All right, good morning everyone. We're gonna begin our service. And we're gonna be in Romans
chapter eight this morning. Romans chapter eight. So I'll be open with reading
our text. Paul says in Romans 8 verse 1, There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in
the flesh. That the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. Let's open in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, We thank you, Father, for your mercy upon your people here. Lord, we thank you for gathering
us together, giving us a heart and a willingness to meet together
with your people around the Word of God to hear your Gospel. Lord, the Gospel of your Son,
Jesus Christ, our full, finished, complete salvation by the Son
of God who by Himself purged us of our sins and obtained eternal
redemption for us through His own shed blood. Lord, we thank
You for this gracious salvation which we simply do not deserve. And Lord, though we feel the
condemnation in our own flesh, that we feel corrupted and see
the sin and the weakness of this flesh, we are so thankful that
in Christ, apart from any works, we are righteous and sanctified
in Him, spotless before You, accepted by You, all through
the through the precious blood sacrifice of our dear Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. Father, we pray for your people
now, that you would bless them, that you would soften our hard
hearts, open our deaf ears, to receive your word, to hear it,
to rejoice in it, to believe the word of God. Yea, the very
Son of God. and that we would trust Him,
and believe Him, and lean upon Him wholly for all our salvation,
having no confidence in this flesh. Lord, I pray that You
would open Your Word now, help me Lord, to preach it with boldness,
and with clarity, with understanding, and that Your people would be
given the same clarity and understanding. and that we would be made to
rejoice in our Savior, that we would be made to look to Him
and to Him alone, to not hear the false Christ, the Antichrist,
that boasts of its works and trusts in its cutting of the
flesh, but that our boast would be in Jesus Christ alone. Keep
us ever faithful to Him. enable us by the power of your
spirit and your resurrection to walk by the spirit and not
in this flesh. Lord, we pray for those that
are sick or weak or have cares and concerns among us. Lord,
that you would comfort your people, that you would reveal yourself
to them and show them that indeed you are our God. who does all
things, and that we can lean and depend upon you for everything,
Lord. We pray, Lord, that you would
remove the virus from us, from among our people, that you would
restore us again to be able to go and work and provide for our
families. Lord, that you would give wisdom
to our leaders and governors and our president and all those
who have some influence over what happens in this country.
Give them wisdom, Lord. There's so many things that could
be done. We pray that you would enable them to do that which
is right and pleasing to you. And Lord, we pray that you would
remember your people for good. Make us to remember you in this
time. Make us to rejoice in you and
lift up thanksgiving to you for your kindness and grace and generosity
toward us. Help us, Lord, to serve you and
our brethren in love. For it's in Christ's name that
we pray this, amen. Okay, so we're gonna be in Romans
8, looking at verses one through four. Now, in this letter, which
Paul is writing to the church at Rome, he's laid out for us
the hope of the believer. He's been laying this hope out
that we have throughout this epistle, showing us that we are
justified by faith in Jesus Christ, apart from any works that we
do. It's entirely, we're justified
by Christ Jesus alone. And he's been declaring to us
throughout this epistle, the good news of salvation, that
we are now delivered in Christ. And he declares this because
he himself has experienced it. He's experienced the salvation
by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. That is creating in him the new
man, which is of Christ, Paul didn't have this before. We don't
have this of ourselves. This is the creation of the Spirit
of Christ. It's the new birth. The new birth. Being born again. So that now,
by His power, by His glory and His power, our hope is fixed
in Jesus Christ. We stop looking to ourselves
and finding a hope within ourselves. and a reason to joy and be confident
in ourselves. That ceases. That's done. We're
delivered from that. We formally walked according
to that walk. But now we see that's a walk
of the flesh. We see that's works in the flesh. And so, this hope
in Christ is received and witnessed to in faith, in faith which is
created in us by the Holy Ghost. And so, the Holy Ghost testifies
of these things to us, to that new man which he's put in us,
and he's revealing this knowledge and the hope of this salvation,
constantly edifying and glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ to us,
so that as we and our natural selves will be turned to the
flesh, and be excited and concerned in the flesh and try to work
a righteousness in the flesh, we're reminded and brought back
to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Habakkuk, the prophet Habakkuk
in 2.4 testified saying, behold, the just shall live by his faith. All right, so it's going to be
a walk of faith It's going to be an experience of faith, not
of our works, but we're going to see that we need to trust
him and believe him and lean upon him, that everything he
said is indeed so. And he bears witness to that.
And that's something that religion doesn't understand. Religion
can't grasp that, that it's really by faith. They can speak of faith,
they know that it's by faith, but they don't understand what
that faith is. Now the flesh of man We know
these members, our bodies, our hearts, our minds, our thoughts,
that which is of Adam is dead in trespasses and sins. It's
corrupted in Adam, so that there's no spiritual light, no spiritual
understanding. That died in Adam. We died in Adam, and that fellowship
was severed with God in Adam, when we sinned in the garden
in Adam. And so, this flesh which is corrupt now, is still true
of us in Christ, just as it's true of those outside of Christ. This flesh itself isn't improved,
it's not getting better and better, it's dead in trespasses and sins. It is corrupt. And so all the
works that we do and all the works that we see, which are
classified under the law of sin and death, Paul described this
earlier. He showed us that what we do
in the flesh, even now in Christ, what we try to do to please God
in this flesh is actually works done under the law of sin and
death. And Paul told us that. If you look back in Romans 7,
Romans 7 verse 21, Paul said, I find that a law that when I
would do good, evil is present with me. So this law of sin and
death is still present. This law of sin is still working
in the members of his flesh, in his thoughts. He feels the
passions and the lusts of the flesh. He's still a man carnal
in himself. And so he sees that law that
when by the new man, the spirit in him, he would do good, evil's
present with him. Whether the flesh is saying,
I don't want to do that, and fighting and resisting that,
or the flesh is saying, hey, maybe God will be pleased with
me for this work. This will earn me some favor
with God. And so this law still resides
in our flesh. But for the believer in Christ,
for those that are in Christ, Paul describes now a war, a warfare
that's going on that's not in those outside of Christ. He describes
a warfare which has erupted in his members ever since Christ
revealed himself to Paul. Look at verse 23, he says this
in Romans 7, 23. but I see another law in my members."
All right, the law which he spoke of before, the law of sin and
death, warring against the law of my mind, that is, which we'll
see later in verse two of eight, that it's the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus. And this law of sin and death
is bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in
my members. So that there's still these lusts
in the flesh. Now, the law of the mind is that
renewed creation, that new man, the creation of Christ, wherein
he said to Nicodemus, you must be born again. This new birth
is of our flesh. Much of religion teaches us that
being born again is something that we do, that we get saved,
or we get ourselves saved, or we make ourselves saved by something
we do. And so they make faith, which
is a spiritual work of God that He does for the sinner, a work
that this dead, carnal, corrupt flesh in Adam can do. And that's
not true. Christ wasn't saying you must
get yourselves born again. He was telling us you must be
born again. The Holy God must do this work
for you, the sinner. He's the one that does this work
in us, so that this new man, which does believe and has faith
and rests in Christ, is his creation in us by his spiritual seed.
And so, in this new man, we delight in, we rejoice in the good news
of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we delight in God's
law. His law being the law of faith
and love. We delight in God's law. We delight in God's salvation
for his people. Romans 7.22 says this. He said,
for I delight in the law of God after the inward man. I delight
in that law of faith. I delight in the law of love
after the inward man, that creation. So there's a war in us now that
wasn't there before. And you think of Rebecca, who
was married to Isaac. And after she became pregnant
with the seed of her husband, after she became pregnant, having
two seeds within her, she says, well, we read of this in Genesis
25, 22 through 23. And the children struggled together
within her. And she said, if it be so, why
am I thus? If I'm pregnant with the seed
of my husband, why is it like this? If I have the seed of Christ
in me, and I'm a new creature in him, why is it like this? And she went to inquire of the
Lord. You see that? She went to inquire
of the Lord. And that's what we do. We inquire
of the Lord. And the Lord said unto her, two
nations are in thy womb. and two manner of people shall
be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger
than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger." So
like Rebecca, we feel this inward war and this struggle within
us, and so we go to inquire of the Lord. This wasn't here before,
but we're made alive now to the things of God. We hear the law
now, and we see that we are condemned sinners And though we see what
the law says, we can't keep the law. And so we begin to cry out. Just like Paul, who said, oh
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? Who's gonna save me from this
death that I now see and know to be in me, that in my flesh
dwells no good thing? And just as Rebecca heard, we
hear that the elders This old man, corrupt in Adam, dead in
trespasses and sins, this old man which we inherited from Adam's
corrupt seed, shall serve the younger." It shall serve the
younger, which is the new creation of Christ in us. That's his work,
and this flesh will serve the younger, the new creation of
Christ, so that Paul would confess this, he would say, I thank God,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with the mind, with the
new creation of Christ, I myself serve the law of God, the law
of faith and love, but with the flesh, the law of sin. So this flesh is still corrupt,
still feels the passions and lusts of the flesh, and understands
that to turn back to that flesh, is to submit myself back to the
law of sin and death, to try and work under its covenant of
works, which I'll never be able to fulfill or meet its demands. So this morning, I want us to
see that the law of sin and death, which rules and determines the
end of Adam, of Adam's seed, of all those yet in Adam's seed
and members of his body. That law of sin and death is
what determines their final end. But that same law of sin and
death shall not rule or have dominion or determine those that
believe Christ. It has no impact. It has no say
in our final resting place. It has no say in in whether we
live with God or not in heaven for all eternity, but rather
the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that determines
our final resting place. for we that believe are new creatures
fashioned of Christ's new man, of his new creation, of his spiritual
seed. So that's the law that we live
by, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, trusting
him, believing him that he is indeed all our righteousness. Our title is Therefore No Condemnation. Therefore, no condemnation. All right, so let's begin here. Paul has been declaring to us
the doctrine of justification by faith through the death of
our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why he was sent. He's
the Christ, the mediator between God and man. And he's also shown
us in the same letter how that our sanctification, our walk. Our holiness before God is also
by Christ, through his resurrection and his life, which now lives
and dwells within us. We walk by that same power, the
power of his resurrection. And so the believer's salvation
it's the result of Christ's gracious work in us. It's his gracious
work, which he wrought for his people, apart from any input
or works by us. And so because our righteousness
now, because the hope of our righteousness, Christ in you,
the hope of righteousness, because the hope of our righteousness
is now fixed in the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul here in chapter
eight begins to enter into the blessings of justification by
faith. He's been teaching us and showing
us the doctrine of justification by faith. Now we're entering
into the blessings, the blessings of justification by faith. And so Paul begins here in verse
one, Romans 8, one telling us, there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. And this is good news to any
one of us who have labored under religion, or labored under the
law within religion, or labored in some work and beating of the
flesh by our flesh. When we've labored to try and
please God, even having supposedly heard the good news, and yet
still laboring in the flesh. It's good news to hear this.
Even those that have labored under the rebellion of sin in
the flesh, this is good news, because you that have cried out
to God for mercy through His Son, Jesus Christ, and are hoping
now in Him, no longer having any confidence in the flesh,
you that cry out to the Lord, who shall save me? Jesus Christ. He says, there is therefore now
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. And so even
though we now find ourselves warring in this flesh, warring
and feeling the infirmity, the weakness, the sickness of this
flesh and its corruption and inability to do that which is
good and well-pleasing to God. And that when we would do good,
evil is present right there with me. To know that there's nothing
good in this flesh, of ourselves that recommends us and that we're
worthy of condemnation by our works and our thoughts and what
we feel and do in this flesh. We're worthy of condemnation,
but he says to us, the promise of God says to us in Christ that
there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. And so we're assured now that
we are freed from sin and death. We are freed from its power and
the control and the influence that it has over us and in our
actions. That we're not trying to please
God or make up for the things that we've done in the flesh,
the sins that we've done. We're trusting in and resting
upon Christ. because he tells us, looking
back at Romans 7 verse 4, that we also are become dead to the
law by the body of Christ, that we should be married to another,
even to him who is raised from the dead, that by him we should
bring forth fruit unto God. And that's the fruit of the spiritual
seed in us, right? It's his spirit. living and moving
and working in us, which has ordained for us good works as
it pleases him." And that begins with, from our perspective, with
faith. But it's always been the purpose
of God to save a people. He put us in Christ in eternity. He tells us over in Ephesians
1 verses 4 and 5 that our choosing, our calling is of God, not our
choice to believe God and to follow Jesus. Our choice, it
was a choice made for us by God. apart from our works, apart from
our desire, apart from what we would have done, God in sovereign
majesty overruled what He would do and what we deserve by sending
His Son and that He chose us first in eternity past that it's
according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will."
Nowhere in there does it speak of our works or anything that
we've done to put ourselves in the family of God. it's according
as God hath chosen us. So that in eternity he put us
in Christ, Christ came in time, in the appointed time, and then
in the appointed time of love displayed and showed to us, after
that, after his finished work, he revealed that salvation in
us. He brought it forth, revealing
his work of the Spirit in us. So Christ's death and Christ's
resurrection has accomplished completely our salvation and
he has delivered us out of the body of Adam's corrupt members. We no longer have our part in
Adam's corrupt dead body. So even though we feel that corruption
and the stirring of the lusts in our members, we have no part. We're not under that law anymore. So that there is now therefore
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. The law is satisfied. The law has nothing more to say
to you that hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. We've no further
part in that body of Adam. That's where that law works.
That's where that law is focused on, the members of the corrupt
seed of Adam. That's their law. That's what
they have to answer to. We don't have a part in that
anymore. Christ delivered us from that and brought us under
the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Look at verse
2, Romans 8, 2. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. What Christ accomplished in his
people, it cannot be undone. It's done. can separate us from
the love of God in Christ. Nothing. That's why, as I was
thinking of verse 1, when I was thinking on this text, and he
says there in Romans 8, 1, there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. who walked not after the flesh
but after the spirit. That word now tells us that that
walk there of walking not after the flesh doesn't have to do
with us as an admonition to us in the flesh. He's telling us
that there's already now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
So there's not this this waiting to see if it's all going to work
out for us by the things that we do or don't do, it's already
accomplished by Christ and nothing can separate us from the love
of Christ. Even now, brethren, the works
are finished so that in Christ we're free right now from the
law of sin and death. It's got nothing to say to us.
It's got nothing that it can say to us. It can no longer come
back. There's no double jeopardy in
it. There's no ability for that law to come back and say, wait
a minute, now you're back under me, right? We'd have to be separated
from Christ and he's not gonna let that happen. Nothing could
separate us from the love. of Christ. So, we're not under
the law of Moses now. We're not under a law of works. We're not under any law to constrain
this flesh through some form of righteousness that we have
to now produce to make ourselves acceptable to God. Christ did everything. In fact, in that understanding,
go back to Romans 3. Turn back to Romans 3 and look
at verses 19 and 20 now. Understanding that we're delivered
from that body in Adam, that body of death, we've been delivered
from it. Romans 3 verse 19, it says, now we know that what things
soever the law saith, speaking of the law of Moses there, and
the law of the light of nature, it say to them who are under
the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world
may become guilty before God." So that law was given for the
purpose of shutting our mouths, not giving us any boast of our
righteousness or our works before Christ or after Christ. The law
was given to shut our mouths, to stop all boasting. We're not
to go back to that law now for righteousness, because we're
not in that body. The law speaks to those that
are under the law, and he's been showing us, since Romans Chapter
six, that we're delivered from that body of death. And so that
therefore the purpose of the law was given to stop boasting
in the flesh, to stop working a righteousness in the flesh
by the flesh. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, before Christ and after Christ, there shall no flesh
be justified in his sight. For by the law, Because of the
law of sin and death, ruling in our members, by the law is
the knowledge of sin. So the law of Moses, we were
already dead in Adam, but the law of Moses was given to shine
a light on what we really truly are, so that we see and know
and aren't fooled, and can't convince ourselves any differently
that we're nothing but sin in this flesh, that there's no good
thing in this flesh if we're being honest and we're made honest
by the Spirit of God to know I can't save myself. I can't
save myself before Christ and I can't save myself now after
Christ. I can't ever look back to the
law to work a righteousness by this flesh, because the flesh
is weak, it's corrupt, and it was given to show me and remind
me time and time again, if I look at it, that I'm nothing but sin. So we don't go back there. So
we died, because we died to it. We're no longer in that body.
When you look at Romans 6.6, That's what he tells us, knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. We're
not serving and laboring under that law of sin and death. Right? Because sin, when you sin and
you see what a sinner you are, it brings fear, And in the flesh,
you try to undo or make up for that. You try to work some righteousness
of yourself. And we see in the scriptures,
none of us are gonna be able to do that. We're not gonna do
it. So that's the law of sin and death. It just produces death
in you. And the more you try to write
it through righteousness and through works of religion, the
more you condemn yourself and the more dead you are. Twice
dead, the Pharisees were, twice dead. All right? There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." And the confusion
of this verse comes because religion tells us that's an admonition,
that's second half. who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit, that that's an admonition to you and me now
that we've got to keep this thing in control now. We've got to
stop walking after the flesh, you know, by the flesh. You've
got to control your flesh by the flesh. And you've got to
start walking in the Spirit by the flesh. They make it an admonition
to you. And so they want to bind, again,
those that are free and made free by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so they would make our promise
of no condemnation, they'd make that promise of no condemnation
conditional on how we walk. Even though Paul said, There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
It's as though our flesh had some part in it. That's what
they're trying to do. They're trying to bring back something for the
flesh to do. And that is the very opposite
of what Paul is saying. Because he's telling us It's
those, the distinguishing factor is the work of the Spirit in
us, revealing that we don't walk in the flesh, but rather that
we walk by the Spirit, trusting and believing Him. So our condemnation
is made a conditional thing according to man's religion, right? Where we have to keep ourselves
from sin, we have to memorize their system of doctrine, It
doesn't matter whether they tell you it's tulip or they tell you
it's free will, Arminianism, that you save yourself through
your faith or they make it so that it's dependent on you knowing
the system and telling others about the system and instructing
others and being able to verbalize it and speak it and tell it to
others so that your confession which is made based on your systematic
theology and your system of doctrine, that that becomes the reason
why you're saved. So that, oh, well, now it's because
of what I know. It's because of the system of
theology that I now know, and it's a coherent system, and it
seems to click into place and make sense. That's why I'm saved. That's what they teach. That's
what religion teaches, and so now you've got to conform to
all their other aspects as well, with the law, and that you've
got to do your best here, and you've got to now look to a carnal
Sabbath day for your rest, and you've got to put on this charade
of religion and a show of religion, and keep that up, so that you
can't be accused of walking in the flesh, but that others will
say, all right, he seems to be walking in the Spirit. Now you
can say to that one that there's no condemnation. But see, that's
just making it a walk in the flesh. That is of the very flesh
that Paul is saying that we don't walk by. And so, you know, the
dead religionists, when they hear that, that, oh, I've got
to do this, the dead religionists will accept that and they'll
take that. Oh, I've got to put 10% in the plate every Sunday?
I'll take that, those odds, I'll do that to earn my salvation
Oh, I've got to now memorize this system of theology. I'll
do that. That sounds good, I like that.
That makes a lot more sense and I can beat people up with this
new knowledge that I have now and show them how much I know
and they don't know. Or, oh, I've got to keep this
law and I've got to honor that day above another. Whatever it
is, the religionist will rejoice and accept that because it gives
them something now to do. and that's because the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, because
they're foolishness. You're telling me that we're
saved by faith, looking to Christ, doing nothing, apart from my
works? Surely God's got a trick up his
sleeve. Surely God's gonna, you know,
expect something of me now, right? And so, it's foolishness unto
him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. And in Adam, we don't have the
spirit of Adam's inherited. What we inherit in Adam, we don't
have the spirit of God. And so the carnal man can't imagine
salvation apart from something that he does or doesn't do. And so he never rests in the
rest that God has declared to us. He never submits to the peace
and the rest with God in Jesus Christ. He doesn't believe it.
He doesn't receive it. He might receive it in an external
sense, but he doesn't stay there. He goes off and he begins to
work in labor. for to make himself feel better and to soothe his
guilty conscience. So remember that the law is spiritual,
but I'm carnal, sold under sin. So we walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. And in Christ, we are free from
the law of sin and death, right? We're free from trying to deliver
ourselves from our condemnation through something that we do
in the flesh. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ
Jesus, Romans 8, 2, hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. It's already accomplished by
Christ, and there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
So we don't listen to the Judaizers. We don't listen to those that
would have you cut the flesh, and carve out things out of the
flesh, and trust in your religious doing, in your religious service,
and in the things that you say or don't say. We're not looking
to yoke you brethren. I'm not looking to put a yoke
on you and to bind you in works for your salvation. I'm declaring
to you that there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. And so that
walking in the flesh to know whether there's condemnation
or no condemnation is actually trusting in the flesh. It's actually,
that is the walking in the flesh and not in the spirit. Okay,
so let's talk about now walking after the spirit. Walking after
the Spirit is trusting. Believing God and trusting Christ
alone for your righteousness. Resting in Him that He has done
and is doing everything necessary in salvation. It doesn't mean,
therefore, that we now yield our members up to do that which
we know is sin and wicked. It doesn't mean that we just
go and consume and drink in iniquity like we're drinking water, and
just do those things which we know are sinful, which we know
were the cause of our Savior being crucified. That doesn't
produce sin in us. It's that we have no confidence
in the flesh. We don't look to and try to work
a righteousness for ourselves, but we rest in Him, and we commit
the whole of our salvation to Christ. knowing that he justified
us by his death and that we are, even now, sanctified by the Lord
Jesus Christ, by his resurrection and his life in us. And so we
pray, we inquire of the Lord, seeking him Lord. Have mercy,
Lord, use me. Lord, turn my hard heart to be
soft and to show love and tenderness to my brethren, and to do those
things which are pleasing to you, which you've put me here
on the earth to do, and to serve you in your kingdom. And so we
understand that we are Christ's epistle. What we do is the work
of Christ in us. So we're not looking to do the
lusts that we feel in the flesh. Like the apostle said, abstain
from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. We don't seek
to do those things, but we cry out to him because we feel them
in our flesh. And because we know that they're
there. And we don't want to do those things. We don't want to
be turned away. We don't want to fall away like
so many in the world, but our trust never stops being focused
upon Christ and resting in Him. That's why Paul would say in
2 Corinthians 3, 4, such trust have we through Christ to God,
to God. Such trust, we're so confident
that we stay right there looking to Him alone. knowing that he's
the author and finisher of our faith. Not the flesh's epistle. We're not Moses' epistle. We're
not religion's epistle. We're not a system of theology's
epistle. We are the epistle of Jesus Christ. We're his letter, his work. He's
the one doing it for us. So in fact, Paul reminds us in
Romans 8-3, for what the law could not do, in that it was
weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, so that Christ
himself, by his work, put an end to the reign and the power
of sin. It isn't that we no longer see
sin in us, it's that we no longer are motivated by sin to try and
work a righteousness for ourselves. were delivered from that fear,
were delivered from laboring under the cruel taskmaster of
Satan, whose house we were in, in that prison of darkness and
bondage, were delivered from that, so that we know it's not
found there, it's not by my works, it's by the successful salvation
work of the Lamb of God who laid down his life for me. And so
that's ceasing, laboring under the law of sin and death, right? And it's called sin and death
because all who try to come to God by working a righteousness
for themselves are laboring yet under the law of sin and death.
They're trying to free themselves, sorry, free themselves of their
condemnation through something they do. rather than resting
in the work of God. And I hope that's being made
clear to you as we go through the study in Romans, that that's
what we're delivered from, that fear and that bondage of fear.
So our hope is found in Christ, where it says, God sending his
own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, enforcing, condensing
in the flesh, That's his work when he went to the cross. Having
fulfilled all the law perfectly, having loved his own to the end,
and having loved the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and
strength, and his neighbor as himself, he bore his people up. He took them up. And he paid
that eternal, sacrifice of death, which we owed, we could never
have satisfied the justice of God and His holy just wrath. We could never have satisfied
that, but Christ being perfect and holy, having been made sin
for His people, put away our sins so perfectly, so successfully
that there's nothing left. There's nothing that remains
for us to do. He satisfied God. He satisfied
God's holy righteous law. He's redeemed us, purchased us
by his blood. He's put an end to sin. He's
made an end of sin. He's finished sin and accomplished
salvation for his people so that the debt that we owe the debt
of righteousness that we owe, but instead sinned and sinned
and sinned some more, Christ paid that debt of sin in full
with his own precious spotless blood. All right, so we owe nothing
more. There's now no condemnation to
us who are in Christ Jesus. And so here with the prophet,
the prophet Isaiah said this to us, Lord, thou wilt ordain
peace for us, for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. That's Isaiah 26, 12. And then
Paul says the same thing in multiple different ways, but 1 Thessalonians
5, 24, faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. So the work, he's telling us,
he's assuring us that we're never going to have to go back to the
flesh to try and obtain or keep or regain this salvation. It's always resting in Christ. It's always put upon Christ.
He did it. He satisfied God fully and wholly,
all right? So Christ has saved us, he is
saving us, and he shall save us. And so he did all the work
of salvation. Look at Romans 8, 4. That the
righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, us who have
the weakness of this flesh, us who cannot keep the law perfectly,
not before, not after, and therefore we must have died under its penalty.
But Christ saved us by the death of himself as our substitute
in our place, and he made peace between us corrupt dead sinners
and holy living God. And he delivered us from the
power of sin and darkness so that now we are born of his spirit,
born again, regenerated, seeing what sinners we are in the flesh
so that we're turned and don't try to work a righteousness for
ourselves in the flesh. We walk not after the flesh but
after the spirit and having an understanding of God's will that
He accomplished freely in grace, our salvation in Christ, we now
walk after the Spirit who has revealed to us our walk, which
is the walk of faith. Having revealed faith in us,
we look to Christ, the object of our faith, knowing that it's
Christ who saves us. Not even my faith, but it's Christ
who he's made me to look to to see and behold that salvation
is in the person and work of his son, Jesus Christ. So who
is your hope? I pray that Christ is your hope,
that you stop looking to your works, that you stop trying to
do that work which can never be done in your flesh, and you
look to the one who has accomplished salvation, being sent of God
for this very purpose, to save sinners, to save his people who
were condemned in Adam, but are now freed and delivered, holy,
spotless, made the children of God in Christ Jesus himself. So stop trusting, stop looking
to your flesh and your walk and the righteousness which you think
that you can muster up for yourself. Pray that the Spirit give you
faith and make you to rest in Christ for it's God who has made
Christ unto his people to be wisdom, and redemption, and sanctification,
and righteousness. He's all in all to the believer. He's everything to the believer.
And that, in Christ, is how we find peace with God. That's how
we're made righteous. That's walking in the Spirit.
And he'll work all these things in you. Everything that pleases
him, he'll work it in you. Just seek Him and cry out for
it, and that, too, is His work in you. So, I pray the Lord will
bless that word to the hearts of His people. Amen. All right, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank You, Father, for the gift of salvation, the unspeakable
free gift of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who by Himself purged
us of our sins and made us the very righteousness of God in
Him. Lord, keep us ever looking to and resting in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, don't let us go back to
the flesh. Keep us from walking in the flesh
and keep us ever walking by the Spirit. For you say that you
shall never leave us and that nothing shall separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus. Lord, that's our hope and our
trust and our confidence. We're so confident in that that
we keep preaching Christ and exalting him before the eyes
of the sinner. Lord, knowing that there's nothing
good in us, but we pray that you would indeed work this in
our hearts and plant your word in us. It's in Christ's name
that we pray and give thanks. Amen.