Let's open our Bibles to the
book of Romans, chapter 8. Romans, chapter 8. As you can see in the bulletin,
the title of this message is called, Keys to Christian Living. There are several things that
I've studied and experienced and looked at over past months
that was Useful and the Lord laying this
message on my heart this I've preached it as I said I preached
it in Kentucky. I preached it in Louisiana And
I've preached it here In another form as we went through our Bible
study in the book of Romans especially when we got to this passage here
Romans 8 and verse 1 and Having having gone through once again
Romans chapter 1 and Romans chapter 7 I And you come up here to Romans
8.1, there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are
in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
spirit. And I've said, I said in our Sunday school lesson,
this therefore, it indicates that Paul was about to draw conclusions
from all that he's written up to this point. And these conclusions
are based upon three glorious realities of God's grace that
apply to all true believers, every one of us who know Christ,
who've been brought by God to faith in Christ and true repentance. And it's a summation, mainly,
the conclusions he's going to draw in Romans 8, we've already
read. No condemnation, and then later
on, no separation. who shall, over in verse 33 he
says, who shall, verse, rather verse 35, who shall separate
us from the love of Christ. And basically he says nothing.
We cannot be, if we're truly in Christ, we cannot be condemned
and we cannot be separated from him. Now that's why I had Brother
Mark read Isaiah 54 because that's what that chapter's about. It's
a prophecy of Christ, Isaiah 54 is, and of the security that
his people have in him. When he says it, for example,
in the last verse he said, no weapon that is formed against
you shall be successful. And as a result of that, think
about that, as a result of that, he says, this is the heritage
of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of
me, saith the Lord. I mean, that's a good thought,
isn't it? That's a great thought. No weapon that is formed against
God's people will be successful. And that doesn't make us proud
and brag about all that we've done for the Lord. It just simply
makes us humble. It humbles us and bows our head
down and say, my righteousness is of thee. That's what it's
all about. And that really is what Romans
8-1 is about. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus. Now, the point I'm making here
is this. I'm going to give you three keys to Christian living.
And I stated these in a different form in our Bible study lesson. But I want to give you an outline
that's easy to remember. This is an outline easy to remember.
All three of these that I'm going to talk about about how we are
to live as believers, as Christians in this world, all three of these,
number one, they're products of God's free, sovereign grace
in Christ Jesus, based upon his merits, his blood, his righteousness
imputed, his goodness, his power, not us. Nothing that we have
here is the product of our own goodness, It's not even the product
of our own will because the Bible tells us God has made us willing
in the day of his power. It's kind of like what Paul said,
I live under Christ, yet not I, but he lives in me. He's living
through me by his spirit and by his word. And so that's the
first thing. This is all of grace. Living
a Christian life is walking in the grace of God. And what that
means is I'm going through this life admitting, confessing that
nothing I have that is pleasing unto God and good for me, nothing
I have that is acceptable to God and good for me is the product
of my own goodness, my own works, or my own will. It's all of grace. That's what it is. And you know
what? As I've always said, Take that
next breath as a gift. You didn't earn it, didn't deserve
it. Ain't that right? And that's our whole life, especially,
that applies to everything, but especially salvation. And then
here's the next thing that we need to see. All three of these
things that we're gonna talk about are only experienced by
us personally by God-given faith. in the Lord Jesus Christ based
on God's Word. And so it's walking in the grace
of God and walking by God-given faith in Christ. Resting in Him,
looking unto Him as the author and finisher of our faith. And
here are these three keys. I'm gonna give you the three
words that are easy to remember. Number one is standing. That's number one. A true Christian lives his or
her life realizing what our standing before God is. That's first. And that's how God lays the foundation
of true Christian living, our standing in Christ. There is
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
All right, number two is state. What I mean by our state is how
we exist and live in this present state on this earth. And number
three, and I think it sums up the whole Christian life, struggle. Mark it down, struggle. And that's what Paul had brought
us to up to this point by inspiration of the Spirit. Let's look at
each one of them. First of all, number one, our
standing before God. How do I stand before a holy,
righteous judge who can by no means clear the guilty? How do
I stand before a holy God who hates all workers of iniquity. How do I stand before a God who
must punish sin with death? Eternal death. I know I'm a sinner. Somebody says, well I'm not as
bad as oh so and so over there. That has nothing to do with our
standing before God. If you go through this life,
whether you go to church or call yourself a Christian, comparing
yourself to everybody else, you're not living a Christian life.
If you go through this life looking down on this one, looking up
to that one, that is not Christianity. It's simply how do I stand before
a holy God who must punish sin? I know that I deserve nothing
but His wrath. I know that I've earned nothing
but his disfavor. No blessing I have, no blessing
that I enjoy, comes to me by virtue of any merit in myself. Well, what are we talking about?
Well, we're talking about the justification of sinners before
God, aren't we? That's where it all begins. God
bringing us to realize that the only way that he can be just
and righteous and honor himself and show mercy to a sinner like
me is through the blood, the righteousness of his only begotten
son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the God man. This is every believer's legal
standing before God. Here's what the Bible says, when
God brings us to a saving knowledge of Christ, He shows us that our
righteousness is of Him. And that we have a perfect, unchangeable,
eternal standing before God in Christ based on His righteousness
imputed to us. We walk in that knowledge. Paul had talked about that in
Romans 6. He said we're freed from sin,
literally meaning we're justified. We're forgiven. On what basis,
on what ground? The blood of Jesus Christ. That's
our motto. What can wash away my sin? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. What I do or don't do, my crying
and my tears and my feeling sorry. Listen, every one of us should
feel sorry for our sins, but that's not gonna wash them away.
We could cry an ocean and it wouldn't wash one sin away. But
let me tell you something, the blood of the Lamb of God washed
all my sins away. Dead indeed unto sin, Paul said. Dead indeed unto sin. Do you know your sins? Well,
how am I gonna say I'm dead indeed unto sin? There's only one way. There's therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. I'm dead to my sin, meaning this,
my sins cannot condemn me. I know what religious people,
they say, oh, well, we'll just go out and sin as much. Do whatever
you wanna do. But my sins cannot, listen, my
sins are taken away. My sins are purged. It says in
Romans chapter eight here in verse 33, look at it, who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justify. God, who knows everything about
me, more than I, he knows me better than I know myself. Who not only looks on the outward
appearance, but looks on the heart. who sees and knows that
I fall short in every area of life of the perfection of righteousness
that can only be found in Christ Jesus. The God with whom we have
to do. That evil thought. He knows it. That empty thought. That vengeful
thought. That complaint. Why me, Lord? That same God looks at a sinner
like me and says, forgiven, righteous. Now, if you don't know that and
understand that by God's Word, by faith, by God-given faith,
you're not living a Christian life. That's why these folks
that go around saying, well, you can be saved one day and
lost the next, they don't know what a Christian is. They don't
know Christ. They think they do. This means that God cannot
charge me with my sins. And why? I'll tell you why. Because
he charged them to Christ. They were imputed in. He was
made sin. He suffered the just for the
unjust. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. God laid upon him the iniquity
of us all. Who is the all there? All who
are not condemned. Whoever the all is there, they're
not condemned. They cannot be lost. They cannot
live their whole life being lost. They cannot perish. That's right. Not if he laid
upon him your iniquities. Because you see, Christ went
under the wrath of his father, justly so, and gave himself a
ransom for his people. Oh, our righteousness is of him. That's the Christian life right
there. I mean, this applies to every Christian, At your best
and at your worst, your righteousness is still of Him, not of you. You say, well, I feel good about
that prayer I prayed. That's okay, but your righteousness
is still of Him. Don't feel too good. I've told you the story about
what I heard Brother Mahan say one time. I was a lost man when
I heard this. He said, there's enough sin in
the best prayer I ever prayed to sink a world to hell. You
know I believe that, do you? That's why the only way we can
pray to God our Father is because we have a great high priest who's
passed into the heavens, Jesus Christ the righteous. When we
sin, we have an advocate with the Father. That's what I'm saying. We're not guilty but righteous
before God based upon His righteousness imputed and that's evidenced
by God-given faith. We believe in Him. We trust Him.
We say our righteousness is of Him. Psalmist wrote in Psalm 130 in
verse 3, if thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who
shall stand? Not me, not if God marks my iniquities,
if God imputes sin to me, if he takes a record in his legal
books, and this is our legal standing before God. You know
a lot of, you know right here is one of the first places that
unbelievers will either ignore, deny, or confuse. You all have
experienced it, haven't you? People trying to confuse what
God does for me and what God does in me and all of that. You
walk out of the service scratching your head and say, what in the
heck did I just hear? Well, I'm telling you what you're hearing
now. Our righteousness is of Him. And it's His righteousness
charged to us. This is our legal standing before
God. And that's the foundation and ground of our whole salvation,
our justification. And it's the source and power
of our spiritual life, our new birth, even our faith in Christ. Right there. Our standing. What
is your standing before God? Well, he says it here in verse
1, there is therefore now no condemnation. You cannot be condemned
if you're in Christ. If you're washed in his blood
and clothed in his righteousness, what is it to be in Christ? Well,
God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world,
didn't he? Whatever God does, you know, think about this way.
Whatever God does, he's got to do it on a just ground. He cannot
do it arbitrarily. He can't just snap his fingers.
No, he's God. He's got a nature. He's got attributes,
and they all must be honored. when he acts, when he purposes.
Whatever he does in eternity or in time must honor him and
glorify him. So he chose his people in Christ
before the foundation of the world. Gave us to Christ. Laid all of our iniquities upon
him. Christ was our surety. You preached
on that last week. Took responsibility for me. Somebody's
got to or I'm a goner. And he did. And he willingly
agreed to be our surety and our substitute and our redeemer.
Appointed by the Father. He's able and he's willing to
do so. The Bible says in John 13, one,
that Christ loved his own until the end, until the finishing
of the world. That's why he went to the cross.
That's why he suffered. That's why he let sinful men
lay a crown of thorns on his head and whip him and spit on
him and put him on that cross. That's why he allowed fallen
humanity, acted out through them, us included, to do that. Because he loved his own until
the end. That's our standing before God.
Now again, if you don't realize and know this based upon God's
word, you say, well, I don't see it that way. Well, we walk
by faith, not by sight. And walking by faith means walking
by God's word. Who is your righteousness? What is my standing before God?
All right, that's the foundation. All right, here's the second
word, state. What is my state in this world? I want you to
know something. My state in this world doesn't
change my standing before God. My standing cannot be changed.
The righteousness in which I appear before God is a perfect righteousness. It's of him in Christ and by
Christ. It cannot be taken away. It cannot
be contaminated. That's right. You believe that? It cannot change. But what is my state in this
world? Well, you know, we start out, every one of God's people,
we start out in a state of lostness. Turn to Ephesians chapter two.
We start out in this world now, even though we've been chosen
by God before the foundation of the world, even though we've
been justified by the blood and righteousness of Christ, adopted
into his family. We start out in spiritual death
totally ignorant of those truths. Just like the children of wrath,
no different. We fell in Adam into sin and
death, didn't we? And as a result, we're born dead
in trespasses and sins. And look at verse one of Ephesians
two. He says, and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sin. He's made alive some who
were dead in trespasses and sins. Verse two, wherein in time past,
now this is my past state, you walked according to the course
of this world, whether it was in religion or immorality or
whatever you did, before we came to know Christ by God-given faith,
this is what we were doing. When I was in that seminary, I was walking according to the
course of this world. Because I didn't know the gospel.
Didn't want to be taught the gospel. Didn't hear the gospel.
The true gospel. It was all salvation conditioned
on me. According to the prince of the
power of the air. That's Satan. That's the devil. We were inspired,
what does the devil do? You remember in 2 Corinthians
4.3, if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost, in
whom the God of this world had blinded the minds of them which
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine
unto them. The spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. You know what a child of disobedience
is? It's not just somebody who's immoral in the eyes of men, it's
somebody who doesn't know and believe in Christ. It's an unbeliever. Verse three, among whom also
we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our
flesh, unlawful desires. When Cain, now think about it
this way, when Cain approached God bringing the works of his
hand, he was fulfilling the lust of his flesh. Fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind and were by nature as we were naturally
born The children of wrath even as others we were no different
than the children of wrath But then he says but God who's rich
in mercy Wherewith he loved us for his great love wherewith
he loved us Now can you see this as any more than unconditional
love? He loved enemies even when we were dead in sins. And it
says, He hath quickened us together. Well, go back to Romans chapter
6. But by the grace and the power
and the goodness and the will of God, our state changed. Now, what happened? Well, look
at Romans 6, 17. But God be thanked. Romans 6-17,
God bethink that you were the servants of sin. That's an unbeliever
now. Unregenerate. Unbeliever. But you have obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Now the Bible tells us that the
natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he know them. They're spiritually discerned.
The Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful, desperately wicked. Above all things, who can know
it? So, if we obey from the heart, what does that tell us? It tells
us that we've been born again by the Spirit. We've been given
a new heart. That's what the circumcised heart,
Paul called it in Romans 2, 28 and 29. In other words, this is the new
birth. You must be born again. That's when our state changes
from lost in darkness and unbelief to faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works. That form of doctrine, that's
the gospel that Paul had been defining, wherein the righteousness
of God is real, wherein we see God in his absolute holiness,
and we see ourselves in our depravity and our sinfulness and our deservedness
of condemnation, and then he brings us to Christ, the God-man. the Lord our righteousness. That's
literally what that means is that which you were delivered
to. God brought you under the gospel. And then verse 18, here's
the change of state. Being then made free from sin,
that means liberated. you became the servants of righteousness.
Now, what is it to be a servant? Well, it's go from immorality
to morality. Well, if you were in immorality,
I hope you've gone to morality, but that's not a servant of righteousness. A servant of righteousness is
a servant of Christ, a bond slave of Christ. And now, having been liberated,
that is, liberated from the darkness and the deception of unbelief
and false religion, we're in a state of spiritual life, evidenced
by faith in Christ and true godly repentance from dead works. The Lord brought us under the
truth and we were born again. And though we have much to learn,
We're no longer totally deceived by Satan in the darkness of unbelief. The Holy Spirit and by the Word
of God has delivered us from that bondage and brought us to
faith in Christ and true repentance. And we live in that state. We've
been quickened. Our state before God is looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. But it doesn't
end there. There's something else about
our state, and this third one is included in our state, and
that brings us to the struggle. You know what, when God brings
us to the liberty that we have in Christ, that's when the struggle
really begins. Did you know that? He says, there is therefore now
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the spirit. Do you walk after
the spirit or after the flesh? Well, we walk after the spirit,
but it's a struggle. Fact, it's a warfare every day of our lives. Paul described it in Romans 7,
14 through 25, but just look at verse 24. Here's a summation
of it. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Think about it. You know the
apostle Paul made this statement. If you don't believe me, I know
you do. You don't believe me, you know
he said this. Look at verse 21 of Romans 7. I find then a law
that when I would do good, now the good that Paul's talking
about is the goodness that can only be measured by Christ. He's
not just talking about human morality here. He's talking about goodness as
God measures it. He's talking about being perfectly
conformed to Christ in his character, his conduct, his thoughts. And
he says, when I would do good, evil is present with me. Now,
did you notice that? He didn't say when I would do
evil, evil is present with me. That's a given, isn't it? If
you have it in your mind to do evil, And understand now, if
you want vengeance, do you know that's evil? You know why? Because
God says vengeance belongs to me, not to you. He said when
I would do good, evil's present with me. That's a struggle. Think about this. Our struggle
begins with the struggle of repentance. When God brings us to Christ,
the first thing we want to do naturally is bring our old religious
baggage in with us. But God says, no, it's a narrow
way. You got to repent of it. I've
seen people struggle. They come here and they say,
I just, I'm so confused. I told a lady one time, I said,
well, I know exactly what you're confused. You're trying to reconcile
what you had been hearing in false religion with what you're
hearing now. And it doesn't work. You can't serve two masters.
You can't say I'm saved under a false Christ, but now I've
just grown to the truth. No, you gotta repent. That's
a gift from God. You won't do that except God
brings you to it. It's called repentance of dead
works and idolatry. It's what the scripture calls
it. And you know how? There's multitudes who come just
so far. That brings you to the struggle
of family. Think about that. Christ was
very plain on that. He didn't hold back. He said,
if you hate not mother and father. Now was he telling us to hate
people? Not in the sense that people think about. You see,
we're to love all people as ourselves. But what he was talking about,
he says, if you've got an unbelieving mother and father, brother or
sister, husband or wife, you've got to reject them as far as
fellowship goes. You can't receive them into the
fellowship. That's what he's saying. That's
a struggle, isn't it? Some worse than others. Struggles with the world. Struggles
with Satan, struggles in persevering in the faith, aren't there? Oh,
there's so many times in our lives that we have to suffer
the onslaught of physical problems, mental problems, people problems,
self. Our worst enemy is our old wretched
man. It's a warfare, it's a struggle.
To obey God rather than our own selves. To feed upon God's word. Sometimes it's a struggle to
get out of bed on Sunday morning and come and do what we ought
to be doing every second of our life, thanking God that he saved
sinners like us. It's a struggle, isn't it? That's
the Christian life. No, it's no bed of roses. It's
no easy way. It's not self-help. It's not
the power of positive thinking. It's just living by God's Word. Struggling. Knowing the whole
time that our growth in grace and knowledge is in our greater
appreciation and value of Christ as our righteousness. Look at
verse 25. Who's going to deliver me from
this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. So then, with the mind I myself
serve the law of God. It's in my mind to serve God.
But with the flesh, the law of sin. The flesh keeps me from
attaining a goal of perfection, of righteousness that I can only
find in Christ. Now what does this do? And we
know this, if God didn't preserve us, we'd fall. But this keeps
believers looking away from self and continually looking to Christ
for all salvation, all forgiveness, all righteousness, eternal life
and glory. This keeps believers continually
realizing that we're totally dependent upon Christ, totally
dependent upon the grace of God. This keeps believers continually
giving God all the glory for all salvation by his grace through
Christ. I don't deserve any glory. This
keeps believers continually giving thanks to God for the great salvation
that he has freely given us by virtue of the merits of Christ
in him alone. Three keys to Christian living,
there you have it. We wouldn't win the war, the
struggle, but Christ has already won it. He told his disciples,
in the world you have tribulation. but be of good cheer. I have
overcome the world. Amen. All right.