Romans 8 Lord keeps Lord keeps bringing me back here. I Pray that a lot of this doesn't seem to become redundant to you guys that There's just a lot here to unpack in Romans 7 and Romans 8 And at least as for me, there's a lot of misunderstanding in past life, you know, of what some of these things said, especially as it pertains to our walk with the Lord and things like that. But Lord keeps seem to keep bringing me back here.

I wanted to maybe pick up around the same area where we was at last week, we looked at the Romans chapter eight and verse one. And we talked about how that was a continuation of Paul's thought in Romans chapter 7. And not to rehash everything we've talked about the last couple of weeks, I'd like to at least go back and maybe bring to your attention, in Romans chapter 7, Paul has come off of his great explanation and preaching on the doctrine of justification.

How we're justified before God and that justification before God is what makes us guiltless before God. That justification before God is what is our salvation. That is why we are saved. What Christ did on the cross for us His life of obedience leading up to the cross, his death on the cross and the substitutionary work that he did there, his resurrection from the grave, that all-encompassing work of Christ is our salvation. That's what saves a person.

A preacher preaching to you doesn't save you. Someone reading the Bible, that doesn't save you. Okay, someone hearing the gospel over the radio or over sermon audio or the internet or whatever That isn't what saves you what saved you Is the work of Christ alone Christ is your salvation And so Paul was very clear through all of Romans five and six, that justification comes by the faith of Christ, not your faith in Christ, but the faith of Christ, his faithfulness, his obedience, his submission to the father, his work that he did on our behalf as our mediator, as our substitute.

And so, Coming off of that, Paul, by the Holy Spirit, by the way, recognizing that although legally before God, we are justified and without sin, if you remember, probably all of us at some point in time, as we've grown up and been even in false churches, And everything has probably heard the little phrase that the word Justification we learned the definition by saying it out justified never sin Okay, God looks at me is justified never sin. That's what justified me, right? Well, that's true God looks as us looks at us Justified never sinned Okay, and that's because of Christ That's because his blood that was shed for us has cleansed us from all sin, guilt, from all sin, condemnation.

So Christ's death is what God looks at for our salvation. That's what saved us, right? So Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, now writes, knowing that even though the child of grace by faith comes to believe that Christ died for them and that their justification by God is there, that they have been given an imputed righteousness that now God sees. God sees Christ's righteousness in our place. And even though we know that, okay, the Bible tells us that, we've been given faith to apprehend that, However, the child of grace is also given another thing. They're given by the Holy Spirit to know their unworthiness and their inability in this flesh. They're given to know their sinfulness. And in knowing not only my justification before God, the forgiveness of sins, the imputation of righteousness, I'm also given to know that in my flesh dwells no good thing. In him dwells all good things. But in me dwells no good thing. And whenever there is that consternation of the old man, the fleshly man, the carnal man, the Adamic man who has been given in that spirit man to know, I can't do anything to please God. I can't do anything that God will accept. I can't please God. I can't keep right relation with God. I can't. I can't earn my way to heaven. I can't do anything that God would say. Good, good, good. Well done. There's nothing I can do to do that.

So now I have this inner man within me who desires the things of God, who loves God, who wants to please God, who wants to do those things, which is right. But yet I have the outward man who everything that tries to do that is nothing but filthy rags. Everything I do that I want to do on the inside, but whenever I do it on the outside, it becomes sin. Why? Because my flesh is corrupt and that there is nothing that this flesh can do that can please God.

That's why Paul wrote chapter seven, because he knew the child of grace has been given to know the depths of his depravity, but also to know the justification before God. And now there's going to be this war within that person to know, yes, I know that I am saved by the grace of God through the blood of Jesus Christ. However, I know that in me dwells no good thing. Oh, wretched man that I am.

And so with that being the case, the thoughts of the carnal mind begin to look at what can I do to please God? What can I do outwardly to please God? And there we become the religious man. The carnal man now tries to become the religious man. The religious man is the one who wants to look at the outward appearance. The religious man is the one who looks at fruit on the outward appearance and judges by fruit of the outward appearance and then weighs everybody to some standard of outward obedience. Whether it's you looking outward to somebody else or whether you're judging yourself, by what standard are you judging? Well, I'm doing pretty good, you know. Now, Michael Smith, religious man, is always going to say, Michael Smith is the standard. I'm the one that's doing pretty good. And you're the one that's not doing very good. Look at what you're doing. If you would just be doing what I would be doing, then you'd be all right. You know, you need to start acting like I'm acting. You need to quit doing the things that I quit doing. You see how that works? My convictions ought to be your convictions. Right? So we start judging each other by our own standard.

But all along, we're all missing the mark because the standard isn't you, you, you, you, you, you, you, or you. It's not me. It's Jesus is the standard. The standard of comparison is how do we compare to righteousness, to holiness? How do we compare to God? So, whenever the inward man begins to see, I'm compared to God, I have no hope. I can't do anything. That's where Paul came to in Romans chapter 7. I have now come to know that with this flesh, I will serve the law of sin because that's all it can do. But with my mind, with the inward man, I will serve the law of God.

So what is Paul saying here? He's saying to the child of grace, we have to have a repentance in our mindset. We have to have a repentance in our way of thinking. That's why I've said for a long time now, I've come to believe that the overarching repentance that the Bible teaches is not to stop sinning and go away from sin. Although we should do that. But the overarching repentance that the Bible talks about that was being preached by John the Baptist, by Jesus and by the apostles and the first church, that repentance is a repentance of a change of mind by where my righteousness comes.

What did the Jews think their righteousness came from? Adherence to the law. Adherence to Moses. And we just sang it a while ago. No man ever has and no man ever will adhere to that law. No man can adhere to that law.

So Paul here is saying there's going to be this consternation among you. Within you. Because you, your fleshly outward carnal man, always wants to try to religiously keep a law to be pleasing to God. But the inward man is always telling you, nice to see you do that, outward man, but did you not know that everything you put your hand to is filthy? God's not going to accept it. So therefore you have failed to please God by your outward religious righteous works that you think you're doing.

So what is the repentance? The repentance is my righteousness and my right standing with God does not come from outward law keeping. It doesn't come from me and my works. It came from Christ. And now I continue to look to Him. I live each and every day by the faith of Christ. Not by my faith in Christ.

See, I keep reiterating that because so many people have that confused and especially Reformed people that continue to say that it is now our God-given faith that we walk by and live by and God sees that as our righteousness. No, that is a show that we have been given righteousness but that is not where our righteousness is counted. Our righteousness is counted in Jesus Christ, the seed that Abraham looked towards and he saw his day and he trusted in him. And he said, he is my righteousness. And so we look at that.

And so faith, walking by faith or walking in the spirit or walking by the spirit or living in the spirit, is simply phrases that the Bible uses to speak of living by faith in what Jesus has already accomplished. That's what living by faith, walking by faith, living in the Spirit, all these phrases that we're going to read here in a minute, That all is saying you live not by trusting in something that you do in the flesh, you are trusting in what Jesus has already did for you as your substitute in your place.

When He walked in obedience to the law perfectly for you, and then He died on the cross as the substitute because of the sins you should have died for, He died for you. did that perfectly and it was pleasing to God and acceptable to God. His sacrifice was acceptable to God. His life was acceptable to God. Yours could never be. Could never be. Therefore, you had a substitute who did it for you. And walking by faith is repenting of looking to the arm of flesh to attain that relationship or that righteousness or that long time standing with God. And it looks to Christ.

Now let's look here again at Romans chapter 8. That's why we looked at what we did last week. That Paul is saying, if this is the consternation that we live in, what's the mindset? What's the way of thinking? How are we to reckon? The Bible uses the word reckon a lot. Reckon yourselves to be dead. It doesn't say you're dead. It doesn't say that you should go kill yourself. No, what does reckon yourself dead to be mean? It says, think of yourself as being dead. Think of yourself in this way. And so Paul goes into chapter eight in verse one to give a consolation to that wearied, worn, tired, heavy laden, Constipated child of grace who has that outward man wanting to do religious things and the inward man Roll in his eyes every time the guy tries to please God on the outward flesh He says there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus and we talked about that There's no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. I

This life, for one, flows from a vital union. An eternal vital union. One that happened before the foundation of the world. God put us into Christ before the foundation of the world. Therefore, This condemnation of this lack of condemnation are only to those who are in Christ Jesus. And the Bible explicitly tells us the ones who are in Christ Jesus are the ones that God has chosen from the foundation of the world.

Look at Ephesians chapter one. Once again, I know we rehashed these over and over and over again, brethren. But if you're like me, it took many, many times of hearing it before the Lord revealed it to me and give me life on it. Who are the ones who are in Christ Jesus there in Romans 8 1? Well, Ephesians chapter one says. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God to the saints, which are in Ephesus and to the faithful. in Christ Jesus. There's that phrase in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. There is a phrase in Christ according as he, God, hath chosen us, who's us, the faithful in Christ Jesus, the blessed in Christ Jesus, who hath blessed us according as he hath chosen us in him, in Christ, when? Whenever you came to the old-fashioned altar and raised your hand and accepted Jesus into your heart and got baptized in the water and then signed a little membership card and became a member of a local church somewhere and then began to walk, keeping the law? Whenever you went to youth camp and went down with a throng of kids that all raised their hands wanting Jesus? No. Did God choose us in Jesus Christ? Don't take my word for it. Don't take John Calvin's word for it. Don't take Charles Spurgeon, Gilbert Beebe, John Gill. Don't take the Pope's word for it, by all means. Before the foundation of the world, And then he adds this last phrase, what is the purpose of God choosing a people, blessing them with all the spiritual blessings that they would ever be blessed with in heavenly places? Notice it didn't happen in earthly places, it happened in heavenly places. And it happened to those who are in Christ.

But notice if he would have said, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. So the blessing person foremost came up on Christ. And all those who were in him are recipients of that same blessing. Christ first and foremost is the one who is blessed of God, and then we are blessed because we are in a vital union with Him.

But why did God bless us and choose us before the foundation of the world? before anything would happen, before Adam was created, before a tree was planted, before a fruit sprung up, before Adam and Eve transgressed and ate of the fruit, before sin and death entered into this world, why did God bless us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places that He could get it according to His choosing in Christ Jesus before all that happened?

that we should be holy and without blame before and in love. The reason he did it that way is so that we would stand in Christ from all eternity. Our standing in Christ is from all eternity. It isn't from some place in time whenever you'd made a decision. It isn't whenever you decided not to go your way and decided to go God's way. It is not whenever you decided to move the object of your faith from yourself to God. It wasn't from whenever you decided to give up your old life and to take on Christ. to become a better person, to have a life rearrangement. That's not when it happened. It happened before the foundation of the world and God did it that way so that from the very time that we entered into this time place that he created for us, we would be without blame before him in love.

What does it say? So that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. God did that so that from the very get go before Adam even took that fruit and brought sin upon all of his race. God had already provided, had already decreed, this people in Christ Jesus, in union with Him, have been blessed with all spiritual blessings, therefore they stand holy and without blame before Him in love, because He loved us. He has loved us with an everlasting love. He has drawn us with his cords of love. He has kept us by his everlasting love. His love is the foundation for why we are in Christ Jesus. And as we stand in him, we stand before him in love. He has never been a time, never will be a time that the child of grace will ever be outside or out from underneath the love of God.

But yet so many people want to say that we were under the wrath of God until we did something. That we were under condemnation until something else. But yet the Bible says we were blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world so that we would stand before Him holy and without blame in love.

Now brethren, I think I can prove that in the scriptures that is true. Because the Bible says, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not sin. That's someone who stands before God holy and without blame. Someone who has not been imputed sin stands before God in the legal standing of holy and without blame. But everyone says, but we have sinned. You can't say that we've sinned. Are you saying that we're not sinners? I'm not saying that you're saying that you're making a straw man. I am saying that we as sinners have never been accounted as sinners in the mind and decree and the purpose of God, because God from the foundation of the world has chosen us to be a love child of His. that He has given to Christ, whose Christ is their mediator, is their surety, is their substitute, is their head, their husband, and He accounts everything that is under that husband as the husband. And God, before the foundation of the world, has never viewed His children in such a way. Because of Christ.

Yes, Christ had to come and die. Everybody says, well, if you believe that, then there was no need for Christ to ever come and die. Yes, Christ came and died because we are actually sinners. We sinned. We have sinned. But God has never viewed it that way. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. They say, well, you're saying now That means now, Paul's saying now there is, there used to be, but now, no, he's saying now in your mind, as we're thinking about these things, justification before God based upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The inward man says, hallelujah, praise the Lord. The outward man says, okay, but what about all my sin? I better be religious and do all these law obedience things to be pleasing and acceptable to God. And now Paul's coming and said, listen, listen, listen. Remember your mindset. There is now no condemnation. It's not waiting till we get to the judgment seat of God in the end of time somewhere. The judgment has already came. It came when Christ was considered our surety. It came whenever God accepted Christ as your payment for sin. It came whenever Jesus Christ