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Today's scripture reading is from the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verses
1 through 11, as printed in your liturgy.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through
Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit, who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin
and death.
For what the law was powerless to do, because it was weakened by the flesh, God did, by sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.
And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might
be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires.
But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
The mind governed by the flesh is death.
The Spirit is life and peace.
The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God.
It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh, but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed
the Spirit of God lives in you.
And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the
Spirit gives life because of righteousness.
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised
Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who
lives in you.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Good morning, Christ Church.
After summer vacation, I always feel the need to reintroduce myself.
So my name is Jonathan St. Clair, and I'm one of the pastors here.
If you're new over this past month, I look forward to meeting you hopefully soon, if not today.
We've been visiting extended family in Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida.
And I just want to say thank you to our church.
Thanks especially to our elders and staff and deacons and particularly Pastor Andrew for encouraging
me to rest.
And I praise God I've come back rested.
Really glad to be home and reconnecting with you all and just reestablishing our rhythms and
routines as we start into a new ministry year, a new school year.
I'm especially looking forward to our all-church retreat, which is happening in just over a
month, September 8 to 10.
I'm really excited about this unique time and togetherness to build up our church family.
And I'm excited also for you to be able to learn from one of my mentors, Bob Roglin, who's
led me on two different trips to Israel.
And I think you're going to love him.
And so if you haven't registered, it's not to be missed, and you should register today.
I've been praying, you know, all morning, Lord, help me not to have lost the ability
to preach over this past month.
And so since Easter, we've been exploring this incredible letter.
The Apostle Paul wrote this epistle to the church in Rome.
And this is really the crowning epistle of the New Testament.
It's ordered in our Bibles after the four Gospels, after the Acts of the Apostles as the first
in the head of all the letters of the Apostles because it's the most important.
It's the crowning epistle.
And one of the brightest and most radiant gems in this crown is Romans chapter 8.
I've said before, you know, Romans 5 is the most important chapter in this letter, but Romans
8 is far and away the most moving chapter.
And this is probably the best known and best loved, one of the best known and best loved
chapters in all the Bible.
And if you're looking to learn some scripture by heart, I would definitely start here.
But the overarching theme of Romans 8 is that our salvation in Jesus Christ is absolutely secure
and unshakable and uncertain.
That's what Paul wants to drive home for us, that anyone who has been justified by faith
can be confident in their full deliverance, in their complete liberation, in their final
salvation.
And Romans 8 really was written to strengthen people like us, Christians and men and women
like us, people who are gathered like us today to strengthen us in our assurance of the gospel
and in our relationship with God.
And that's why he begins in Romans 8.1, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And he ends with there's no separation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Absolutely nothing whatsoever can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
Now this is a letter that's written by a Christian and to Christians.
It's written to instruct this church in Rome which is at the heart of the empire.
But I also recognize we have people here every week who are exploring Christianity and investigating
the claims of Jesus and his apostles.
And so if that's you, we're delighted that you're here and delighted to journey with you
as you discover who Jesus is and what he did and why that matters.
And I just want to say to you, Romans is actually a great place to begin.
And so what is Paul saying in this text we just read?
What's he saying here in Romans 8?
He's saying this, that in Jesus Christ you can have a new freedom and a new power and a new life.
And I want to start with that first statement, that in Jesus Christ you can have a new freedom.
Paul begins, he says,
Now you've been made free.
You've been set at liberty.
So when we gather together at various sporting events and we sing the Star Spangled Banner,
we come to that climactic phrase.
I'm not going to sing it for you.
But there's sort of that elongated high note where we talk about, we sing about the land of the free.
And sometimes we go, free, you know, like that.
And everybody starts cheering and yeah, woo!
Our culture not only sings it that way, but our culture highlights freedom as the main theme
and the main value of our society.
We measure progress according to increasing freedoms.
Freedom is the highest good.
Becoming free is the most heroic story we can think to tell ourselves, right?
Giving people freedom, we think that's kind of the main role of all of our institutions.
And one of the challenges is that in much of our society,
Christianity is increasingly seen as the arch enemy of freedom.
You guys realize that?
So what's interesting to me is that the Apostle Paul says that if your identity is in Jesus Christ,
if you've been united to him in his life, death, and resurrection,
you can experience a radical freedom.
You've been made free, he says.
You've been set at liberty.
And the question is, well, freedom from what?
Freedom from what?
Again, he says, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And really, Paul's been talking about that since Romans 1, verse 18,
where he says the wrath of God, the condemnation of God,
is being revealed from heaven against all of our ungodliness and our unrighteousness.
The people like us who suppress the truth about God.
The condemnation of God is upon us.
And he goes to chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3,
and he says all of us are under the power of sin and death,
the law of sin and death.
And that all of us have within us this dark, cancerous, malignant, metastasizing mass
that's our fallen human nature,
what Paul here calls the flesh that we inherited in Adam.
And because of that, we're all Republican, Democrat, Jew, Gentile, Eastern, Western.
We're all under the judgment and condemnation of God.
And Paul has already said this back in Romans 5.
I'll just repeat it.
He says in Romans 5, 16,
The judgment followed one sin of Adam and brought what?
Condemnation.
But the gift of God's grace in Christ followed many trespasses
and brought what?
Justification.
He goes on.
He says,
Just as one trespass of Adam resulted in condemnation for all people,
so also one righteous act of Christ resulted in justification and life for all people.
Paul's contrasting.
He's juxtaposing condemnation in Adam and justification in Christ.
And his point is that all of us who are in Adam are spiritually and morally not free.
We're not free.
We're slaves of sin.
We're in bondage to death.
We are owned.
We're dominated.
We're tyrannized by this condemnation that we brought upon ourselves.
But here's the thing.
Here's the gospel.
Here's the good news.
Is that God himself has done something about that.
God himself has come in the person of Jesus Christ, it says here,
to make us free and to set us at liberty.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
I want you to look at that little word, N-O.
No.
It's just a little tiny word.
It's just two letters.
And it's not, you know, really imposing.
But do you realize what it means?
Do you realize the power of that little word?
Christians are people who've been taken entirely outside of the realm of condemnation in Adam.
And we have nothing more to do with condemnation.
Y'all forgot to say amen while I was gone.
Okay.
Woo.
All right.
There is no condemnation now, and there never can be for you anymore.
Now, I did not begin my Christian life knowing that.
When I was, you know, elementary school, middle school, high school,
I didn't know the truth of Romans 8, 1.
And that was a problem for me because I would be afraid that when I would sin,
when I would fail to love God with all my heart,
when I would fail to love, you know, my family and my neighbors as myself,
which was happening all the time,
when that was happening, I was afraid that I would come back again under condemnation.
And I felt like I was constantly passing from one state to the other, back and forth,
condemned, not condemned, condemned, not condemned.
And I felt like, man, I need to become a Christian all over again,
just like I became a Christian yesterday.
I need to become a Christian again today so that I cannot be under condemnation.
And the problem was, if any of you experienced that, I did not understand my position.
I didn't understand my status and my standing in Jesus Christ.
That little word, N-O, means never.
It doesn't say for this moment and temporarily and for the time being,
you're under no condemnation.
It means that you're never going to experience condemnation.
Condemnation for you, if you're in Christ, is finished.
It's not going to happen.
No condemnation is the same thing as saying justification.
Justification equals no condemnation.
And Paul's already said this in Romans 5.1.
He says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have peace.
We've been justified.
There's no condemnation.
So if you're a Christian, that means that your past, present, and future sins
have already been dealt with once and forever.
Do you know that?
It's not just that your past sins have been dealt with,
but that your future and your present sins might disqualify you.
It's that any sin you've ever committed or will ever commit has already been dealt with.
So that you can never come under condemnation again.
You've been set free.
You've been set at liberty once and for all.
Now, if that's true, and I believe it's true, but if it's true, how is it true?
How are we not condemned?
How are we set free?
Well, the answer to that question is not because of what we are or what is in us or what we have done.
It's all about what God did for us.
It's all about God's acts of grace toward us and on our behalf.
If it depended on us, if it depended on my character and my efforts and my actions,
I could have no confidence.
I could have no assurance about my salvation whatsoever.
But here's what he says.
There's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free
from the law of sin and death for what the law was powerless to do
because it was weakened by our sinful flesh.
God did.
God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.
And so he condemned sin in the flesh.
What we could not do for ourselves in our flesh, God did for us through Jesus Christ.
And what exactly did God do?
Well, he says, God the Father sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
The eternal son of God became like us as a real human being,
and yet he was unlike us because he only had the likeness of sinful flesh.
He was yet utterly sinless and without a sinful nature.
He didn't come into the world in Adam.
He's the new Adam.
He's a new human being who's come to start a whole new race of human beings.
And why did God the Father send his perfect and undefiled and sinless son?
He says, to be a sin offering.
To take our sins upon himself.
The cross of Jesus Christ, the death of Jesus Christ,
that is the definitive time and place
when and where God condemned our sins.
The judgment of God, the wrath of God,
the condemnation of God for our sins was poured out,
not upon us, but upon Christ crucified in our place
and as our substitute.
And that is the heart.
That's the center.
It's the glory of the gospel.
Because God did this.
And because God has placed you in Jesus Christ,
that is why, therefore, there is now no condemnation
and there never will be.
It's impossible.
You are utterly, completely, eternally free.
Now, if you're exploring Christianity,
I want to say that this is a radical freedom
that you're not going to find anywhere else.
No other religion, no other philosophy,
no other system of life offers you this kind of freedom and liberation.
And what Romans is telling us is that it can be yours
simply by trusting in Christ as a sin offering in your place.
Romans 10, 9 says this,
If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you too will be saved.
Now, if you're a Christian,
I want to say to you that we must never allow the dark powers
that are arrayed against us,
we must never allow those dark powers to condemn us
because our condemnation has already happened in the past,
it's already been dealt with.
So when you're feeling tempted by this voice
that often can come and condemn you,
you need to quote Romans 8, 1 back and just say,
Well, hey, you know, there's no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus,
and that includes me.
And what's more than that,
if you're a Christian,
we need not be looking somewhere else
or to someone else or to something else
to find our freedom.
We don't need to be looking to the modern
and the postmodern philosophers,
and we don't need to be looking to the gurus
who are popularizing their ideas
and their books and broadcasts
to teach me new concepts
and new constructs of freedom and liberation
to tell me who I am and what I am
because I'm not looking for that
because I already know that.
I already have that.
I know who I am and what I am.
Those systems of thought
that are permeating the air that we breathe,
they come nowhere close to giving you
what we're given here.
I already have freedom in Christ.
I've been set at liberty
by the Spirit of God.
And it doesn't get any better than that.
You can't improve upon that.
We, as the church,
simply need to meditate upon that
and believe that
and apply that to our lives.
So, in Jesus Christ,
you can have a new freedom.
Alright?
But not only can you have a new freedom,
but in Jesus Christ,
you can also have a new power.
You can have a new power.
Now, in order to say a word on power,
I've got to say one more thing about freedom.
Modern freedom
is the freedom of self-assertion.
I am free
if I have the ability to do
whatever I want.
And so, we define freedom
as the absence of constraints.
And the irony of freedom
as the absence of constraints
is that it often,
very often leads to the loss
of our freedoms, right?
So, if I eat ice cream
all day, every day
for the next several weeks,
eventually I'm going to lose
my freedom to be healthy.
So, real freedom...
Do you guys believe that?
Okay.
That seems self-evident,
but just need to...
Okay.
So, real freedom
comes with the strategic loss
of some of my freedoms
in order to gain other freedoms.
Freedom is all about
finding the right constraints
and the right freedoms
that I need to lose
in order to have greater freedoms.
So, philosophers talk about
negative liberty
as freedom from.
That's where we refuse
constraints on our choices.
But they also talk about
positive liberty
as freedom for.
Where we use our freedom
to live in a certain way.
Now, why am I getting
all philosophical?
Because the gospel
is not just about
freedom from.
It's about freedom for.
The gospel says,
yes, you have freedom
from condemnation,
but you also have
freedom for something else.
And why did God condemn
sin in Jesus Christ?
Why did he set us free?
He says in verse 4,
in order that the righteous
requirements of the law
might be fully met in us
who do not live
according to the flesh,
but according to the spirit.
God does not only want
to deliver us
from condemnation
and forgive us
and set us free
from guilt and judgment.
Salvation is about
those things,
but salvation
doesn't stop there.
It goes way beyond that.
God gives us something
further than that.
The thing is,
I cannot stand
in the presence of God
without righteousness.
And so,
God imputes
the righteousness
of Jesus Christ
to me.
He clothes me
in the righteousness
of Christ.
So that all
the righteous deeds,
all the righteous actions
of Jesus
are applied to me
as if I did them.
But,
verse 4 is saying
something even beyond that.
Verse 4 says,
not only does God
impute the righteousness
of Jesus on me
and put it on me
from the top down
as it were,
but also,
God imparts
the righteousness
of Jesus to me
and grows it up
within me
from the bottom up.
In order that
the righteous requirements
of God's law
might be fully met
in us
who do not live
according to the flesh
but according to
the spirit.
God wants us
to increasingly,
progressively
exercise
our new
freedom
from condemnation
as a freedom
for righteousness.
What in the world
does that mean?
What are the righteous
requirements
of God's law?
Well,
in the Gospel
of Matthew
somebody comes
to Jesus
and they say,
teacher,
which is the greatest
commandment
in the law of God
and what does Jesus say?
How does he respond?
He says,
love the Lord your God
with all your heart
and all your soul
and all your mind.
That is the first
and the greatest
requirement
of the law of God.
And he says
the second one
is pretty close to it
which is
love your neighbor
as yourself.
And then in the Gospel
of John
as Jesus has just finished
washing his disciples' feet
and he's going
the next day
to die on the cross.
He says to them,
a new command
I give you,
love one another.
In this disciple community,
in this family of God
with these brothers
and sisters in the faith,
I want you to love
one another
as I have loved you
so you must love
one another.
Jesus did not
purchase
our freedom
at the cost,
the infinite cost
of his precious blood
so that you and I
can do whatever we want.
No,
it's in order
that the righteous
requirements of the law
might be fully met in us.
Or as he says
later on in
Romans 8, 29,
God chose us
in order that he might
conform us
into the likeness
of his son
and we might say,
well that's impossible.
How is that going to happen?
Where are we going to get
the power to become
righteous like Jesus Christ?
And the answer is
the Spirit of God,
the power
of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit
is mentioned 21 times
in Romans 8
which tells us something.
It tells us that
the Christian life
is essentially
life in the Spirit.
Life animated,
empowered,
sustained,
directed,
and enriched
by the Holy Spirit.
Without the Holy Spirit,
true Christian discipleship
would be inconceivable
and would be impossible.
But what Paul is telling us
is that now
that we're in Christ,
we've been filled
and we are now
indwelt with
the power
of the Holy Spirit.
You should read
verse 4 like this.
In order that the
righteous requirement
of the law
might be fully met
in us who do not live
according to the weakness
of the flesh
like we had in Adam
but now according
to the power
of the Spirit
that we have
in Jesus Christ.
It's a power
that comes not
from us.
It's not a power
that kind of bubbles up
from within us.
It's a power
that's outside of us
and above us.
It's a power from God.
A power that comes
to dwell inside of us
and make possible
what before
was impossible.
The Holy Spirit
here is described
as a person
with tremendous power.
Look at verse 11.
It says
that the spirit
of him
who raised Jesus
from the dead
is living in you.
That is an immense
and an awesome power.
Do you know
any other power
that can raise
a dead person
to life?
Right?
This new Oppenheimer film
people are talking
about the
you know
atomic power
and nuclear power.
Some of you
have tried
to describe to me
the potential
of fusion power
and I'm still
trying to understand
what you're talking
about.
But the Holy Spirit
has a power
way beyond any of that.
It's the power
to raise Jesus Christ
from the dead.
And Paul is saying
that if the Holy Spirit
can do that great thing
then surely
he can do the lesser
and the easier thing
which is to give you
and I
power to fulfill
the righteous requirement
of God's law
and be conformed
to the image
of Christ.
Christ.
In Jesus Christ
you have a new freedom
but you also have
a new power.
It's a freedom
for
and a new power
to exercise
your freedom for
but beyond that
you not only have
a new freedom
and a new power
but you have
a new life.
And I'll end
with this.
When you become
a Christian
a radical
complete change
happens to you.
God moves you
from one realm
one order
one kingdom
into another.
Paul is saying
that in Adam
we were under
the reign
of this death
dealing flesh
but in
Jesus Christ
God has moved us
into Jesus Christ
and now we're under
the reign
of this life giving
spirit.
We heard that
in verse 2
the spirit
is the one
who gives life
and in verse 6
the Holy Spirit
is the one
who gives life
and peace.
Verse 10
the spirit
gives life.
Verse 11
the Holy Spirit
will give life
to your mortal bodies.
The Holy Spirit
is the giver
of life
and the life
giving spirit
and to be a Christian
is to be removed
from the realm
of the flesh
and of death
and to be quickened
to be regenerated
to be animated
by the life
of the spirit
of God.
A dead person
cannot give
themselves life.
God must come
and put his life
into us
so that we can be
alive in Jesus Christ
by the Holy Spirit.
But the question
is how do we
continue?
How does the Holy Spirit
continue to work
in us
after he
gives us life?
Well that's where
verse 5 comes in.
Those who live
according to the sinful
nature
have their minds
set
on what that nature
desires
but those who live
in accordance
with the spirit
have their minds
set on what
the spirit
desires.
Now I know
it's hot.
I'm hotter
than all of you.
But stay with me
for a second.
To set your mind
is to make
a thing
the absorbing
object of your
thought and interest
and affection
and purpose.
The question here
about setting
our minds
is what is it
that preoccupies us?
What ambitions
drive us?
What concerns
engross us?
How do we
spend our time
and our energies?
What do we
concentrate on?
What do we
give ourselves
up to?
What are we
seeking most
of all?
What do we
want to please?
What gives us
satisfaction?
All those
questions are
bound up
in this idea
of setting
our mind
on something.
And Paul
tells us
that the Christian
is the person
who sets
their mind
on what the
life-giving
spirit
desires.
And what is that?
What does the
spirit desire?
Well the spirit
desires
for every
single one
of us
to know
and to
love God.
Look at
verse 7.
He says
the sinful
mind,
the mind
governed by
the flesh
is hostile
to God.
It does not
submit to
God's law
nor can it
do so.
Those controlled
by the flesh
cannot please
God.
You however
are not
controlled by
the flesh
but by the
spirit
if indeed
the spirit
of God
lives in
you.
Paul is
saying that
if I'm
alive with
the life
of God
then the
life-giving
spirit of
God is
causing in
me the
opposite
and the
inverse
of those
fleshly
attitudes
and actions
that I
had before.
And that
means that
no longer
am I
hostile to
God
but now
by the
spirit
I'm
hungry
for God.
No longer
am I
suppressing
the truth
about God
but now
I'm
surrendering
myself
to God
by the
spirit.
no longer
am I
resisting
God's
reality
and God's
law
like I
did when
I was
in the
flesh
but now
I'm
submitting
myself
to by
the power
of the
spirit
and the
life
of the
spirit
I'm
submitting
myself
to the
law
of God.
Before
I could
not
please
God
but now
the thing
that drives
me the
most is
that I
want to
bring
pleasure
and I
want to
bring
glory
to God
in all
that I'm
thinking
and saying
and doing.
That's
what the
life-giving
spirit of
God
does in
a
Christian.
And so
what does
that mean
practically?
How does
that change
how you're
going to
live this
week and
what does
that matter
on Monday
morning?
Well when
you wake
up tomorrow
morning and
when you
wake up
every morning
this week
the life-giving
spirit of
God is
going to
be there
to meet
you with
his desire
that you
would set
your mind
on what
he desires.
the spirit
is going
to be
right there
right when
you wake
up the
spirit is
going to
be going
I want
you to
set
your mind
on what
I desire.
And I
you know I've
never met a
healthy Christian
or a mature
Christian who
did not give
the very first
thing that they
did in their
day to this
setting of
their mind
upon what
the spirit
desires.
And what
does the
Holy Spirit
desire?
The Holy Spirit
desires that I
would give my
first time and
my best time of
the day to be
with God.
That's what
Jesus did.
It says that he
very early in the
morning while it
was still dark
he got up and
he went off to a
solitary place where
he prayed and he
set his mind on
what the spirit
desires.
And if nobody's
ever shown you how
to do that we
would love to
teach you that
here.
But the Holy
Spirit is going
to be right there
when you get out
of bed and your
feet hit the
floor and his
desire is going
to be there for
you to care more
about God.
His desire is for
you to care more
about the name of
God and the
kingdom of God and
the will of God.
His desire is for
you to care about
the word of God and
the worship of God and
the son of God and
the people of God and
the eternity of God and
the life of the world
to come with God.
That's what the
spirit desires and
that's what he wants
to give you the very
first thing when you
start your day to
immerse you in the
life of God himself
so that we can
experience the life
of God in our
souls.
And we can say
God teach me more
about who you are
and what you've
done.
God give me a power
that's outside of
myself to exercise a
freedom for
righteousness today.
God help me to see
how free I really am
in Christ.
that's what the
Holy Spirit is
wanting to do to
give you life is to
usher you in to the
life-giving presence of
the living God.
And I pray that he do
that for every single
one of us starting
tomorrow morning and
until we see one
another again next
week.
In the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit we pray.
Amen.