[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning everybody, so good to be with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful thanks to those who came up on stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of our new people are amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so good to be part of a community where people are connecting with Jesus and experiencing his loving grace and being transformed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that is something we're celebrating, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you are new or visiting special welcome to you, if you're watching online, like you could join us.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are new, if this is your first time, please do let us know, come and see us off the service.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the welcome lounge, we'll get you a free coffee.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are watching online, you'll have to get your own coffee.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, send us the receipt.
[SPEAKER_00]: But please do come in person sometimes so we can shut you one then.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing, let me pray and we're gonna jump in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we thank you so much that we can be here together in your presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thank you that every time we gather, your spirit is at work, transforming us, maturing us, sanctifying us, building us up, encouraging us, convicting us, all the work that the spirit does to enable us to keep growing in Christ, to be the men and women that we've been called to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I pray, Lord, as we jump into the passage this morning, into the topic this morning, that it will be no exception.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, Holy Spirit, be speaking through your word, be speaking to our hearts, be speaking to our minds and help us to grasp how high and deep and wide and long as the love of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we pray all this in Jesus' name, Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today,
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, we're beginning a new series in Romans, particularly Romans chapter eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to sit in this one incredible chapter for a number of weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to take us right up to Advent, which isn't that far away.
[SPEAKER_00]: So why Romans 8, and why only one chapter of Romans, and why this particular chapter?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't know about you, but I have a number of favorite chapters in the Bible, especially in the New Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, outside of the gospels, which are simply the best things ever written in human history, I have some other favorites, one Corinthians 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, Paul's incredible chapter on love, who loves one Corinthians 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: Revelation 21, the second to last chapter in the Bible, which includes that incredibly beautiful vision of the new heavens and the new earth and the renewal of all things when Christ returns.
[SPEAKER_00]: All one, sorry, Ephesians chapter one, we're Paul outlines the riches of God's grace that have been lavished upon us, that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, who likes Ephesians one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one Corinthians 15, maybe at the top of that list, Christ's defeat of death, the promise of the resurrection, I love these words in verse 51, listen, I tell you a mystery.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye at the final trumpet for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did anyone hear Handel's Messiah playing in the background?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there are so many and at different times in my walk with Jesus, I go back and forth between those and others, depending on what I need, perhaps you have your own list, but friends, the chapter I go back to, I return to over
[SPEAKER_00]: and over again that I can never grow tired of.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I always find new treasure to unearth because of its breathtaking panorama of the description of the beauty and the power of the gospel that has delivered us from sin and death.
[SPEAKER_00]: of the great promises of God's never-ending love toward us, who have been saved, and of the victorious life of the Spirit, who leads us in God's faithfulness through all the seasons and trials of life, who will never leave us or forsake us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gotta be Romans chapter eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people say that Romans is the greatest of all Paul's letters, and that Romans 8, in particular, is the greatest chapter in the greatest of Paul's letters, and I agree with that assessment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I can tell you, friends, is that Romans 8 is such a rich and dense meal that we want it to take our time in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want it to savor it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to chew carefully and thoughtfully on each of the verses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over these next few weeks it's going to be an incredible time I believe as we sit in this text now There's a number of people actually who have committed to memorizing Romans 8 during these next few weeks So if you keen to try that you can give it a go, but I'd do encourage you either way read it right through in one sitting
[SPEAKER_00]: And then as we look at each passage, takes some time each morning over the weeks that we're doing this together to just meditate on those verses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can guarantee you, I promise you, that God will be speaking, but He will do something beautiful in your soul as you spend some time contemplating Romans chapter 8.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, before we get into the chapter itself, what I want to do this morning is just set up the series, give some context for Romans 8, in particular what is going on in Romans in the first 7 chapters.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we're going to do is a very detailed ex-Jesus of chapters 1 through 7, together, I'm joking, just an overview today, chapters 1 through 7.
[SPEAKER_00]: But before we do that, if I was to summarize Romans 8 in one word, the central idea, the central theme of Romans 8 in one word, I think I would choose this assurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now to give assurance is to make a declaration, to make a promise, which is intended to give you confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's assurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if a treaty assures you on the phone on Friday afternoon that they will definitely beat your house at 7 a.m.
[SPEAKER_00]: on Monday to fix your leaking shower or to finish that overdue construction job.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm not talking about any treaties in this church, of course, based on your past experience of that person, you may or may not believe them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may or may not have confidence that their word will hold true.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may or may not have assurance that you can trust what they're promising.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you might also feel differently if it was Telstra, for example.
[SPEAKER_00]: Promising you, they will definitely be at your house and that five-hour window that you have to take off from work in order to meet the guy who's going to install your ABN or whatever, NBN.
[SPEAKER_00]: There we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, on the other hand, when a bride and groom stand before God on their wedding day and make vows,
[SPEAKER_00]: They are making promises that are meant to give absolute assurance and therefore complete confidence that each of them will be faithful to what they're promising for better for worse for richer for poorer in sickness and in health as long as we both shall live.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're supposed to say those words and mean it and fully intend to carry them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how they might feel on that day or any other day in the future,
[SPEAKER_00]: So that each spouse has assurance that what is promised can be depended on, that they can build their life on those promises together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I know, sadly that sometimes that's not how it works out because we are sinful, human beings, we don't always keep our promises, and that causes immense pain and devastation.
[SPEAKER_00]: But unlike human promises, when God makes a promise, he declares that promise on the basis of his own nature, on the honor of his own name, and because God cannot act in any way that is contrary to his nature, he makes the kinds of promises that we can depend on with everything that we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's promises give us total assurance that he will do what he has said therefore we can have complete confidence in his word.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Hebrews 6 reminds us, when God made his promise to Abraham, we were singing about this earlier this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your name is the highest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your name is the greatest.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no name that is greater than God's own name.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in Hebrews 6, when God made His promise to Abraham to give him many distendence, since He says, there was no one greater than Himself to swear upon, He made the oath on the basis and the honor of His own name.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God did that, so that since it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled, fled the world to take hold of the hope set before us, may be greatly encouraged, may have complete confidence, that we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure, enters into the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our four-runner Jesus has entered on our behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: so that we may be completely or greatly encouraged as an anchor for the soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: held fast in the sanctuary behind the curtain, in the holy of Holy's, where Christ entered on his death, where Christ went ahead of us to prepare away for us, and we sing this, don't we cornerstone, which comes from the old song, Christ the solid rock, in every high and stormy gale, does anyone know how it goes next?
[SPEAKER_00]: My anchor holds within the veil.
[SPEAKER_00]: my anchor holds within the veil.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may have sung that many times and not known where that line comes from.
[SPEAKER_00]: It comes from Hebrew 6 and it means that God takes His promises so seriously, that Christ paid for their fulfillment by His own blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that now, my confidence, my hope,
[SPEAKER_00]: solid as a rock in the presence of God in the Holy of Holies behind the temple curtain where Christ now reigns victorious.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that kind of assurance we're talking about here.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Paul will make clear later on in Romans 8 verse 15, the spirit that you received,
[SPEAKER_00]: does not make you slaves so that you live in fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by him, we say, Abba, Father, the Spirit Himself testifies without Spirit that we are God's children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we are God's children, then we are as.
[SPEAKER_00]: we are airs of God and coars with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no greater sense of confidence or assurance than those words.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are coars with Christ because we are the children of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: My anchor holds, holds, no matter what comes at me, no matter what's going on in life, through every season, through the ups and downs, no matter what my emotional state may be, no matter what my circumstances may be, my anchor holds within the veil because it was purchased and placed there by the blood of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have assurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: because God keeps His promises, He is faithful, and His Paul says, then, I am tethered to that anchor by the chain of God's spirit, a chain that can never be broken, which guarantees my inheritance, my victory forever and ever are men, not because I've deserved it, not because I've earned it, not because of my good works, but only because of what Christ has done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, this is really the theme of the whole of Romans,
[SPEAKER_00]: particularly the first part Romans 1 through 7.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose goes into great detail in the first part of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: To clearly set out why God's promises can be trusted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why God's promises can be the basis upon which you build your whole life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason they can be trusted is because that God has done everything possible through the work of His Son, especially in His death and resurrection, to be faithful to His promise first to the Jews.
[SPEAKER_00]: His promise to Abraham, I will make you my special people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll call you by name.
[SPEAKER_00]: is promised to Abraham and to Moses and the giving of the law, and now also to the Gentiles to all people, which of course was also part of God's promise to Abraham.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when God called Abraham, he didn't just say I'm going to make you the father of a great nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I'm going to make, I'm going to do that, but that nation through you,
[SPEAKER_00]: All the nations will be blessed, and that becomes a key theme in the prophetic voices later on in the scriptures that God is going to one day gather in all the nations just as he promised to Abraham.
[SPEAKER_00]: So God has been promising these things from the very beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: That all the nations will be gathered in, that all peoples will be gathered in, that all will be blessed through Him, through what God does through Abraham and through Abraham's descendants, which all centers eventually on Christ, what Christ has done, which has gathered us all in to make us coares of that same promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in Romans 1 through 3, Paul makes it clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are all sinners, we are all deserving of wrath, but God has been faithful to set us free from the curse of sin and death and make us holy and righteous and blameless in His sight to justify us, one of the words Paul uses right through Romans, is this word justification that we've been justified through Christ, which means that we now have confidence in Christ that when we stand before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Holy righteous for given and redeemed people, we are justified.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may have put, you may have heard it put like this, justified means to be as though just as though you had never sinned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which Paul makes clear, has not happened because of our good behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our good work, according to the law, but comes only by faith when we put our trust in the saving work of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and that then becomes the basis of our assurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that we've earned it, but that Christ has purchased it for us on our behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is what He says, what Paul says in Romans 3, some of the key verses in the book, 21 to 26, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known to which the law of Moses and the prophets testify.
[SPEAKER_00]: This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no difference between Jew and Gentile.
[SPEAKER_00]: For all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of His blood, to be received by faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did this to demonstrate His righteousness, His justice, His faithfulness, so as to be both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where then is boasting?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is excluded.
[SPEAKER_00]: You probably know those verses, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But despite this God has been faithful to save everyone, both Jew and Gentile through his son, and this is a gift of God by faith not by works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this is important because up to this point in the letter Paul has been trying to show that Jews and Gentiles are just as much in
[SPEAKER_00]: that there's no difference between them in terms of their need of grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, there's no boasting.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of a sudden, both Jew and Gentile, therefore all come into salvation the same way through faith and Christ alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is this important?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the historical context of the letter is a growing division in the Roman church between Jews and Gentiles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over this exact issue, about whether you can be saved by works or if you're saved only by faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is writing the letter from Corinth at around about AD 55 and the church in Rome had been around for some time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul didn't plant the church in Rome and had been planted by some other Jewish Christians a number of years earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it had been primarily a Jewish community, not many Gentiles, maybe a few hanging around on the fringes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was primarily a Jewish community, which meant that along with their faith in Jesus, they were continuing on with many of their customs and laws and traditions that they had practiced before becoming followers of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in AD 49, the Emperor Claudius had expelled all the Jews out of Rome, which is why Paul ends up meeting Aquila and Priscilla because he bumps in there a pair of Jewish Christians from Rome who Paul meets in Corinth as recorded in Acts 18.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all the Jews had to leave Rome including the Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: But eventually in 8054, the Jews were allowed to return.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, as about five years later, so when the Jews returned back to Rome, they found something interesting had happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does anyone know what had happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: The church had shifted from being primarily Jewish to becoming primarily Gentile.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Roman church has now pretty much taken on a Gentile character and didn't have much of a Jewish character anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this created huge amounts of tension and conflict in the Roman community because the Gentile Christians were not all that interested in following the rules and customs and laws of the Jewish believers.
[SPEAKER_00]: and as I can assure all the men in the room can know exactly why that would be.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not particularly all that much interest in being circumcised, I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in any case, it includes the Sabbath laws and the food laws and a number of other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they weren't interested in following the Jewish customs.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were happy to follow Jesus' Gentiles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this created conflict because a number of Jewish Christians were saying no, in order to truly follow Jesus, you need to become Jewish, you need to follow the customs and laws and traditions of our faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, in other words, you need to practice the works in addition to faith in order to be truly saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't the first time Paul had encountered this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had popped up in a number of the churches in the ancient world, and so he was used to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a letter that Paul wrote quite late in his ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he had already dealt with this same issue in a number of other churches, and here he is dealing with it again in Rome.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Paul writes his letter, he doesn't simply just come down hard on them and say, listen, you guys have got to stop doing the works of the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: and follow Christ in the freedom that is yours in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: What he does instead in order to win over the Jewish community is he carefully expresses or retells the history of the Jewish people, the history of the faith of Israel, from Genesis through Abraham and through Moses and eventually all the way through to Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: To highlight yes that the Jews had been given a special position as God's people
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the end, since all of that was intended finally to point to Christ, there is now no difference between Jew and Gentile.
[SPEAKER_00]: All need to come into the family of God the same way through Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is actually part of the oldest promise in the scriptures that God spoke to Abraham that we mentioned before that one day, one of Abraham's descendants through him would cause all the nations to be blessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for the Gentiles who didn't have the law, what Paul says earlier in the book, he's very clear on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: They may not have had the law as an external law code written on stone tablets, but they had the law in their hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had known what is right and wrong in their conscience, but they failed to do what was right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they stand guilty before God and are in need of God's grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for the Jews who had the law of Moses, he says the law simply acted as a kind of magnifying glass that highlighted their inability to keep it, which they didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they too are guilty before God and are in need of God's grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: The law is good, Paul says, but we are not.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the law has only served to reveal how sinful we are and how desperately we are in need of God's mercy and forgiveness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, there is no one righteous, Paul says, not one has done what is right, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all need to be saved in the same way through the grace of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for Paul then, the basis of the unity is not whether or not they keep the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is the gospel of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the basis of their unity.
[SPEAKER_00]: That all have come in through Christ in the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, all are equal as He says at the very end of this passage, where then is boasting?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is excluded.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one can boast.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has earned this.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has deserved this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the free gift of God through Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here Paul has, as you look at the last section, where he says that God is both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here Paul has a court room in mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's thinking of a legal trial.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this trial, this is actually one of the most incredible things in the book of Romans.
[SPEAKER_00]: What he says here is that in the trial, God is both the judge who passes the sentence,
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's the accused who suffers the punishment.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is both the judge and the condemned in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Christ, he judges our sinfulness, but in Christ, he takes on the punishment of that judgment so that we can escape from it, so that we don't have to suffer it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means for Paul, what Christ is accomplished on the cross is enough, is more than enough, is more than sufficient to give us great assurance
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it is a promise written in the blood of Christ, and there is nothing that is more precious or valuable in all of creation than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have this hope, firm and secure, an anchor for the soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel like your soul is anchored
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel like your soul is anchored in the goodness of God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel like your soul is anchored in the faithfulness of God, in the justice of God, in the righteousness of God, in the love of God, in the mercy of God, in the power of God to deliver you from death?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is your soul anchored in those promises?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if it is, then you will never be shaken.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a hope that is secure that will get you through everything that life can throw at you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not only that, it takes you all the way through death into the new creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in Romans then five to seven, particularly in chapters five and six, Paul speaking to everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's kind of done the work to establish the basis of unity for both Jews and Gentiles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he begins to speak to the whole community.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes on to say that although we were once dead in our old humanity dead in our old Adam, because we all followed our old ways of disobedience, we have now all of us been made alive in Christ in the new Adam, in the second Adam, the sinless Jesus who has given us all new life in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the old us, the old human,
[SPEAKER_00]: The old Tim, the old you, is dead and destroyed, nailed to the, like what the kind of metaphors Paul works with here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, it's been nailed to the cross with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you believe in him, you've already died a certain kind of death.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have died in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what Baptism signifies.
[SPEAKER_00]: He talks about Baptism in this context as a dying to self, as a dying to the old way, a dying to the old way of being human, dying to evil, dying to selfishness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then going through death into resurrection where we're raised up in Christ into the new life, into the new humanity, into the new you that has been made new in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: to go back to what He says in Romans 3, if you're in Christ, that means you've already been judged with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in the final day when Christ returns, there will be no judgment for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will not face judgment when Christ returns because if you've put your faith in Jesus, you've already been judged because Christ was judged on your behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there is no judgment that remains for those who are in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah?
[SPEAKER_00]: As a young Christian, I lived my whole life in fear of the final.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have lived for many years in fear of the final judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure really whether I'll make the cut on the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until I realise which gave me such great comfort and great assurance, as Paul teaches in Romans very clearly that if I'm in Christ, then I've already died and I've already been judged because all of that has happened to Jesus on my behalf, so there's nothing left to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no further judgment to pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that gives you comfort, but it gives me great comfort.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've already received the just judgment and penalty for my sins, because Christ took it on my behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the immensity of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Roman 6, verse 5 to 11, Paul says, if we've been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
[SPEAKER_00]: so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because anyone who has died has been set free from sin, hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we'll also live with Him for we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Death no longer has mastery over Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The death He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God in the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, you can have confidence in this promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: Count this as true for you that you are dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Paul puts it in Galatians 220, I have been crucified with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this I think is the essence of the Christian life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, already dead, but we've already been raised.
[SPEAKER_00]: There means, as I said, there's no future judgment for us because we've already been judged.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've already died and been resurrected in the spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just waiting for our bodies to figure out that they need to do that as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sentence has already been passed on to Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: His death is our death, therefore, his life is our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, as many Christians will ask then at this point, okay, well, if all of that is true, why then do I still struggle with sin?
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm dead to sin, but alive to God, in Christ, why do I still struggle with sin?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do I still do the things that I don't want to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: and pull those exactly what you're talking about because as you get into the next chapter Romans 7, how many of you know what Paul says in Romans 7, it's a whole chapter about this struggle that we experience while we still live in the body with sin, with our broken minds and broken bodies and broken desires and selfishness and sinfulness and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm righteous and holy and Christ, why do I still struggle with all of this stuff?
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to do what is right, all the more because of Christ's great love for me, Paul says, but I find that I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, and I know that nothing good lives in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is in my old sinful nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: The me that's dead died to Christ, buried with him through death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing good lives in that old me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to do what is right, but I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to do what is good, but I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does anyone know what Paul's talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I do, what I don't want to do, I'm not really the one doing wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is sin living in me that doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, there is in the Christian life, this incredible tension between the new life that we're called to and this ours in Christ and the old life that is still
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're, you know, we're dealing with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have discovered this principle of life pulse says that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love God's law with all my heart, but there is another power within me that it's at war with my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a wretched man I am who will rescue me, or who will deliver me from this body of death.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what Paul is acknowledging, and I'm sure you all know what he's talking about, that's although we're new and Christ, we're still dealing with our old self, our old humanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our spirit's been made new, but the rest of us is not, at least not yet, that won't happen until the resurrection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our bodies, our minds, our passions, our desires, these are things that are still subject to sin that are still in slavery to sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: But thanks be to God, that is not the end of the story that no matter what we may struggle with, Paul says,
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you see how it is in my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a slave to God's law.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because of my sinful nature, I'm a slave to sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not the end of the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's where it was left, then we would all be in despair.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Paul says then in Romans 8, verse 1,
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Christ, there is nothing to fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no condemnation, there is no judgment, there is nothing to fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no condemnation, there is no judgment, and there is nothing to fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, do you truly believe that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you live your life on that basis as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure?
[SPEAKER_00]: That there's no condemnation, there is no judgment and there's nothing to fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: So whenever we're tempted, like Paul describes in Romans 7, and the despair can set in at how little progress
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of in living up to what we've received in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in the shame starts talking and the guilt starts talking and the enemy jumps on board and starts to accuse us of being failures, of not really being Christians, of whether we're really saved, we can quote Romans 8 verse 1 that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, for the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe this, give me an amen, praise God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we don't stop where Paul's ends in Romans 7 with this who will deliver me from this body of death.
[SPEAKER_00]: We keep reading and we find that in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have everything I need.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have received all that God.
[SPEAKER_00]: can give in order to enable me to live this victorious Christian life and that's really what the whole of Romans ate is all about how we access these things, how we keep living into them, how we grow in them, all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a work of the Holy Spirit on the basis of the gospel through what Christ has done and there is no condemnation when we fail, when we struggle, when we stumble,
[SPEAKER_00]: If God is for us, who can be against us?
[SPEAKER_00]: He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all how he not graciously give us all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: If God has been so gracious to give us Jesus to not spare his own son, then will he withhold anything else from us?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's already given us the greatest gift he can possibly give,
[SPEAKER_00]: is just a poor reflection of the incredible gift of what God has done for us in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything else that we might receive is all done on the basis of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if he's given you Jesus, then he's going to give you everything else as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the old him and can it be one of my favorites?
[SPEAKER_00]: John Wesley or Paul Charles Wesley pardon me, writes, there's no condemnation now, I dread.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus and all in him as mine, alive and him are living head and clothed in righteousness, divine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bold, I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is assurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the book, sorry, the chapter, starts with these incredible bookends or starts in ends with these two incredible bookends.
[SPEAKER_00]: It starts with the words there is now no condemnation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So no condemnation, does anyone know how it ends?
[SPEAKER_00]: Starts with there's no condemnation and ends with, and I am convinced.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have assurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am convinced.
[SPEAKER_00]: I encourage you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not going to memorize the whole chapter, try and memorize these words at least.
[SPEAKER_00]: For I am convinced.
[SPEAKER_00]: that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord, I am convinced.
[SPEAKER_00]: How is it that Paul can be so convinced?
[SPEAKER_00]: And how is it that we might have that same kind of conviction, that same kind of assurance,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it starts and ends for Paul by meditating on the immense gift that God has given us through his son Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this particular thought that if God was willing to give all of that, if he's been willing to lavish that kind of grace on us, then that means if he's been willing to lay down the life of his own son and if Christ was willing to pay the price by pouring out his own blood,
[SPEAKER_00]: That means for Paul that there is nothing that will ever happen, that can happen in between those two things, that will be able to snatch us away from the promises that are ours in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, God is never going to lose one of His children.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will never lose them and He will never let them go.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of assurance we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if God was willing to pay the kind of price he had,
[SPEAKER_00]: Negligent in protecting us and carrying us and helping us and empowering us, then it would make a mockery of the gift and the sacrifice that Christ paid on our behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: If God didn't see us through to the end, it would make a mockery of the immense cost of purchasing us in the first place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that I believe is something the Father will never do, because He's made these promises on the basis of His own name, on the honor and glory of His own name.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love what John Piper says about this, that God has bound the glory of His name
[SPEAKER_00]: that the outcome of our destiny is at stake in the honor and glory of his reputation.
[SPEAKER_00]: God will not allow his reputation to be the smurched, therefore he will not lose a single one of his children.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of assurance we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: because if Christ was willing to pay all that, do you think He's then just willing to be willing to let us go, to wander off, to lose our way, no, Christ will finish in us what He has started.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe that?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what Christ said from the cross, that it is finished, means that it is finished.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Christ said you are forgiven, he meant what he said, you are forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Christ said, you now belong to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Christ said, with Paul says, in Romans 8, you have now been adopted in, you are now a child of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you are adopted, you are a child of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is nothing that can snatch you away from his hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I am convinced that no, the death in our life, let's stand, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,
[SPEAKER_00]: No, anything, can we all say that together?
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: What can separate us from the love of God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the song in Christ alone, we're not about to sing it by the way, but I'm gonna invite the bands to come on up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the final verse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is so powerful, and I'm going to finish with this, and then pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: No power of hell, and I think the authors, the writers of the song, must have had Romans 8 in mind when they wrote this, no power of hell, no scheme of man
[SPEAKER_00]: here in the power of Christ I stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, thank you for all that you have done for us in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: It goes beyond anything that we could imagine.
[SPEAKER_00]: That holds us more secure than we could possibly believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we have such great assurance, no matter how we might stumble, and struggle, and battle with the things that are still part of our old life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will never fail us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will never abandon us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will never turn away from us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will not judge us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because all of those things have already happened to our Savior Jesus and as we stand in Him, all that He paid and all that He gained through His resurrection is now ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: His our gift, we are coars with Christ and there's nothing we can do to add to that or subtract from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Lord as we will explore in these next few weeks, yet there is a call to keep growing, to keep pursuing the things of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do pray, Lord, that we would do that on the basis of grace, because your love calls are steeper in, not because we're afraid, not because we feel overwhelmed with guilt, not because we feel condemned.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not your heart for us that we would be motivated by guilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm motivated by fear of judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead, Lord, it would be your grace and your love.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we contemplate the immensity of the gift that we've received, that would inspire us to long to go deeper, to long to go further, to long to love you more fully and completely, and to live like you in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Lord before we sing, which pray that we might open up our hands to you for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do ask Holy Spirit that if there's anyone here in this room this morning who has been questioning whether they're truly saved, whether they truly belong, whether they're truly yours, whether you've really set them free.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray your Holy Spirit would just bring that assurance we've been talking about this morning, bring that assurance into the heart right now, bring that assurance into their minds and bodies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because one of the surest signs that in fact we do belong to Lord is that we long to know that more and more every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the struggle is a sign that the Spirit is at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: The struggle is a sign that the Spirit is convicting and calling.
[SPEAKER_00]: The struggle is a sign that you've not given up on us yet, and you never will praise be for the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So come Holy Spirit and just confirm in those who need it today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your goodness, your love, your mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're never ending faithfulness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus name.
[UNKNOWN]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's sing together.