Text: Romans 8:1-2
Key Takeaways:
+ In Jesus you have all the acceptance you will ever need.
"To please God… to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness… to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son- it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is." — C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.
John 12:42–43 (ESV) — 42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
“For they valued their reputation with men rather than the honour which comes from God.” John 12:43 New English Bible
1 Corinthians 4:3–4 (ESV) — 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. 4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.
“We all automatically gravitate toward the assumption that we are justified by our level of sanctification, and when this posture is adopted, it inevitably focuses our attention not on Christ but on the adequacy of our own obedience. We start each day with our personal security resting not on the accepting love of God and the sacrifice of Christ but on our present feelings or recent achievements in the Christian life.” Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Preaching and Teaching for Individual Renewal).
+ In Jesus you have all the freedom you need.
+ Dominion – Desire – Deeds – Death
Romans 6:12 (ESV) — 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
Romans 6:20–21 (ESV) — 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
Romans 7:5 (ESV) — 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
Romans 7:15 (ESV) — 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Romans 7:20 (ESV) — 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me…23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members…25 … with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
“There is no greater mockery than to call a sinner a free man. Show me a convict toiling in the chain gang, and call him a free man if you will; point out to me the galley slave chained to the oar, and smarting under the taskmaster’s lash whenever he pauses to draw breath, and call him a free man if you will; but never call a sinner a free man, even in his will, so long as he is the slave of his own corruptions. In our natural state, we wore chains, not upon our limbs, but upon our hearts, fetters that bound us, and kept us from God, from rest, from peace, from holiness, from anything like freedom of heart and conscience and will. The iron entered into our soul; and there is no slavery as terrible as that. As there is no freedom like the freedom of the spirit, so is there no slavery that is at all comparable to the bondage of the heart.” - Charles Spurgeon
Romans 6:20–23 (ESV) — 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
+ Dominion - Desire - Deeds - LIFE!
+ Jesus dying for us is necessary for the Spirit living in us.
Galatians 3:13–14 (ESV) — 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Romans 13:8–10 (ESV) — 8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
“Run, John, run, the law commands but gives us neither feet or hands. Far better news the gospel brings: it bids us fly and gives us wings.” – John Bunyan.
