going to be looking at this place
in the Scripture in Romans 8 today, but our text, our starting point
will be in John chapter 8 if you want to turn there. John
chapter 8. I hope you were able to retain
something from last Sunday's message because it was It was
intended for at least two reasons. One, I needed it, and two, it
lays a foundation for today's sermon too. So, mostly because
I needed it. So I wanna turn with you first
of all to John chapter eight. Let's go there. In John chapter
eight, Jesus is, it's the interaction between the Lord Jesus Christ
after having cleared the woman from her accusers in the first
12 verses. But he says in John chapter 8,
I'll just pick it up in verse 28. Then Jesus said to them,
when you have lifted up the son of man, then shall you know that
I am he, or that I am. The word he is in italics, which
means that it was put there by the translators to help us understand
the sense of the verse better, but actually I would have preferred,
if they just left it, I am. But he says here, you shall know
that I am, and I do nothing of myself, but as my father hath
taught me, I speak these things. It's important to realize that
In especially the book of John, Jesus says over and over again
that he was sent, sent by the Father. I don't know how many
times, it's more than 30 times in this one book of the Bible
that the Lord Jesus says, I was sent. It just so happens that
in the book of Hebrews chapter three, it calls the Lord Jesus
the apostle and high priest of our profession. Now apostle means
sent one. So the Lord is the one sent by
the Father, but that He was sent by the Father means He has everything
that He did and everything He said was as the one sent by the
Father with the authority of God the Father. There's no higher
authority, no higher power. If we don't hear the Son, then
we do not hear the Father. All these things come to bear
on this, on what he says here, I do nothing of myself, but as
my father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent
me is with me. The father has not left me alone,
for I do always those things that please him. Notice how the
Lord Jesus is saying here that he was sent and he is doing everything
his father gave him to do. That was why he was sent. to
do everything his father gave him to do as not only the son,
but a servant. And as he spake these words,
many believed on him. I wanted to comment on verse 28,
but I'll do that next time. Anyway, verse 31. Then said Jesus
to those Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my
word, then are you my disciples indeed. And verse 32, and you
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They
answered him, we be Abraham's seed, and we're never in bondage
to any man. How sayest thou you shall be
made free? So, two things. First, they thought
he meant bondage to a person, another person. They claimed
they were never in bondage to any man. That was not true. The
Romans, at this point in history, ruled over the Jews. The nation
of Israel was occupied and governed by the Romans. So they could
at least recognize that. But they imagined that they were
free of the Romans, but they weren't. They obviously had some
influence over Pilate because they constrained him. to do what
he did, but also throughout history, the Jews were in bondage over
and over in their history. Assyrians, Babylonians, especially
the Egyptians. But he wasn't talking about bondage
to a man anyway, so they didn't understand what he's saying here.
But he said, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free. Verse 34. Jesus answered them,
verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever commits sin is the
servant of sin. So the master here is sin. And enslavement is enslavement
to sin. And sin is what is in us. He says in verse 35, the servant
abideth not in the house forever, but the son abideth forever. He's the Son. He obviously is
abiding. He's with the Father forever.
And then verse 36, and here's our text. If the Son, therefore,
shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. And so the title
of today's message is Free Indeed. Now, it's clear from this verse
here, verse 34, that the issue is sin, enslavement to sin. And in Romans chapter three,
in verse 23, it says, all have sinned. So by nature, we're all sinners. We're all guilty. And not only
are we guilty of sin, but God's law commands us to keep it continuously
and perfectly. And in fact, it says, cursed
be he that does not continue in everything that is written
in the book of the law to do them, to actually do it. So the
law tells us to be perfectly obedient at all times without
any failure, otherwise we are cursed by the law. And so as
we went over this last time in Romans 7, there's a big problem
with that situation. Number one, we're guilty. We've
already broken the law. And number two, it tells us we
have to keep it perfectly and continuously, otherwise it curses
us. So we're guilty and we're cursed
by the law. But then as we saw in Romans
chapter seven last week, that sin is inside of us. Jesus said, it's not what is
on the outside. It's not what a man takes in
through eating or drinking that defiles a man. but what comes
out of his heart that defiles him. So sin starts inside of
us. It doesn't come because of our
environment. I used to think when I was younger
that my cousin led me into all kinds of sin because he was such
a bad guy. No, I'm telling you the truth.
That's how arrogant I was in my own self-righteousness. I'm not proud of it. I'm actually
more ashamed of it. But that's the nature, as we
saw last week in Romans 7, that our inward heart is deceitful
above everything else. It convinces us that we can actually
do what the law requires, even though we're sinners. And that
deception, our self-deception of thinking that God has given
me something to do, I just have to do it. And I can do it if
I work hard enough, if I'm careful enough. Maybe not right now,
but I'll eventually get there where I can actually do what
God requires of me in order either to be a Christian or to enter
heaven on my own works. And this is the nature of all
of man's religion. It's based on something that
puts requirements on us. And by putting requirements on
us, several things happen because of our sin. It's like throwing
a match on gas. The gas is just there and it's
not doing anything. It's just evaporating. But as
soon as you hit that vapor that the gas is evaporating, it explodes. That's what the law does when
it hits our sin. There's nothing wrong with the
law. It's holy. But when the law, what is holy,
comes to me and in contact with me, who am nothing but sin on
the inside, this is what happens. I suddenly take the law, and
with that self-deception, I think, I can do this. And I start to
measure myself by a standard that I've set up. And in my own
standard, by my own measurements of my own performance, I gain
some confidence that somehow I am approaching favor with God
and gaining some favor and blessing from Him by what I am and what
I do. That is the worst kind of sin. Because that kind of
sin not only makes me proud, but it puts me in this attitude
of seeking honor to myself. But all honor belongs to Christ
alone. So I violate the law at the very
most important place, which is to give all honor without any
idolatry. all honor to God, but this attitude
of wanting honor is idolatry itself. And pride is that self-righteousness
where we think, by my own measurements, that I can do what a holy, infinite
God requires of me, and He would accept me, even if it's something
small. We'll reduce it down to, well,
I can tithe, I can pray, I can read, I can do all the things
that Christianity says are necessary to be a good Christian, and then
I will have some confidence before God. That is looking at myself. That is putting a condition on
myself. And that produces such a flame,
an inextinguishable flame inside of me of sin towards God because
of my inward defilement. The heart is deceitful above
all things. And so that's what the Lord is talking about here.
We are servants of sin. If we commit sin, we're servants
of sin. And Romans 7 is given to us to
show the believer that the Lord has freed us from sin. He has set us free from the dominion
of sin. We're not under the law, but
we're under grace. And what is grace? Well, grace
is the free favor given to us by God that everything God requires
of us, He provides in His Son. This is so significant. This
is the difference between light and darkness, day and night.
Wicked, I mean, righteousness and evil. This distinction that
everything God requires of us, God alone provides, God alone
accepts, and God alone gives to us through the proclamation
declaring to us in the gospel, this is all of your salvation,
the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified for your righteousness,
for the removal of your sin, for everything God requires,
for holiness, for everything. All right, that's the setting
of Romans 7, and that's the setting of this verse too. Now let's
go back to Romans 8, because the Lord said here, if the Son
shall set you free, you shall be free indeed. He opens up Romans
8. Romans 8, of course, follows
Romans 7, and the last part of Romans 7 says in verse 24, oh,
wretched man that I am. You see, this is the, realization,
the enlightenment that comes when God gives us His Spirit.
when He gives us a new heart, when He puts His Spirit within
us, when He, and these are all synonyms, when He regenerates
us, when He births us, when He creates us new in Christ, when
He raises us from spiritual death towards God to spiritual life
towards God. All those things are the action
of the Spirit of God because of the righteousness of Christ. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
was delivered up for our offenses, He was raised for our justification. He put away our sins. God raised
Him because God declared Him to be righteous. But not Himself
alone, but us with Him and in Him, we were justified by God. But because in God's good will
and His wisdom, He has determined that He would give us this triumphant
victory over our inner sin through the life of Christ in us, which
again is given to us because of the righteousness of Christ
for us, that in this gift of God's Spirit to us, this life
of Christ in us, we live by the faith of the Son of God. We live
trusting Christ. We no longer, as we did under
the law, think, I can do what God requires. We know now, I
can't do it. No, I tried not to be proud,
but I'm proud. I'm more proud when I think I'm
doing better. It's like a preacher used to
say, Denise and I went to a church where a preacher said the congregation
gave their pastor a pin and it said, I can't remember exactly
what it said, something like a humble award or a medal for
humility, something like this. And then they took it away when
he wore it. We were watching, Denise was
showing me something on one of these social media things where
the guy was saying, no one ever asked me this most difficult
question. Of all of your good qualities, what's your best quality?
Then someone said, well, what is it? He goes, well, I can't
tell you because I would have to then not be, that wouldn't
be my best quality because my best quality is my humility.
So he was being, he was funnying around, but this is the deception
of the human heart. We think that we can do what
God requires, but we realize that as soon as we start to try
to do what God requires, then this arrogance, this pride, and
this idolatrous heart rises up in his great darkness. And we
find that in our hearts, there's nothing but deception and wickedness.
And so he says here in Romans 7, that this situation continues
in some sense, that there remains some sin in us, this old man,
this fleshly nature. But we also now have a new man,
and in this new spirit put within us, We not only look to Christ,
but we see and we recognize that that was the problem all along. It was me, my sinful self, my
flesh, my carnal mind. It was hostility against God.
As soon as the law of God was given to me, it was like this
monstrous flame and fire that broke out in hostility against
God because I became arrogant and proud and covetous and idolatrous,
and I began to trust in what I do and think that I could do
what God requires. Like the rich young ruler, what
must I do to have eternal life? Or like the Apostle Paul in Philippians
3, I was blameless. No, you weren't. Well, I thought
I was. That's right. The problem is you, not God. And so in Romans 7 he's saying
now this situation where under the law our inward sin became
this monster of iniquity. He says this devil, it's not
a devil, but this inward, wretched, sinful flesh is still with us. But here's the good news, the
Lord Jesus Christ by His Spirit now also dwells in us and now
we have the ability we didn't have before to see Christ and
Him alone is the righteousness of His people and that's all
of my righteousness. He's all of my holiness, He's
everything. God has given me His Spirit because
He is my righteousness and He couldn't do that, He wouldn't
do that if we weren't righteous in Christ. But because we have
this sinful nature and the Lord is pleased to leave us with this
debilitating enemy of our soul inside of us, He does that in
order to make us weaker and weaker in ourselves in order that we
would see Christ is all sufficient and all of our strength. He who
is our righteousness is also our strength. Remember in 2 Corinthians
chapter 12, the apostle Paul said God took him up into the
third heaven and he was able to see things that were unspeakable,
unlawful to even talk about. And because it lifted him up
so much, God gave him a thorn in his flesh. And he prayed the
Lord three times that he would remove it. He said, no, I'm not
gonna remove it. My grace is sufficient for thee. because my strength is made perfect
in weakness. That's Romans 7, and it's by
God's design. And so now in Romans 8 here,
he shows us that even though we have this new man, this Christ
is dwelling in us, and we want to be conformed to his image,
yet in this life, we have this ongoing, continuous, deep-rooted,
highest possible trouble, which is our inward sin against God. And it causes the believer who
has this new nature the greatest grief. So we're always crying
out, like it says in Psalm 34, the righteous cry. That describes
us. We cry. What do you cry? I cry
daily. Lord, have mercy upon me. And
in our cry, we're like the publican, God being propitious to me. Look upon Christ and his shed
blood for my sins. And we keep coming, as we read
in 1 John 1-2, confessing our sins, looking to Christ and calling
upon Him as our advocate and pleading only His shed blood
as our propitiation. This is the walk of faith. This
is the way the righteous live. It's Christ in us who causes
us to live by the faith of the Son of God for us. Now, this
is where Romans 8 comes into the picture. And here he says,
there is therefore now no condemnation. to them which are in Christ Jesus. And this is the key to all of
the gospel. The condemnation that ought to
have come upon us came upon our Savior. God condemned our sin
in Him, and therefore He does not condemn us in Him. You see,
God, it says here, there's 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 has made
me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could
not do, in that it was weak through my 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.
So first of all, we need to understand the reason there's no condemnation
is because we are in Christ Jesus. It is not because we walk after
the Spirit and don't walk after the flesh. That's the result.
of there being no condemnation. The righteousness that Christ
established for us in His death, the righteousness of God, 2 Corinthians
5.21, He was made sin that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. That righteousness is the reason
God has justified us and the reason He gives us His Spirit
because where there's righteousness, there's life. All right, we'll
get to that more, to more substantiate that statement in a minute. But
the point is, is that we're not condemned because we're in Christ.
Christ was condemned. God no longer condemns us because
he condemned our sin and now justifies us for his righteousness. In fact, justification means
that, declared righteous. Because of a real righteousness,
which is not ours, we didn't work it out, not our obedience,
His obedience unto righteousness, and that is given to us, the
free gift of God's grace. It's not in us, it's His obedience. It's historical, it's accomplished,
it's finished. God raised Him from the dead,
justified Him, and with Him all of His people in Christ Jesus. Okay? Now, that's good news because
in the last chapter, he was talking about this struggle with sin.
Oh, wretched man that I am. Yes, this is by God's design.
Now, though you are a child of God, though you are free in your
spirit and before God, yet you have this old man and in this
body of flesh, you have this constant struggle, there's no
condemnation. There's no condemnation. Jesus
told the woman at the well, I mean at the woman taking an adultery,
I don't condemn you. It's the same thing. He's telling
us why? Because we're in Christ. And
he then tells us the way we know that we are in Christ. And what
is that? We walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. Now this doesn't mean that we
become very moral people and we avoid all immoral conduct,
and that is what walking after the Spirit means. It doesn't
mean that. Because he's contrasting walking after the spirit with
walking after the flesh. And the flesh here is the same
flesh that God says in Romans chapter four, same book. What
shall we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to
the flesh has found? Question. What did he find? Well, he found that his flesh
was unable to make the promise of God happen. God's going to
give you a son through Sarah. He couldn't make it happen. His
flesh was dead. That's what he found out. So
he didn't consider his own body now dead. And he looked at God's
promise and said, God is faithful. He's able to do what he said.
And he was fully persuaded that he who promised was able to do
it. That was what he found, not his
flesh. He wasn't justified by his works.
He wasn't sanctified by his works. He was justified by the righteousness
of Christ and by the Spirit of God in him. Just like us, he
lived by faith on the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness.
And his Spirit then in him was the strength to do that, to continuously
go to God through Christ and thus find his sanctification
in Christ by the Spirit. So his flesh, Abraham learned,
the flesh does nothing. Like Jesus said in John 6, 63,
the flesh profits nothing. It is the spirit that gives life. The words that I speak to you,
they are spirit. They are life. The very words,
the doctrine, the teaching of Christ that he gave to us in
the gospel, by the hand of His power, by His Spirit, produces
life in us. And that life is the Spirit of
God Himself. And that is Spirit and life.
That doesn't come from us. It comes from the gospel telling
us what Christ has done. So in John 6, 63, the flesh profits
nothing. Romans 4, verse 1 and 2, Abraham
found the flesh profits nothing. In John 1, verse 13, it says,
those who believed on Christ, they believed because they were
born of God. And they were born of God not
because of their relation to their parents, not by blood,
nor by the will of the flesh. Not by the flesh, the flesh that
tries to bring something to God that will allow God to accept
me for what He finds in me. The law directs us to trust in
what God will find in us, but grace directs us to what God
has provided and finds in Christ. We're justified not because of
what God thinks of us, but in spite of our sin, laid on Christ,
justified for what God received in full payment from Him in full
righteousness. You see? It's the righteousness
of Christ that justifies us in the presence of God. And the
flesh doesn't produce that. God gives us His Spirit. He births
us to know this. He puts His Spirit within us.
We know the Lord now. We know Him. We know Him in this
relationship of those who were purchased by blood, given His
Spirit to know it, and walk with Him in the truth of this gospel. So the flesh profits nothing.
In Philippians 3 and verse 3, it's the same teaching. And let
me reinforce this by going there and reading. Philippians 3, 3,
he says, We are the circumcision, the real spiritual circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit. You see, it's not our flesh.
It's that new man created in us by the Lord. And we rejoice
in Christ Jesus and we have no confidence in the flesh. So to walk in the flesh then,
to walk after the flesh means we're continuously looking at
what we do in order to find peace and favor with God. When we sin,
we say, well, I've got to stop that. That was a real bad thing
and I've got to quit doing that in order to get myself right
with God. That's walking after the flesh. The Spirit says, no,
no, you confess that you're a sinner. You are sin in your very nature,
and that old man, and you've committed sin against God, and
you have only one hope, that God is faithful and just for
the blood received as the propitiation for our sins, which he gave and
Christ offered and God accepted. from Him, and then He pleads
as our advocate His blood. That's my only acceptance, the
only way God is going to cleanse me from this unrighteousness.
And that's what walking after the Spirit is, is looking to
Christ. That's what the Spirit of God
teaches us. The Spirit gives life, how? Through the Gospel.
He directs us to Christ. And this is so significantly
important, that the work of the Spirit is not to direct us either
to ourselves or even to His own work, but to the work of Christ. Remember, the life that I now
live in the flesh, Galatians 2.20, I live by the faith of
the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That's the
work of the Spirit. Did you begin in the flesh? Did
you receive the Spirit of God by the works of the law or by
the hearing of faith? You heard the gospel. God gave
you that gospel with life. You believed it. That was all
called the hearing of faith. All right, for such who live
upon Christ and no longer look to themselves as their strength
against sin or their righteousness before God, they're walking by
the Spirit, they're listening to the gospel, they're hearing
God say things that are incredible, unbelievable. I couldn't have
known it, I couldn't have believed it unless God said it, and I
have to keep going back to it. Is it really true? Can it be?
that now my God should die for me. And we go back to this. This
is why we need to hear it daily. Jesus said, drinking of my blood
and eating my flesh. This is the way we live. All
right. That's walking after the spirit.
Verse two of Romans eight. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and
death. The Son makes us free indeed.
How does he make us free? In what way are we set free?
Well, there's many ways. There's many ways. First of all,
we recognize that sin is the slave master. Sin is our slave
master. We're servants of sin. We need
to be set free. And so God says in Matthew 121,
this is his name, Jesus. He shall save his people from
their sins. He, the Son, will set you free. And then you shall be free indeed. You see? Who does it? The Son. How are we made free? The Son.
Then we're free indeed, you see. We can't ever look to ourselves.
We look to the Son. With all of our sin and our bondage
to sin and our guilt to sin and our defilement and our self-deception
and our idolatry and our self-righteousness, we come to the Lord. Jesus said
it in Matthew chapter 11. He says, let everyone who is
burdened and heavy laden come to me and I will give you rest. Free, free. free from sin, free from the
condemnation of sin, free from the dominion of sin, the strength
of sin, because now he's given us a heart that is able, by God's
grace, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to look to Christ
only, to walk by the Spirit of God. So he says, the law of the spirit. And what is that law? What is
the word of the spirit that has the force of a law? It's the
word about Christ. It's the word of the gospel.
The gospel is the law of the spirit. And that gospel isn't
just like a book on the shelf. When the Lord, the Holy Spirit,
takes it and applies it to us, he shows us our sin. I didn't
realize I was so bad in all the good efforts that I was making.
Yeah. That goodness you thought you
had became the very corruption that alienates you from God and
keeps you from seeing. the need of a savior. And so
the law of the spirit, the gospel, applied by the spirit of God
from Christ on his throne, that law, that life, that spirit of
life that is in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law
of sin and death. It tells me of what Christ did.
The son set me free. And then in verse three he says,
He goes on, now he's going to remind us again, he has to keep
bringing us back to this, the law, the law, the law, what did
it do? It produced nothing but more sin for what the law could
not do in that it was weak through the flesh. It couldn't take away
our sin. It couldn't remove our condemnation.
It only cursed us, and it could not give us life, because to
give us life, the law required our continuous and perfect obedience,
and none of us have ever, not even once, not to mention continuous,
not even once, have kept one thing of all that God requires. We've broken the first commandment
in our hearts continuously. Love the Lord your God with all
your heart, soul, mind, and strength. There's no sinner who's ever
done that. Only the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the law describes
to us the righteousness Christ would fulfill. And he did it
in love to our souls by bearing our sins and answering for them
to satisfy God's justice and also to fulfill all righteousness. So what the law could not do,
because it was weak through the flesh, what we are by nature,
this is how God dealt with us. He sent his own son in the likeness
of our sinful flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ on this earth. He
looked just like the rest of us sinners. And he was subject
to hunger, to thirst, sorrow, tears, even death. in the likeness
of sinful flesh, and for sin, God condemned sin in the flesh,
the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. But notice here, he didn't just
say he condemned sin in Christ's flesh, but in the flesh, because
he's describing here our union with Christ in his death, and
the fact that our sins, like a body with members head, hands,
feet, and everything, were put on Christ and He bore our sins
in His own body up to the tree. And our sins were crucified.
with the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, I'm crucified with
Christ, and our sins were buried, and the body of our sins was
put in that grave, and God remembers our sins no more, put out of
mind, because we received the condemnation from God in the
death of Christ to our sins. Now, he says, In verse four,
in order that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us. So Christ for us and we with Christ in the condemnation
of our sins. Now notice, the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us. We see not only were we
with Christ, but Christ is in us. Because what does it mean
to say the righteousness of God, the righteousness of the law
might be fulfilled in us? Well, it teaches us that Christ,
by his obedience, fulfilled all righteousness. And the Lord is
our righteousness. Jeremiah 23, five and six. The
Lord, our righteousness. In the Lord have I righteousness
and strength. Isaiah 45, verse 25. Verse 24,
actually. So here, the righteousness of
Christ is the reason God justifies us on the legal grounds. But
notice, when He does justify us, He also gives us His Spirit
to know our justification, and that's Christ living in us. When
we believe Him, then we have the application of our justification
inside of us. And looking to Christ for us,
what happens? We're convinced the law has been
satisfied. The law has been established.
It's holy, just, and good, and it's fulfilled in Christ, and
I'm dead to it now because in the new man, I don't need the
law. Christ lives in me who fulfilled
the law. So that the righteousness of
the law fulfilled in us is the awareness, the knowledge that
according to the gospel, God's word, Christ fulfilled the law
for us and now we live upon Him who is our righteousness. And that life that we have is
the result of righteousness. Therefore, since righteousness
brings life and we have life, therefore the law has been fulfilled
and that fulfillment is in us by eternal life. We have Christ
who is the life living in us because of His righteousness
for us and Him in us, the result of Him being in us is the proof
that the righteousness of God is fulfilled in us. Christ is
in us. Eternal life, proof that we have
the righteousness of the law fulfilled for us. Does that make
sense? And now it says, it might be
fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, we don't rely
on ourselves, but we look to Christ, but after the Spirit.
And this is the way we're set free. Now, a couple of Old Testament
illustrations of this I'd like to take you to real quickly.
Just look at this one in Exodus chapter 21. In Exodus 21, it gives the law
of a Hebrew slave. He says here in verse two of
Exodus 21, if you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve,
and in the seventh, he shall go out free for nothing. Because
he was a Hebrew, you couldn't make him serve more than six
years. In the seventh year, he had to
go out free. You couldn't charge him, you
couldn't hold him in debt, he was free to go. Okay? And then it says in verse 3,
Exodus 21 verse 3, if he came in by himself, he should go out
by himself. If he were married, then his
wife should go out with him. If his master have given him
a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters, the wife and
her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out by himself.
So the way it worked with slaves in those days in God's law is
that if you came to the master as a Hebrew, you were poor, you
didn't have anything. If you didn't serve him, you
wouldn't have anything to eat, you couldn't live. So you said,
I'm gonna be your slave. The law said, only six years,
and then you can go free. Now you came in, you didn't have
a wife and children, but the master gave you a wife. And with
that wife, you had children. You want to leave after six years?
Fine, go ahead. But you only get to go by yourself.
The wife and children, they're the masters now. You see, it
seemed a little harsh, didn't it? But it was given as a law
for a good reason. He goes on in verse five, and
if the servant, now the one who is facing his freedom in the
seventh year, the master has given him a wife, now they have
a family, and he's thinking, let's see, what shall I do? It's
the seventh year, I get to go out, but I can only go by myself.
He says in verse five, if the servant shall plainly say, I
love my master, I love my wife, and I love my
children. I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him
to the judges, and he shall also bring him to the door, to the
doorpost, and his master, the master now, shall bore his ear
through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever, as long as
he lives. His whole life now would be his
master's life. You see what's happening here?
He had the opportunity to go out by himself, but because his
master gave him a wife and they had children, when it came to
that point in the seventh year to go free, he said, no, no,
I love my master, and I love my wife, and I love my children. I won't go out free. And so now
he becomes the permanent, perpetual, lifelong servant to his master,
and he's glad to have it that way. Now this law was given in
order to teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how we
are set free. In Psalm 40, I'll read this to
you, you don't have to turn there, but in Psalm 40, he says this
in verse six. Remember, the awl, a poking steel
thing that he would poke his ear through, he would have in
his ear the mark of his bond service to his master, a mark
of love, a mark of lifelong service to his master. And in Psalm 40,
verse six, the Lord Jesus is spoken of here in prophecy. He
says, sacrifice, he's praying now to his father in this covenant
God made with him. And you know this because of
Hebrews 10 that explains that, but he says, sacrifice and offering,
thou didst not desire, Mine ears hast thou opened. Burnt offering
and sin offering thou hast not required. Then said I, Lo, I
come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my
God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. Now the law is what is required
by God. To be under the law is to be
a servant. And in Galatians 4 it says, In the fullness of time
God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law. And here He says God's law was
in His heart. It was in His heart, out of love
to His Father, to serve His Father with Himself in His life. His entire life would be given
in service to His Father because of His love for His Father. Now
look at John chapter 6. In John chapter six, this was
the service that God gave him to do. John chapter six, remember
I told you earlier, he was sent to do the will of God. He says
in John six and verse 37, all that the Father gives me
shall come to me, and him that comes to me, I will in no wise
cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do mine own will, You can see that this is the words of
a servant, a servant in love to his master, his father, but
the will of him that sent me. And this is the father's will,
which has sent me. Now this is a task God gave him
to do, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up again at the last day." Okay, now notice. If the Lord Jesus Christ was
given this to do by His Father, then it was the work, the service
God gave Him as a servant to do, though He was the Son. And
as the servant, He would fulfill this work because of love to
His Father. And if He failed to fulfill it,
then it meant that He failed as a servant. He was a disobedient
servant. But notice what he would have
to do in order to fulfill his father's work. I would raise
them up at the last day, all who come to me, all given to
me by my father. And what would it take for him
to raise them up from the dead? He had to deal with their sins.
He had to take away the wages of their sins. He had to bear
them in himself. He had to suffer the condemnation
for their sins. He had to take what the father
had prepared for him, a body, and offer his body. in order
to make them holy, sanctify them by that will of God when he laid
his life down. Hebrews 10, verse 10. So here
we see that in love to his father, he could not fail. He had pledged
his life and he gave himself for our sins that he might bring
us to God. But not only did he love his
father, but he loved the church and he gave himself for it. So
if he failed to do either the service to his father or what
was necessary in love to his people, his wife and his children,
to bring them to himself, then he wouldn't have the power. He
wouldn't have love strong enough. And the Lord Jesus Christ cannot
fail that way. It's impossible. And so we see
here, the sun shall set you free. You see this? You see, it's wonderful,
isn't it? And we could go on and on. There's
so many examples. Job says, here's one who's sick
and ready to die. And God says, deliver him from
going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. That's the freedom, isn't it?
That's the freedom. And as we read further in Romans
8, you'll see that the freedom is not only freedom from sin,
but it's freedom unto sonship, freedom unto the glory of God. And we were predestinated to
this by God because he knew us before to be conformed to the
image of son, so that all things, even what happens in Romans 7
in our day-to-day life, all things, especially that, work together
for our good, you see. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your son, that you sent your son. You had such an eternal
counsel of love towards your people, that you gave your son,
who willingly gave himself in service to you out of love, and
in love for his people, because he would not lose them. But he
counted it his joy. Your law was in his heart to
not only do the law, but to save us from our sins. In all that
he did, What a Savior! We look to the Son. We ask, Lord
Jesus, deliver us from our sin. Bring us to Yourself. Save us
from the death our sins deserve. Deliver us from the law that
only inflames our sins and doesn't do one thing to help us to keep
it, but makes us in our hearts the enemies of God. Help us,
Lord, to serve freely as those who have been set free by the
redeeming blood, the purchase of Christ's own blood, given
the Spirit of God to be free in our hearts and in our minds,
to know and to love and to serve the living God. And also help
us not to hold our brothers as slaves, we who have been set
free, not to hold our brethren as slaves, but to forgive them
freely. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, Phil.