of God, yes, God has wrath, and the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of humanity.

Sound like a problem? How many of you are humans? Against all humanity, the unrighteousness and the ungodliness that we've committed warrants the wrath of our creator, the holy and righteous God. His character, his holiness requires wrath toward sin, and it's that wrath that has, of course, its final culmination in a hell of eternal separation from God, and that is the result that is no longer over.

Those who are in Christ Jesus.

We just get that first verse. That in itself is cause for dancing in the streets. That is cause for parades and celebrations and rejoicing and a swing in your step for the rest of your life.

How can we be dour?

How can we be sad about circumstances when this is what is true over our lives, and that's just the start.

That's just the first verse.

It's been well established back, by the way, in chapter five that the way that a person is removed from the realm of sin and death and placed into the realm of Christ Jesus is by grace through faith. It is God's gift, and it comes to us by humbly accepting the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us by trust, not by works, not by our good deeds, not by pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, not by attending church, not by keeping the 10 commandments, not by following all the rules, but it is by faith, by trusting what Jesus did for us outside of Jerusalem 2 ,000 years ago on that hill where he spread his arms and they nailed him there.

And he took the just penalty of our sins from God, his wrath poured out on our sin there in his son, the infinite God-man who took your sins in your place. And that's what Paul goes on to state in verses two through four.

Here at the summit of this text on sanctification about the way that we live this life and what amazing blessings and benefits he's given to those who are his, Paul's recapping the pathway to the summit.

He's basically saying, by the way, this is how we got here. This is how we get to this summit. This is how we get to this place, this pinnacle of the Christian life. In verse two, he introduces a new concept.

He says, the principle, that is the law or the operating power, when you see the word law in verse two, two times, it is principle. It's not talking about the Old Testament law there. It's basically saying there's this principle alive, this operating power of the spirit of life, the spirit who brings life.

And he is the one who has set you free in Christ Jesus. And the one who now rests in the life and work and resurrection of Jesus is now set free from the principle, the law, you see the word again, the principle, law, or operating power of sin and death.

You're no longer slaves to sin. He's well-established that. He's kind of recapping for us here. It's basically a recap of what has come before in previous chapters. The Christ follower who has been saved by trusting in the work of Christ on the cross for us is free from the law, is free from sin, and is free from death.

But he introduces here the first concept of the spirit of life. This is kind of a formal introduction of sorts to the Holy Spirit here in our text. And I think we'd all do well to become more acquainted with him, with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit of life here is the life-giving spirit who hovered over the waters of creation.

He is the third person of the Trinity.

He has given personal pronouns in Scripture so that we don't call the Holy Spirit it, we call the Holy Spirit he. He is called God in Scripture. He has, as was already mentioned, a role in creation. To sin against him according to the book of Acts is to sin against God.

He is given a role in salvation. He is given a role in making God's people holy and set apart for his purposes. We ought to get to know him. And here at his introduction, he's shown to be the spirit of life is the title that he's given.

Or maybe better translated, the spirit who gives life, who commands life, who is in charge of life. A pretty high calling. It's basically identifying he is indeed God. And it's in his power and authority that we have been set free in Christ.

I believe that this law or principle being referred to here in this verse pertains to the work that the spirit does in drawing a human in response of faith. You see, the primary role that the spirit has in the saving work, it's often that you see his role is to shine light and glorify the son.

He's the one who illuminates our pathway to Jesus. He makes Jesus look glorious. He is constantly glorifying the son, constantly raising him up, constantly bringing him to mind, constantly bringing attention to the second person in the Trinity, the son of God.

And here in verses two through four, by the way, we find a Trinitarian formula. The life-giving spirit, it's said, sets us free by bringing us to the son who came for us later in verse three to take the condemnation of sin in his humanity.

And God the Father is shown at the start of verse three to be orchestrating everything, all of the salvation.

Brought about by God the Father.

And in this saving work being recapped here, God has done, he says, he summarizes for us because we've been talking a lot about the law the last few weeks, he says, God the Father has done what the law could not do.

The law couldn't do it, but he fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law for us, according to verse four. By the way, verse three and verse four are one sentence in the Greek language, and so it's one big run-on sentence that's just basically summarizing what we have in our salvation, and the spirit's role, the Father's role, and the son's role in that.

You see, and what he's saying here is that the law couldn't fulfill that righteous requirement because of the weakness of our flesh. Even though the law is held out as a good standard, the law is held out that if you can keep this, if you can follow this to a T, cross all the T's, dot all the I's, then you will have righteousness.

You'll be acceptable, you will be holy in God's sight if you could keep this law, just the fact of the matter is Paul has been going on and on and on, and all of the Old Testament shows us that no one can keep the law.

Try as you might, you can't do it. And so he's highlighting that for us. The law couldn't fulfill it because of the weakness of our flesh. You guys know, you guys know the weakness of your flesh, don't you?

We don't love to show it to others, right? We don't lead out with that. Hi, I'm Don, I'm a sinner, and I'm wicked, right? Is that the way you introduce yourself? Of course not, you don't lead out that way, but we all know it to be true of one another, don't we?

So why do we hide behind these masks and act and pretend to be righteous? The fact of the matter is, we are, if anything, we are Christ's people, his righteousness over our lives. We're gonna see something even that's powerful in the way that that comes to us here by the end of our text.

But we can, he's recapping here in verses three and four, and we have this sinful tendency to leave God out of the equation. The law couldn't do that because of the weakness of our flesh, and when you see the word flesh here, it really is this tendency, the sinful tendency that we have to not consider God in our daily lives, to leave him out.

And whether it's attempting to keep the law or attempting to live out our own lives apart from him and apart from the law. So you can be a law keeper or you can be a law shunner and a completely disobedient individual towards God, or you can be a person who tries to cross all your T's and dot all your I's, and as much as you fall short, you're still worthy of condemnation.

But both of those, both of those situations, think about this, and Paul's made a strong case for this. Both of those are self-reliant, aren't they? Both of them put yourself at the center. Whether it's a strict thought that you can work hard enough to please God and do all the laws and do all the rules and be good enough, that's self-reliance.

Or just setting your own course and setting your own trajectory. Laws aside, I'm gonna live my life my way. Self-reliance. And that is what is meant by flesh. When you see the word flesh here, it's a really hard word to translate.

But any attempts to live life without God is flesh living. It's living in the flesh. And we can slide back into that mindset, but hear me carefully, church. We are no longer of the flesh. We're not of the flesh.

We don't live in that realm anymore, but the flesh is still alive in us. Do you hear what I'm saying? Still alive in us, but it doesn't define us any longer. There's something else that defines us here that is powerful, that is the point of what this whole text is driving for.

And if the word flesh here is confusing, I'm a little sorry for that. It was interesting, one of the commentators sat on the, that I read this week, sat on the council for the translation of the NIV. And he was saying that when he first set out on that council, his number one goal was to get a better word for flesh in this text, because it just doesn't work.

Like at the end of the day, people start to think about physical bodies. They start to think about meat on the bones and stuff like that, and there begins to be this really theological error that was popular in the New Testament times called dualism or gnosticism.

The flesh and the body and the material world is evil and bad, and the spirit realm is good. And so he basically set out to try to get a better word, and guess what they translated it as in the NIV?

Flesh.

Because they couldn't come up with a better word. At the end of the day, it was nuanced. Or some translations, there's two different versions of the NIV, some have sin nature in it. But yeah, at the end of the day, there's no good English equivalent, and the word literally in Greek is sarx.

It means flesh. It means like the stuff. But it's a Greek concept. It was a concept much like you see the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Well, what does the word mean there? It's a Greek philosophy, a Greek philosophical concept.

Flesh, this word is a philosophical concept from the Greek language. So that I don't know that any of that conversation helps you except to say you need to have in your mind something different than the material world around you when you hear the word flesh.

It's really, here's kind of the best definition I can give you in a short synopsis for it. The flesh is a universal fallen human tendency.

To live without God.

The fallen human tendency, and so in that,.

Can you relate to that?

Do you understand what that means? The tendency that you have to wake up in the morning and between the time that your head lifts off the pillow and sets back down again to give no mind or no thought to God.

Do you guys know what I'm talking about? The way that you can go a day like that, the way that you can go a week like that, the way that you can go a month like that, that's flesh living. A dependence on this, a dependence on everything that is not God is flesh living, that's the flesh.

So that's the picture that you have to have in your mind when throughout the book of Romans, Paul uses the word, and like I said, some translations have sin nature, some have flesh, that's what he's talking about.

And God sent Jesus, it says, in the likeness of sinful flesh. Now Jesus didn't come in sinful flesh, he had to use the word likeness there. Kind of like it. Why did he say kind of like it? Well, he came in the likeness of it, and what we need to know about that is that Jesus was just like you or me.

Fully human, 100 human, an actual human soul, not that Jesus was born to Mary and the human soul inside of him, the immaterial part of Jesus was the Holy Spirit or something like that. Some of us think that God just kind of took a human shell and poured himself into it or something strange like that.

Not at all, he was completely 100 human, but also divine, don't, it's gonna break your head if you try too hard to fully wrap your mind around it. But by the way, I just say this to that, if you're gonna go, well that seems strange, if you can understand him, how many of you know, it's probably not God you're thinking about.

If you don't come to the end of yourself at all in your faith, if there's never a point where, if everything's sewn up and just completely clear in your understanding of God, then you're thinking about something that's not God.

Do you know what I'm talking about? So the Trinity, this idea of God and flesh and all of that stuff, it's a mystery. It can be really difficult for us to get our mind wrapped around. But he came and here's the thing, he was truly human except that he did not sin.

That's what you need to understand. So why would he use the word likeness of sinful flesh? Well, likeness just like us without the sinful part.

That's the part that he was missing.

And therefore in this human state, he took the punishment for us in himself, the text goes on to explain. He suffered condemnation and our sentence of death was carried out on him. And therefore, anyone who is in union with Christ has a claim on his fulfillment of the law.

Who went the distance? Who kept the whole law on your behalf?

You, are you gonna do it?

Of course not, but Jesus did.

In verse four, it's clear that his fulfillment of the law is credited to us. Any and all who have asked Jesus to save them have been credited with his law fulfilling work. And at the end of verse four, Paul identifies us as those who are walking with God, not according to the flesh any longer, but according to the spirit.

And like I mentioned, and he's mentioned very clearly in the last text, you can slide back into that, but that is not what defines you any longer.

You are of the spirit.

He's recapped salvation in this final phrase in verse four, brings us back into remembering that we're talking about sanctification, that this text is about the process of life. It's about the present, not strictly focused on what he has done for us in the past, though he wants to set the table for us.

But we're talking about the way that life is lived now that we're in Christ, and it's important that we understand that over chapter eight. We've been set free from sin and death. The law has been fulfilled for us, and now we are those who walk according to what, does it say, according to law?

Now what does it say, according to obedience, according to rules and regulations? What does it say in the text in verse four? What do we walk according to?

The spirit.

Walking According to the Spirit

The question has been building for the past few paragraphs in Romans, and Paul has been trying to hold his cards close because he wants the thunder to hit you today. Since the opening of chapter six, we've been receiving very little guidance on the content of our lives as Christians.

Very little about. What is it that we obey? What is it that we do?

How do we live this life? He hasn't been very clear. He's told us some things we don't live according to. He said, you don't continue in sin in the Christian life. Should we continue on in sin that grace may abound?

May it not be. He's been negating a bunch of things. He's been saying, you don't live like that. You don't even live according to law, he said. The law is not your primary sanctifying influence. He's been ticking things off, saying that's not this,.

It's not this, it's not this.