Book of Romans, 8:1 - No Condemnation For Those Walking After The Spirit, Pt. 5 (09/01/2019)

Romans 8:1 and the Spirit-Filled Life

All right, we're in Roman chapter 8 in verse 1. We also had major answered prayer with miss Sharon while I was gone, and I left. With that prayer going up, but we didn't know the answer. Until a little bit.

I guess as we were headed home and thank the Lord for that. I sensed it was going to be that way and. But when we see the outcome of faith, it's awesome, isn't it so praise the Lord I'll read Romans 8 1 that's where we are and then we'll go from there.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Who walked not after the flesh but after the Spirit. We've actually been talking about the second phrase. For quite a number of Sundays because it's left out and a lot of sermons.

But what does it really mean? Well, it really is not the cause of the Salvation and the no condemnation part. It's the result of it. It is is it is an effect of salvation when we are regenerated the Holy Spirit does at least 33 different things to us and for us in a nanosecond of time and Those one of those things is that he sends himself To indwell our bodies and our body becomes the temple of the Living God.

Can you even imagine that thing just thinking about that thought can be life-changing? Because you can't possibly be the same after that happens as you were before it happened because now God dwells in your body.

With you his spirit and your spirit actually become one spirit. During those times that you're what the Bible teaches and calls being spirit-filled. And we're not spirit-filled all the time. We choose when to be spirit-filled and when we're not spirit-filled we're dangerous because then we're in the flesh.

So I don't think there's any in-between. Best I can tell what do you think Bill? Have you ever seen any in-between? I mean like you're either spirit-filled or I Don't think there's an in-between you're in the flesh.

You're spirit-filled one of the two. So the striving of the Christian life is to be in the spirit more often throughout the day and throughout all the days combining them together into being a better Person because you're living like God intended humans to be before the fall.

Actually, and this is on this side of the fall and we have that capability to be a whole Complete or as the Bible word would almost be a good synonym mature whole person the God wants us to be a spirit controlled Soul controlled body think about that.

Your spiritual man is the highest part of you. That's the new man. All right. When we are attached to Jesus Christ when we're one with him his spirit and our spirit become one spirit the Bible says and That controls our soul, which is sort of the interface that connects our spiritual self to our physical self.

And then that's connected to our body and it turns our body into an instrument for good. When as long as our new man is in control, isn't that something so that's how we want to walk. Predominantly in the predominant movement of our life is in that direction.

That's what the second phrase means in this passage. It is a result of the salvation doesn't cause it. It's the result of it and Knowing that helps us understand the sense of it. Well, I Read you a quote from John Calvin on that particular part of that verse which where he just said it just it's tantamount to being Indwelt by the Spirit which I thought man, that's so simple.

Because I was having a lot of questions about that second passage and I read that he said he made I said to myself He made that so simple, but I'd like to bear that out in scripture. So that's what we've been spending time doing.

Where are the scriptures that made John Calvin believe that that's what it meant. And so we spent quite a few Sundays on that task and I think those kinds of things are important. You should never just read any commentary and now the magnitude of this man John Calvin the magnitude of this man.

To put him in perspective if it weren't for he and about four other people we would still be in the Dark Ages we we would be controlled by the Roman Catholic Church in the worst of the sense of that and There would be very little light none of us would have our own Bibles probably and who knows where we would be and God knows that was never a chance because the plan was for Martin Luther and and John Calvin and different men like that to arise and to bring light back is called the Enlightenment period the Renaissance was the secular part of that and So John Calvin is huge, but even reading him you you need to go to scripture and see okay.

Why does he think that and if you don't find it in scripture, then you're allowed to disagree with John Calvin. Is that all right? You can disagree with any teacher of the word because the main Authority is what it's this right here.

Right. It's this right here. It's got to be that way. Otherwise we have chaos so we've been talking about where did he come up with these concepts? Well, I Found a really wonderful passage that dealt with this whole idea a lot of times we'll take a trip through the whole Bible and we'll have a whole bunch of Verses from dear Old New Testament all over the place kind of like a roadmap down through the whole Bible to support some of these Great Bible themes that we come across.

In this case, we did cover a couple of other verses. But then the main place that I found was in Colossians chapter 1 so if you wouldn't mind turning there this morning I'm going to pick back up there because in that one chapter I found 30 at least 30 of the 33 things that I had Previously put in a study years ago when I was in my probably early 30s.

That God does to us when we're saved at the moment. We're saved a lot of them are right here in this one chapter. I didn't realize that back when I did that study because I find them all over the place in the Bible, but So let's turn to Colossians chapter 1 and I want to I Remember where we left off last time is Let me see somewhere right around verse.

The end of verse 9 really. So, let me read verse 8 and 9 it says and here we are in Colossians chapter 1 Verses 8 and 9 who also declaring to us your love in the spirit for this cause we also since the day We heard it do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled With the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

So last time I was here to speak with you. We talked about how do we know God's will and I had two different mentors. Dr Freeman and brother Otis and they both told me their viewpoint on how to know God's will independently of each other it was the same four points and So I added a fifth point which was to once you once you have these things lined up.

Basically, do I do I have the desire to do a thing? Whatever the thing is I'm praying about and Lord is this your will for me to do this do I have the desire to do the thing and The reason that's important is because sometimes God puts that desire in our heart when he's moving you into something.

Now we have to understand our flesh can have desires too. So that can't be the only point, right? We have to have more than one point. But the first point is do I have the desire to do the thing. Second point is do I have the wherewithal to do it?

In other words has God put the means in my life through other people through resources, whatever are the possibility of such resources to actually do the thing that I want to do and the third thing is Does it contradict scripture at all or is it in line with scripture?

And the fourth thing is Can I do this thing and have peace with God doing it? Those were the four things both of those gentlemen taught. The fifth step that I added was once those four things line up take a step step towards it.

Because that's what so many people miss. I mean they'll sit there and believe in something. They'll be. Abstractly, I'm with it, but they never go into the concrete. They don't put they don't put their feet to it.

They don't walk towards it and make it happen. So that's the fifth step and that's what we talked about last time and most of that was there in verse 9. So that brings us to verse 10 this morning. So let's read that together follow along with me there that you may walk worthy of the Lord and to all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God as We increase in the knowledge of God we by definition increase in the knowledge of God's will because there are two Aspects to God's will one is his revealed will which is this?

All right, the holy word of God inspired God breathes word and the second is his secret will which is what you find by taking that step. You step into that you can't know it because you're not God. You don't know it till you get into it once you're in it.

Then you know you're in his will right, but you don't know it until you take that step. What's interesting as we increase in our knowledge of God our ability to understand his revealed will is greater and greater, isn't it?

Wouldn't you say that has to be directly proportional to how much time you spend in this book? Would you agree your understanding of the knowledge of God would be proportional that assuming you're saved.

If you assume you're saved and you're spirit-filled then it would be proportional to how much time you're in that book. So that's a good thing that we see there in verse 10. But the thing I want to back up and look at the first part which is being fruitful In every good work now, let me get you to back up a little bit to verse 5 and 6 because I want to contrast this with something we've already studied.

All right verses 5 and 6 says this for The hope which is laid up for you in heaven. Where have you heard before in the word of truth the gospel of your salvation that that so this is speaking about the Bible the Word of God the written word.

So as we speak of the written word it says in verse 6 Which is coming to you as it is in all the world meaning the Bible the Word of God has come to you as it has in all the world and it brings forth fruit and Has done so since you heard it so God had to open your ears to have ears that hear first.

But once you then heard the word the Word of God began to bear fruit in your life. So that's one topic we discussed is the Bible actually bearing fruit in your life. So that's not you bearing fruit. That's the Bible bearing fruit in your life.

Now when you drop down to verse 10 though it starts talking about you and me Bearing fruit in our lives and it is related obviously, but it's also distinct. So let's take a look at that today, so Verse 10 says that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work.

So can we please the Lord if we're not bearing fruit? Well, I think it indicates that The way that we are pleasing unto the Lord and walking worthy of the Lord is If we are fruit bearers, right? So we want to stop and think about that a little bit longer and As we take a look at fruit bearing in the Bible There are several different ways we can break this down to study it.

And if you remember right before we finished last Sunday, I Went into Mark chapter 11 verse 11, we talked about the parable of the fig tree. And I don't want to cover that again, but if you weren't here it was Mark chapter 11 starting with about verse 11 and Going down through verse 21 and we read the whole thing.

But just to give you an idea of what it talked about was Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem. To the to the temple and He passed by a fig tree, which was green. Indicating it had life and it says he was an hungered.

That's the way Texans talk. So King James is Texan. So he was an hungered. He was hungry. Okay, and he so he went over to look at the tree and there was no fruit on the tree. So he cursed the tree and his he did it in such a way that all His followers heard him do it and then they just moved on down the road and went and he viewed the temple.

He went to take a look at the temple. All right, so then they spent some time, but when they came back Out of town and they they were apparently sleeping outside of town smart thing to do didn't want to sleep in the city.

So went back out into the countryside. They noticed that the fig tree was dead. It was just living. He cursed it and they came back and it's dead are completely dead and they took note of that and they wanted to ask Jesus.

What is that? What are you teaching here? What is the concept? Well, it deals with fruitfulness and it's a object lesson that we are Are given life like the green tree we have life therefore we ought to be fruitful and when our Lord wants us to bear fruit and he wants to take advantage of the fruit in The world that he built in his kingdom then it needs to be there and if it's not there It's not pleasing to him now, you know telling what else is taught in that but that's what I got from it in a nutshell.

So you have that story there in that chapter? Now It kind of sets up a story about the whole teaching about fruit-bearing in the Bible and Let me go. Let's go back up here and look at verse 11. I'm going to show you a couple of interesting points.

And there this whole story if you just look at it from a viewpoint of a lesson on fruit-bearing you'll find some things that are actually going on with God's relationship with us and our relationship with him all the time and his and Jesus's relationship with the church and We'd have to say with the church in our day the modern church that we are in today In this world and what it looks like compared to other times in the last 2 ,000 years.

So look at this. Jesus entered into Jerusalem and into the temple and when he had looked roundabout upon all things and Now that it was evening. And he went out to Bethany with the twelve and that's when they went back out and notice the tree was dead.

Okay, but I want you to notice he didn't spend a lot of time. That day apparently they had just arrived. He just wanted to go in and take. Whoa, that was cool. Scared me to death. He wanted I did not know what that was.

Being eaten alive. Okay, so he wanted to take a look at the temple. So look at that phrase. He looked roundabout upon all things in the temple. And that's the first point that I want to make this morning.

Is that Jesus looked roundabout upon all things in the house of God and you can be sure That he is looking about upon every detail of everything in his church today. Not just our church, but every church that claims to be a church across the United States and around the world today.

He's taking a hard look at every thing. Notice it says all things every detail in the life of the modern church so I would ask you the question, what do you think his feelings are as He takes a look today at the life of the modern church because the first part of verse 11 says he's doing it.

That is what he's doing. It brings that idea to us that he is taking a hard look at it. Now. Let's see the next thing that happens. All right, so They go through and you have the fig tree story and Then he curses the fig tree and then look at verse 15 drop all the way down to verse 15 where they come back to Jerusalem now after he's taken a glimpse at it now he comes back.

So he's had time to think about what he saw in the temple hasn't he? He's already seen it looked and looked at everything he's had time to think about it and now he comes back and they came to Jerusalem and Jesus went into the temple and he began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the tables of the money chambers changers and the seats of them that sold doves and would not allow that any man should carry any container vessel a container through the temple and Then he taught saying into them it is is it not written?

In the Old Testament, of course. My house shall be called by all nations. The house of prayer not a house of prayer the house of prayer but you have made it a den of Thebes. Now you think about that for a minute?

He goes on and he says Scribes and the chief priests, you know, they heard about this. And so what did they do when they heard him say this? They looked about how they might destroy him they wanted to kill him because he told the truth about their place of worship.

For they feared him because all people were astonished at his doctrine. What does that mean the word doctrine is sounds religious and but it just means teachings the major Bible themes the major Bible lessons that Jesus taught when he taught his major Bible themes they were Astounding compared to this junk that these Pharisees had been teaching.

Do you know what I've got in my study at home a book That contains some ancient it's got photographs of some ancient targums. Now what targums were they were the studies that the Pharisees were using to teach the Jewish people for about 300 years prior to the coming of Jesus Christ to this earth and the reason that the Jews predominantly missed Their Savior is because they had been taught from targums.

Rather from rather than from the Bible itself. And so the teachers had stopped teaching them the Bible and they had these targums. Which is nothing more than a paraphrase how many of you ever heard of the good news for modern man that Bible.

All right. You can go down through and name several modern Bibles that are written like funny books. Practically, but they're not really Bibles because what they are is there some person might even be just one person's idea of what the Bible Means when he read the Bible, so instead of giving you the Bible He's writing down what he says that it means when he reads it.

That's not the same and If you were to do that for 300 years Let's say the next man took that paraphrase the good news for modern man says well I'm gonna write one tell you what I think about that one.

And then he writes that down and you keep doing that for a 300 year period which is longer than the United States has existed. Then the Bible that you end up with the Bible studies that you're teaching from are so far Removed from the true Word of God by then that you're not even hearing the Word of God.

And this is exactly what Satan used to cause the Jew from the human viewpoint to miss their Messiah. There were only two Jews that even recognized him at first Simeon and Anna. No one else even but and it says that they recognize because they've been in the scriptures not the Targums, right?

Well Satan's using the same thing today in the modern church. We have the we have the good news for modern, man. We have the new American standard. We have the revised standard. We have the English standard.

We got this and that and the other and all these American new American Renditions of what people think the Bible says and they don't even come from the correct Greek Manuscripts in the New Testament, which is easily proven if you study for a couple of years and the Old Testament's a little closer.

But it's got errors in it, too. And so that's what we have people reading nowadays. So it's not that different and so they were missing the truths of Scripture because they were not being taught from the Scripture.

So when Jesus called them out on it and said you scribes and Pharisees you're preaching lies. Then they wanted to kill him because he was teaching the truth and pointing out their error. Eventually they did kill Jesus Christ.

They thought actually what I see is that Jesus gave up the ghost which means he gave his life up because no one could take It from him, but they thought they killed him didn't they? Satan even thought he killed him.

Satan thought he had victory that day when actually it was the very thing that nailed him to the cross and defeated him and destroyed him and took the law out of the way, too, so This is all being set up the very crucifixion of Christ upon which all of our salvation is based Was set up right here this day.

This is when it started To take place that they were starting to make plots to take the life of Jesus Christ from him and that ended up on the cross and One drop of that blood that was shed on that cross Removed every sin you'll ever do your whole life removed it.

From you it all started right here. Because he pointed out that they were False teachers in the church and that the church had been turned into something that God never intended it to be. So we see that he points out here He taught saying unto them is it not written my house shall be called of all nations a house of prayer.

So that's what it was supposed to be okay. It was supposed to be a place of meeting with God. But what had they turned it into a den of thieves where they were selling goods now they they knew they had taken the law of God and just Extrapolated it on out and touched it with their human hands and and so many rules that God never said these people needed to follow.

They were rules. They couldn't follow and these Pharisees had created all these rules part of the rules Enabled them to have it where certain animals that they had to use to do their sacrifices had to be the ones that I sell.

The ones I'm selling are the only ones that are clean. And they would bring them to the temple and make enormous amounts of money selling these clean animals that were you could go out and buy one from a farmer for a little of nothing and Paid maybe ten to a hundred times that price to buy the one in the temple and this is what Jesus rebuked they had turned the house of God into a Den of thieves where they were stealing from widows and from the people.

I Want you to think about what does he see in the modern church that would make him just as Likely to rebuke the modern church. We'll be talking about that a little as we go through this. All right, so The first thing that I see then is that Jesus took a look at all things in the house of God.

The second thing is That I see that he begins to cast out the false and the secular. So turn to Ephesians chapter 5 verse 10, I'm going to move around a little bit in some other passages. So what was he question?

I'm asking now is what was it? He actually cast out of there. He cast out it sees he calls him a den of thieves. And he went around there and he took he took a whip and he literally overthrew their tables.

He was this was righteous anger. So it's not always wrong to be angry. Jesus Christ was angry at what they had done to the house of God and He threw he must have been quite a strong man. If you think he grew up as a carpenter's son.

Lifting lumber every day and carrying it where we had to carry it and up on top of houses and putting up. They didn't have he didn't been stronger if he'd had this sheetrock stuff that we have to lift, right?

But I mean think about that. He's a strong man and He goes in with this righteous zeal and anger because they are not using the house of God as it was meant to be by God and he overthrows the tables where they were doing business and He takes the chairs.

They were sitting in throws them all over the place and There's other passages parallel passages the same story where he took whip and whipped the people these people that were doing it. He whipped them with a whip and ran them right out of the front door of the building.

He ran him out of the house of God he cleansed the house of the Lord, didn't he? So Ephesians 5 in verse 10. It says proving what is acceptable unto the Lord and Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

Let's see if we can take this story of the Old Testament Temple and we know Jesus was living under that economy because the church age didn't start till after he was dead had died. He's buried resurrected and ascended in heaven.

And then when Pentecost came that's when the church began the church age began at that time. So he's living in the Old Testament, but let's see if we can apply this object lesson to us in the church. Okay.

So what are these tables that were overthrown picture? What what did the moneychangers picture? What does the when he whipped the people and drove him out? What are these people picture in the church today?

And that's what I think we find in some of these passages. So it says first thing we should do in our own church is we should prove what is acceptable unto the Lord. So we should never take anyone's word for anything.

They teach in this church without looking it up in the scripture and prove that it's acceptable unto the Lord. Otherwise you end up with a church like Jesus confronted that day, even though I know it was an Old Testament temple.

But it's a picture the story pictures the church and you're going to end up with one that Jesus would not be pleased with so the first thing is We have to make sure it's acceptable to the Lord of the things that are going on here.

And then we're to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. But rather reprove them now what I see there is I see a lot of modern churches that are taking the unfruitful works of the world system and Merging it right into their Christian schools and into their church.

They're doing whatever you would do At Madison Square Garden in New York City to sell something. They're doing that at the front of their church up on the platform every Sunday morning. Same marketing skills.

We work at so hard at Tradeway just to keep our company going which is appropriate for a business Is being used in all of these mega churches and we recognize it because we're marketing we have marketing backgrounds.

We have marketing educations and we have marketing backgrounds and we see it that that's what they're doing. Could we do that here? Absolutely. We have more skills than most preachers have from seminary.

We got it from business school. But we don't use that here and you mentioned it this morning when we talked about when you first came to talk about the church. We want it to be biblical not patterned after Public school not pattern after the world does and we want a church to be biblical to not pattern after what the world does and Calls the church.

So we don't want to have unfruitful works with With darkness, but rather we want to call them out and reprove them. Which means correct them point them out that they're wrong and correct that that's part of what a true church does now.

Will they like that when you do it? Did they like it when Jesus did it when he threw this junk out of there? Did they like it know they begin to plot his death and the same? Hatred is there for you and for me today if we stand as a beacon of truth and we say, you know That's not actually true what you're doing there what you're doing.

There's not actually biblically probably shouldn't be doing that. There's no authority for doing that whatsoever. Why are you doing that? People don't like those kind of questions and yet. It's our duty if it says here.

We're not supposed to buddy up with them, but we're supposed to reprove it. We it's you know, we love the part about don't buddy up with it. Oh, we'll have our church will be different. We don't like having to say something with our mouth and reprove it and say to them you are wrong because it's our friend.

It's our family. It's our acquaintances and we don't want them to plot our deaths right. We don't want them to plot the death of our friendship or our relationship and our family. So we don't point out these things.

So we let them move closer and closer to perdition. Every day that they live they are closer to hell you say, how can you prove that? I'm not going to prove it I'm just going to keep reading the scripture.

So let's keep going here. Let's go to Matthew chapter 7 and about verse 15. Matthew chapter 7 verse 15. This is Jesus speaking now and I believe he's taking a foreview of the church, even though he's not in the church age because he's still on the earth here, right?

He's living in the Old Testament times preparing his people for a change. He's preparing his people for a new age which is coming when he tells them I will be Crucified they will take my life and on the third day.

I will bring it back again and Then later he tells them Don't do anything but pray because in a few days The Holy Spirit is going to come upon you then you'll be ready to start the church age. You'll have the power that you need to do what I'm sending you to do.

You don't have it yet. So wait on that. So he's beginning to give them some hints of this future church age. Which is different than how they grew up and it's a huge change because they grew up in a Jewish economy.

Where Gentiles were dogs and God wouldn't even save a Gentile in their viewpoint and later. We know the Apostle Paul spent most of his time saying no. No, no, Jesus died for all men, which means all kinds of men, which means not just Jews.

And so now he's starting to prepare him and he says look here's here's how it's going to be as soon as the church Age begins it won't be three days old and you're going to have false prophets begin to arise.

Now that's not good news to us. Is it it is good that he told us about it though because it's a warning. So he says beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing. But inwardly they are ravening wolves.

So let me ask you a question. How do these prophets look to the eye? They look like sheep. They look like one of us they have sheep's clothing and. But on the inside they're a wolf that's coming to destroy the sheep and to eat them alive.

Wow. Thanks Lord for telling us that that's great news this morning. But it's the truth. And then he gives us this interesting information and this has to do with our study on fruit-bearing is a reason that we were into this this morning.

You shall know them by their fruits. All right. So now that gives us some information, you know, so many people today like saying well. We're not supposed to judge anybody, right? The Bible does not teach that the Bible teaches the world is not supposed to judge us.

It teaches that but it says we judge all things in the same verse. We the Saved Ones. Jesus's children judge everything we're supposed to judge everything. So we look at this we look at a person who claims to be teaching God's Word who claims to be setting up a house of God and setting it in order like God wants it and yet we look at the fruit of his life and it doesn't match because maybe he's a womanizer or maybe he you know, who knows.

But you just start watching the man's life or the woman's life the servant of God. Whoever's this is could be a Sunday school teacher could be anybody and their life doesn't match what they're teaching on Sunday.

They don't live a life of faith. They live a life by sight and you can just tell it if you know them very well. What does that tell you you need to do you need to know them pretty well? We need to know our teachers we need to watch their lives their personal life.

Not their church life. Church life is meaningless. If all I ever knew was you here. You're all perfect here. I'm perfect here. All right. So that's not how we really are because Romans chapter 7 came before Romans chapter 8 in Romans chapter 7 talked about we still have the old Man, we still have flesh.

So we're not perfect. We make mistakes we do things incorrectly. But what's the predominant walk of this person that we can also tell? We can overlook the mistakes. But we can't overlook their predominant walk of a person.

That is what tells you if you should listen to their words or not and Jesus said, you know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes? Do they gather figs from thorn bushes? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree will bring forth evil fruit.

It's not only talking about his life. It's talking about his doctrines that he teaches too so you can take his life and measure it up to this book and you can take his Teachings and measure them up to this book and if they fall short cast him out or her.

It's a false prophet and when Jesus comes and looks at this church. Do you want him to find Pharisees and scribes here running things? Teaching things. No, he won't be pleased. He might turn some tables over.

He might whip some people. He knows you don't know what he'll do. He might remove the candlestick where it's not even church anymore, it's just a institution with people in it. Why did sepulchers full of dead men's bones?

He might do that. You don't know what he'll do. So you don't want to get to this point. So you have to look at the fruit of the people that gonna stand up and say hey, I'm gonna teach you the Word of God.

Okay, then you're gonna show me your life and you're gonna show me that your words match this book. And if you don't you're out of here. With a smile on your face you say that. Maybe sometimes it doesn't call for it.