The Law of the Spirit of Life Has Set You Free

There are times in our Christian life when we really think that we can overcome sin, who could just stop doing it, then we could feel forgiven. We could just stop giving in to those besetting sins that haunt us in our Christian life, then finally we could feel forgiven. Now that is exactly the opposite of what the New Testament teaches in the gospel. And I want you to hear what it teaches. I'm going to read the first few verses of Romans chapter 8, and we're going to look at verse 2 primarily, but listen to these words. Paul says, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

For what the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. He condemns sin in the flesh so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. The thing I really want to drive home to your heart today is that the gospel teaches us that we will never overcome any sin until we understand that sin is forgiven. We can only find deliverance from sin that has been forgiven. And that is the heart of the gospel. It's the heart of the New Covenant that we have to understand forgiveness before we can have victory over the power of sin in our lives.

Now the issue and the text that we're going to look at for just a moment, because it's really important. And that is, what is the connection between verses 1 and verses 2? In verse 1, we have this glorious statement that really is a statement about justification. All that Paul has been saying these first chapters, how we are declared right before God. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are united with Christ by faith in Him at the very beginning of our Christian life and our condemnation is past. It's over. Never to experience it again. The verdict is rendered and the verdict is not guilty righteous for Christ's sake. All of our sins forgiven. All of our guilt removed.

All the punishment that we would expect has been averted because of Christ. That's what verse 1 says. Never will the believer who is in Christ Jesus experience condemnation or judgment for their sins. Now, don't misunderstand me. You may suffer consequences from your sin and you may suffer the discipline work of a father, but you will never suffer the penalty for your sins because Christ has. Notice in verse 2, in verse 2, it's different. It's not a statement about our justification. We don't see justification what we see in verse 2 is sanctification. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free. There's liberation, freedom from the law of sin and death. The connection in this passage is what we want to try to figure out.

How is verse 1 connected to verse 2? Notice verse 1 is a declaration of no condemnation. That is our justification in Christ is perfect and there is no condemnation. In verse 2, we have a description of transformation. How am I ever going to be changed? Do you want to, do you desperately believe or want to be changed? Isn't that the greatest desire of your life? It's for God to actually change for you to become what He has called you to become, what He declares you to be. We want to be changed. And what we have here is the description of transformation. So in these two verses, what we have is a statement about justification and a statement about sanctification. One of the biggest problems with people understanding the Christian life is getting these two things mixed up.

That our justification is not based upon our sanctification, but our sanctification is proof of our justification. It's the evidence that we have been declared righteous, our being experiencing freedom from the law of sin and death as he describes it here by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Now let me show you something. The word law here, because throughout the passage up to this point of the book of Romans, he's been tired. He's been using the word law primarily to speak about a written code, primarily the mosaic law. This written code, which was a code that God gave to Moses, to the people of God through Moses, which declared his righteous standard. And what Paul has said is that written code cannot transform a person.

That written code cannot produce righteousness in a person. In fact, if you notice in verse three, for what the law, that is the written code, the mosaic law, could not do. Week as it was through the flesh, God did. In other words, the thing that was weak about the law wasn't the law itself, but it's the flesh. It's our fallenness. Giving a good set of rules will not produce righteousness. What it does produce is it provides a mirror, and we can see the truth about ourselves when we look into it. But the other way the word law is used is of a governing power, a governing power. He has begun to use it this way already in the context. It is a governing power. These two laws that he mentions in verse two are neither one of them written codes, but they are governing powers.

That is, for example, like the law of gravity. Somebody has said, you can't break the law of gravity. You can be broken by the law of gravity, but you can't break it. The law gravity is a governing power, an influence, a principle that is always at work. Well, he's talking about these two principles within us. He's already spoken of the law of sin. That is, sin that dwells in us. And he says, because of this law of sin that dwells in us, we cannot practice righteousness unless that law of sin is somehow overcome by another law. And that's exactly what he's speaking of here. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. So notice, first of all, that the law of sin and death is the governing power of indwelling sin that will lead you to death.

It always leads there. The soul that sin is, it shall surely die. And what Paul is teaching us in this context is when we give into, when we come under the governing rule of the principle of sin within us, it always will culminate in a kind of death and ultimately death in the ultimate sense. The law of sin and death. If you look back at chapter 7, verse 22, where I joyfully concur, Paul says with the law of God, that is, the mosaic law. I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law. And there's a play on words here. He's talking about a written code versus this governing principle, this power that's within, within him. I see a different law on the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members.

Now, there is a Christian life as a war. A lot of people come to faith in Christ or at least make a profession of faith. And they don't have a clue that what they're entering into is warfare. This is a war. And it's always going to be a war until Jesus comes back because we have these two competing powers within us. In fact, Paul describes it in Galatians as the flesh less against the spirit and the spirit less against the flesh. And so you cannot do what you desire. In chapter 8 verse 2, he adds this expression that it is and death. It is the law of sin and death because the law of sin, this principle of sin, this governing power that exerts itself within us always leads to death if we don't take up arms against it.

If we don't get militant against it and fight, we don't fight it in the faith and in the power of the spirit. If we don't experience the law of the principle of life in Christ Jesus, we will not win the war against sin. And the law of sin always produces death. Always produces death. Probably every one of us in this room could tell a story about the power of sin that has been at work in either stories about ourselves or others where we've seen the law of sin and death destroy. It's a destroyer. And yet the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus is God's provision for those who are justified, who are declared righteous, to overcome the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death that's in my members is this governing power work in my body to make war with myself.

And I can experience exactly what Paul describes in chapter 7, this sense of total defeat being swept along by the law of sin and death. He calls it in verse 17 and verse 20 of chapter 7, indwelling sin. It's in us. It's not external to us. In fact, look at James statement. In James chapter 1, turn there for just a moment. James chapter 1, the next book after the book of Hebrews, James chapter 1, verse 14, James is encouraging him in regards to to trials in the Christian life, the tribulation and troubles that we fall into. And he says, the one of the dangers is when we fall into trouble, we end up being tempted to sin in the midst of the trouble to relieve the pressure. So he says in verse 13, let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God.

For God, James says cannot be tempted. Don't say that. God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone. But each one, then what's the source of our temptation? Each one, that means you, by the way, and me. That means every single one of us. Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. The lust that flow out of entwelling sin. He says then when lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived. My beloved brother, sin is so deceitful. Sin is incredibly deceitful and sin is a destroyer. You will never prosper going down the path of sin ever. And because God has committed himself to bring us into the inner fellowship of the triune God here, he has given us all that we need to walk in this life and to overcome this governing power of sin that was within us.

Not perfectly, not always, but as a predominant path of life, growing in the experience of this victory that he's describing here. And that's the second thing in this text. And that is that the law of the spirit of life is the governing power of the indwelling Holy Spirit that has already, he says, set us free from the law of sin and death. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It is the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit that has set us free and it continues to give us life. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. So the victory over these lusts and these impulses, this principle, this governing power of sin is not my efforts. It's not me buckling down and nukling down and determining that I'm going to overcome sin.

But rather it is what God has supplied in the person of the Holy Spirit. It is the work. It only comes through the work of God's spirit who is in us. So these two governing powers are working us. Sin works a certain way with power and authority leading to death and that's why he calls it the law of sin and death and the spirit of God works in a certain way with power and authority leading to life and that's called the law of the spirit of life. But notice the third thing that he says is that the law of the spirit of life is only only only in Christ Jesus. In other words, this is not available to anyone who is not in Christ Jesus. You have to come into Christ Jesus in order to experience the law of the spirit of life.

Now there's a couple of ways to looking at this. I want to look at it one way which is not the primary way Paul is looking at it but I think it sets it up for that. How is in what sense is the spirit of life in Christ Jesus? Well first of all, the spirit of life worked in Christ Jesus to accomplish our deliverance from sin. In other words, amazingly the Son of God becomes a man. He comes in the likeness of sinful flesh comes into our world. God attaches himself to humanity his creation. I mean, have you ever thought about this that when Jesus was raised from the dead there is now a human being in the very center of the fellowship of the sovereign Godhead? Imagine that. There is a man, a human being who's going to be there for all eternity and because of him we are there also.

But this God, the Son of God who came into the world and took on our humanity in that humanity we are told over and over in a dozen, two dozen different ways that all that he did he did in the power of the Holy Spirit. Think about that a second. All that Jesus did in accomplishing the purpose of God as a servant of God he did in the power of the Holy Spirit. That may seem very strange to you. Why would the second person of the Godhead, the Son of God, who's become a man? Why would he need anything, anything outside of himself in order to be empowered to do God's will? But that's exactly what the New Testament teaches. One of the things I should do to you is wake you up and make you realize you can't make it in the Christian life apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Impossible. You cannot live the Christian life apart from the power of the Holy Spirit being manifested in your life. That's why as he's going to go on this chapter there must be a learning of how to live in dependence upon the Holy Spirit. How to walk in the Holy Spirit. How to be led by the Holy Spirit. Now notice this there's several things in the Testament teachers about what Jesus did. By the Spirit Jesus Christ first of all was conceived were told in several places in the New Testament. We're also told that he was anointed with the Holy Spirit. At a particular point in his life the Spirit was poured out upon him without measure. We're told. He was anointed with the Spirit. This was the identifying mark.

In fact that's the very meaning of the word Christ, the anointed one. Messiah, the anointed one. Why is he called that? Because he was anointed with the Spirit of God. And that was the prophetic word of Isaiah. This is the identifying mark upon him. Listen to these words. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. This is Messiah speaking because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set free those who are oppressed. When Peter preached at the house of Cornelius in Acts chapter 10 he says this, you know of Jesus of Nazareth how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him.

Isn't that amazing? And you know what? It's consistent in the gospels. It never appeals to the deity of Christ to explain the power that's being exerted through him. It always appeals to the fact that the spirit of God was empowering him. You think you can live without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit? You think you could do anything to please God to live for God to accomplish his calling your life without the Holy Spirit? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Jesus lived in a independence upon the Spirit. We're told in first Timothy that he was vindicated by the Spirit. The word is he was justified by the Spirit. What that means is it was the power of the Spirit working in him that displayed the fact that he truly was righteous.

That our substitute who went to the cross for us was righteous. Absolutely perfectly righteous and that was accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. And we're told that he was empowered by the Spirit in various ways. The Spirit was poured out upon him. The Luke chapter 4, the Luke says Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit and the wilderness. And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and news about him spread through all this rounding district. And then in Mark 12, he puts it this way, immediately the Spirit impelled him to go out into the wilderness. You know what the word impelled is? Listen to this Greek word, Ekbalo.

That means to throw out the Spirit, cast him out into the wilderness. So all the reason he uses this word, it's a word that expresses great force. Jesus told us when you look on the fields that are white for harvest, pray that God would cast out workers into the field. You ever pray that God would send out more people into the world to take the gospel? That's what he says we should do. And it is a forceful sending out. He extrudes them, Ekbalo. And here it says it's Jesus was being led in power by the Holy Spirit. The reason I want to impress is upon you is for you to see that all that Jesus did, he did in the power of the Holy Spirit and his dependence upon the Spirit by whom he was anointed.

He performed miracles, all of his healing, casting out demons, is attributed to the power of the Holy Spirit. He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. Are you in the mulligrubs? Are you lacking joy? I tell you the only one who can give you joy is the Holy Spirit because joy is a fruit, a part of the fruit of the Spirit. And it says that Jesus when his disciples came back from their missionary journey throughout Jerusalem taking the gospel of the kingdom and they came back and they were just overwhelmed with the power of God. How he healed the sick, how he gave them authority to preach the gospel and it said in Jesus greatly rejoiced in the Spirit because God had hidden his secret from the wives and revealed it to the simple.

He was calling his disciples simple and he was rejoicing so greatly that he could hardly contain himself. The strongest word used in the New Testament for joy, giddiness, you ever seen somebody get so happy they can't contain themselves, that would be the word he would use. He was overwhelmed with joy by the Holy Spirit. Are you lacking in joy? The Holy Spirit is a source in the life of the believer of real, profound, powerful joy. We're also told that he preached in the Spirit. Isn't that amazing? That Jesus depended upon the Spirit of God to empower him to preach the gospel? What a unique thought. You have to depend on the Spirit in order to preach the gospel. You have to depend on the Spirit not just to stand before a crowd but to preach the gospel to your neighbor, to your family.

You have to depend on the Spirit. It's the Spirit who will empower you and he made disciples, we're told he instructed them throughout his entire ministry by the Spirit and then we're told this and this is really the culmination of it. It was in the power of the Spirit that he offered himself to God on the cross. Think of that. Here is where we were set free. Here is the basis of our justification, of our forgiveness. Jesus went to the cross and the Bible says that he did it in the power of the Spirit. Hebrews 9, 14, how much more will the blood of Christ through the eternal Spirit? Through the power of the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God. Think of that. That it is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that is set you free from the law of sin and death.

Is it important that you live a life in which you actually overcome sin and your life? That you get militant about sin? A little later in this chapter, down in chapter 8, he says in verse 12, so the umbrella we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to flesh. I'm not obligated to give in to every lust, no matter what the commercial says. You go only go around life in life once so get all the lust you can. Paul says, you're not in our obligation to obey the lust, to obey the flesh. For if you are living according to the flesh you must die. Quite literally, you're about to die. But then listen to this. But if by the Spirit, if by the Spirit, if in the power of the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

You know where Paul gets that kind of language from Jesus? You haven't heard people make excuses for their sin? I'm sure you have. You probably heard yourself. You ever heard yourself make excuses for your sin and wonder, man, where did I come up with that? Jesus blows away every excuse. Your right hand to fend you? It's because of your right hand, you don't want to sin, but your right hand keeps sinning. Cut it off. Your right eye affends you. Your right eye causes you to stumble into sin. Jesus said, pluck it out. Now do you think he actually literally meant they should gouged their eye out and cut their hand off? No. But what he's saying is, you can't live the Christian life. You can't be a follower of Christ without being radical in your commitment in the power of the Spirit to overcome the law of sin and death.

Let me tell you, the law of sin and death is just that. The older I get, the more I see of Christians and more experience in my own life of Christians who waste years in their Christian life, in simply going along and not experiencing what God has promised them, not depending upon the Spirit to overcome and actually experience freedom in their daily life from the law of sin and death. And then when they get to be my age, they look back with such incredible regret. Don't live your life in regret. Take seriously what's being promised here and what's the implications of flow out of this, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. Now he's, first of all, it's true because it was the Spirit in Christ that even took him to the cross and then we're told that he was raised from the dead and in the power of the Spirit.

In other words, it was the Spirit, it was the Spirit's power who raised him from the dead and the resurrection of Christ is the guarantee that what he has done for us is enough, is enough. There are a lot of Christians. If they actually acted according the way they think, they would be taking their good works to the foot of the cross or their suffering or their depression or their self-immolation and laying at the foot of the cross and saying, let me put the finishing touches on the work of Christ. Christ was raised from the dead because what he accomplished on the cross for our sins was complete. It was complete and he did it in the power of this Holy Spirit. It's an amazing statement at the end of, in the upper room.

Now think about this a second. Think about this. Jesus says at the very end of his ministry, he says to the disciples in the upper room, the night he was arrested. But he's along with his disciples. Before they go out into the garden, he's arrested. He says to them, you know the Spirit because he abides with you. He goes on to say, but he will be in you. In other words, I'm going to pour out the Spirit and he's going to be in you. But you know what he meant by this? You know that you know the Spirit because he abides with you. You know how the Spirit was abiding with him for three and a half years. They saw the Spirit of God at work up close and personal in the light of Jesus Christ. Now Jesus is going to the Father and he says, I'm going to pour out the Spirit.

When I pour out the Spirit, you're going to do greater works than I've done. The same Spirit who empowered me that you've observed in my life, that same Holy Spirit is going to abide in you. You know that you have no excuse for not living the Christian life, believer? You have been equipped by the Spirit of God. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. Something has happened inside of you that has changed everything. You can never say that you were a slave of sin. You must say when you sin, I am obeying a foreman power that has no authority over me and can never hold me. The believer can never be held permanently by sin. I know that because that's what the Bible teaches.

First John 3.9, he that has been truly born of God cannot live a life of sin because God seed is in him and he is not able to live a life of sin. Oh, you can mess around with it. You can delve into it that you can't embrace it anymore. You can't live in it anymore. John says. Now, if you are in, sorry about that, if you are in Christ Jesus, the Spirit of life worked in Christ Jesus to accomplish our deliverance, but there's more. This is really Paul's point here. If you are in Christ Jesus, the Spirit of life is now at work in you. He is at work in the life of the person who is in Christ Jesus. It's true of every person who is in Christ Jesus that the Spirit, and this is Paul's focus here. We have this Spirit working in us because we are in Christ.

In other words, every Christian without exception has the Spirit of life at work in him. He says this in verse 9 of this chapter. Notice this, however, you are not in the flesh. That's not your domain, but you are in the Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he doesn't belong to him. This is a mark of the believer. You have the Spirit abiding in you. You have the Spirit has taken up residence in you, and the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free forever from the Law of sin and death. So in Christ Jesus, you have this freedom, and notice these implications. In Christ Jesus, you have pardon from sin and power over sin.

Those are two different things. You understand what I'm getting at? Power, pardon from sin. That's justification and power over sin. That's sanctification. That's transformation. That's living the Christian life in the power of the Spirit. You've been given both in Christ Jesus. We know two things about it. Based upon what Paul says here in verses 1 and 2, that being united to Christ by faith makes his pardon and righteousness ours. And that's why Paul can say there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. You have been forgiven. Are you a really good sinner? I mean, are you a really outrageous sinner? If you are in Christ Jesus, you have been forgiven. That's why Paul says, I am the chief of sinners.

I outstrip them all because I gave my life to the destruction of Christ in the church. The other thing though is that being united to Christ by faith makes his power an authority over sin ours. That the Spirit that empowered Jesus has come to live within us. And this Spirit who has power over the law of sin and death, who defeats the power of the law of sin and death is in us because we are in Christ Jesus. Now what this does is it reveals to us the relationship between justification and sanctification. Sorry for using those big words, those are just biblical terms for these two great works of God. God has justified you in Christ. He has declared you to be righteous before him because of your faith in Christ.

No matter what kind of a notorious sinner you are, if you have rested your faith in Christ Jesus, you have been declared to be righteous as righteous as Jesus Christ is righteous in the eyes of God. That's justification. Sanctification is the work of the Spirit of God within us to change us into righteous people on the inside. Now what I want you to see is there is a priority here and necessary priority. It's necessary for you to understand it. That's why it's given to us in this chapter over and over again in these chapters of Romans that there is a necessary priority. Harden comes before power. See what we tend to do is we want to withhold pardon as a motivator to get people to live right. Like some people get upset.

That's why Paul says they're saying that I'm saying that I'm teaching. Well why don't you go ahead and send more so that you could display more of God's grace. You see what Paul understands is until you come to grips with the fact that you have been declared righteous in Christ Jesus, you will never have what you need to have power over the power of sin in your life. You have to come to understand your pardon before you experience the power and notice this. Forgiveness for our sins through faith in Christ must precede and then empower our battle against sin in our lives. That's a basic principle. I'm trying to get across here. It is that forgiveness for our sins through faith in Christ must precede and then empower.

In other words, the knowledge that I'm forgiven in Christ Jesus empowers me in the battle against sin in my life. I notice this. This is the pattern in Scripture. The divine declaration before the human transformation. The divine declaration is you are righteous in Christ. The human transformation is this work of the spirit of God empowering you to say no to sin in yesterday. Justification precedes sanctification. God's declaration precedes him transforming you into the image of Christ. Does that make sense? I'm not sure it does. I can't tell by look on your face. Does this make sense? Do you see it? You see what Paul says? Notice in the end of chapter eight when he's describing this entire process of God's work in our life.

He says in verse 28, we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God to those who are called according to his purpose and then he gives the evidence. How do you know that's true? Here's the evidence. For those who me for new, those whom he set his love on before time began, he says he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son. That is, he determined how he was going to conform you into the image of Jesus Christ so that he would be first born among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called, these whom he called, he also justified, he declared righteous when they rested their faith in Jesus and these whom he justified, he also glorified.

Now he's looking at it in this big panorama and he's telling us that the justification, this declaration of God that you are righteous before him comes before you are conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. The plan that he has for your life and my life as someone who Jesus owns is that he's going to justify me and then through a lifetime until he brings me into his presence, he's going to transforming into the image of Christ until he brings me into the very presence of God. It begins within declaring me to be absolutely righteous, as righteous as Jesus Christ. Now the point is that we have to grab whole of this, we have to live by this truth, we have to preach the gospel to ourselves. You know, it says in Romans 8, a little before what I was just reading, you're all from here with this text.

It says, we don't know how to pray as we ought, but the spirit helps our weakness with runnings too deep for words. You know, it dawned on me the other day that some people, just in conversation, some people think that what that verse is saying is, you know, the fact is, you don't really pray very well, you pray for the wrong things, you don't really pray with the right way, you don't know how to pray like you should, but the Holy Spirit prays perfectly and he's praying for you. And therefore, don't worry about it. You don't need to pray, I mean, you know, pray on your way to work, pray over the food, pray when you can, but don't worry about it. The Spirit of God intercedes for us with runnings too deep for words.

That ain't the point of the text at all. If you look at the text, what he's saying is, when I pray, when I go before God, I always go with a huge dose of ignorance. And so, as I call out to him and pray to him, I'm asking him for certain things. I don't know what the will of God is, but you know, while I am in the act of praying, the Spirit intercedes with runnings too deep for words. You know what happens? If you prevail in prayer, it's you will begin to know the truth about yourself. You begin to know what you need to pray for. As we know, a letter the other day that Jack Miller wrote to a missionary who was going through some really hard times over in Uganda. And he was telling him, I know you're struggling.

This guy was going through a very severe struggle. And so, Miller was trying to encourage me, said, I know you're going through a great struggle. I've been through them myself. And in the midst of this, you don't know what to do. You don't even know your blind spots. You don't know how to get the log out of your eye. You're trying to confront someone and you know that God says before, you try to take the spec out of your eye, get the log out of your own eye. You don't even know about your log. I hate to tell you this. The fact is, you're all like that too. And so am I. You don't really know what the log is. Now, a lot of people know more about it than you do at times because they keep getting hit by it.

But you often don't know what the log is. And Miller was saying, I am discovered that it will take a day to fast and pray and go before the Lord. He said after about four hours, it's amazing that this happened so often after about four hours of prayer. My eyes began to be opened to the log that's in my eye. And God begins to prepare me. And you're thinking, four hours, four hours. Oh, let's see. That'd be like an evening of TV, wouldn't it? Four hours of prayer. And God says four hours of garbage, four hours of giving yourself to this idol. And you can't pray. He said to his disciples, you can't stay awake for an hour. He's about to be arrested and go to the cross and accomplish the greatest work and all of time and eternity.

And you can't stay awake and pray. And Miller was saying, I find that it takes me about four hours before the Spirit of God begins to open my eyes and I begin to see the log in my eye. And what I really need, you know, you don't really know what you need. And I don't either until I begin to experience this ministry of the Spirit in opening my eyes and letting me see what my real need is. All of us are struggling with sin. Everybody in this church is struggling with sin. It's not because I've interviewed any of you. It's just because I know the dynamic. You all have sin, dwelling in you, and you're all struggling with sin. Some of you don't even, it doesn't feel like a struggle sometimes. But we're all struggling with sin.

The problem is we don't really know what the log is. You know, our blindness, our spiritual blindness manifests itself in so many ways. We might be very proud, arrogant. We might be, you know, doubt, doubtful about everything that God has promised and commanded us. We might be one of those people who is just, these are really rare. But, you know, with those people who want to be in control of everything, really get upset if they're not in control. You know people like that. You probably met somebody like that in your life. But we don't really know what underlies all that. What is it down deep that God really needs to remove? I mean, think of it like this. You're out on a boat in a little row boat and your boat's beginning to sink and you can't see the 10 tons of idols that are there with you.

You don't know how to get rid of the idols because you don't see them. You're blind to them. Well, how are your eyes open? The spirit of living God. And the only way that we can begin to deal with that is if we understand, first of all, we can only be delivered from sin for which we've already been forgiven. You can only find deliverance from sin that has already been forgiven. You're struggling with sin in your life until you come to grips with the fact that the basis of forgiveness for that sin is the cross of Jesus Christ. You'll never be free from that sin. You never be free from it. You have to start. That's why we come with confession, repentance. We turn back to Him. And it's only as we embrace the truth that we are righteous in Christ that we will begin to have the power to overcome the power of sin.

Now, this necessary priority being right with God precedes doing right for God. You have to be gripped by justification before you can experience sanctification. That's just the truth. I say I experience that my whole life with people who were taught at brand of holiness that always kept them wondering about what it's going to be like on the last day. Let me give you an illustration of this. You're on trial in a courtroom for a capital offense. If you are declared guilty, you're going to die. A guilty verdict is going to bring the death penalty. A not guilty verdict means freedom and life. You go before the judge and the judge says to you, well, there's two ways that I can deal with this. One way is I can acquit you right now decisively, irrevocably, and release you so that you can go and live a free and joyful and loving life that shows you really are not a rebellious crime loving lawbreaker, though you used to be.

Or here's the other plan, the other option. I can postpone the trial and the verdict. For several years, I'll let you go free. I'll assign you to a parole officer to watch you all the time and let you go out and prove to yourself and to the court by your life and then have the trial after that at the end of life and base the verdict on whether your behavior was satisfactory or not. Which plan do you want? I want to tell you, great majority of professing Christians live under the second plan. They're waiting for the judgment day to find out whether or not their sins have been forgiven. There's actually a denomination that propagates this and teaches this. They don't even use the word save. You can't see a person who's saved because they don't know.

They'll never know until they stand before in the judgment of God and then God looks at their life and makes the judgment. That's not Christianity. That ain't the gospel. God has chosen the first way. There's a clear dramatic difference between this. You are the first way. God says, I'm going to quit you right now and set you free and give you life. And I want you to live a life of loving confidence and joy and appreciation. I want you to demonstrate by your life that you have been truly forgiven. Live in light of this forgiveness. A person who understands that knows that he's free from condemnation and with gladness of heart, with gratefulness of heart, he lives a life that shows the wisdom and the mercy of the judge, all the glory goes to the judge.

The second way is you have this trial hanging over your head and the basis of that future verdict is going to be your own behavior whether you measure up or not. And you won't because the standard is Jesus Christ. The gospel is that God has made his declaration two thousand years ago. And that declaration is what justification is. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. You have to grab that before you can live in the freedom of forgiveness. Martin Luther said, I wish I had the exact statement I don't, but let me paraphrase. Martin Luther said, the devil is going to continually tell you that your faith is not deep enough, strong enough, pure enough, good enough. He's going to undermine your confidence in Christ by critiquing the smallness of the impurity of your faith.

You see the important thing is not how strong your faith is. It is how strong is the object of your faith. What is it? Who is it that you are trusting? Notice this, if you're going to get victory over particular sins, you have to have joyful confidence that those sins are forgiven. That's really all I want to say this morning. And you think, well, you shut up. Well, because I got a few more minutes, if you are going to get victory, if you're going to get victory over particular sins, you have to have joyful confidence that those sins are forgiven. You know that will manifest itself in repentance. Repentance is always turning back. It's always turning back to God, turning back to God, coming to God as those who are forgiven in Christ Jesus, entering in a fresh into that fellowship that He has called us to.

So this approach, this understanding that God has given us of the Christian life, you have to understand that Satan's primary weapon to keep you in bondage is guilt and fear. Now notice this in chapter 8. Notice this. Well, wait a minute. I'll show you right here. God's primary weapon against Satan is to set you free. His primary weapon to set you free is redemption and adoption. Now without belaboring this, notice the correspondence. How does God answer guilt? Redemption. The work of Christ on the cross. How does God speak to your fear? Adoption. He makes you a son of God, a daughter of God, a child of God, his own. You don't just enter into a right relationship with God. We become a part of the family.

You become a family member in the family of God. You become a son of God, which is actually more than just a child of God, a son of God. It isn't the mailness. It's the fact that you have a standing before God as an adult son. Now notice this. Romans chapter 8 verse 15 says, for you did not receive the Spirit of slavery. The Holy Spirit is not a Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry out of Father. You get the message of Paul that Paul says, what God is doing in your life is he brings the Spirit of God to live in the person who's been redeemed to affirm to their heart that they are a child of God. They are forgiven. And then he says, in Galatians chapter 4, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive the adoption as sons.

We might come into the family of God and call God Father. And because you are sons, it's not enough. He says that you have become sons. Not only did you become a son of God, but he says, God has sent forth the Spirit of his son into our hearts crying out of Father so you are no longer a slave but a son. You see what he's getting at? It wasn't enough for God to say, okay, he's my son. She's my son and so forth. I want them to know it. And so what does he do? He puts a resident member of the Trinity inside of you to confirm to your heart continually that God is your Father. And it's out of that recognition that you'll begin to experience the freedom from the law of sin and death. And then in Matthew 26, Jesus said when he instituted the Lord's Supper, think about this.

When he instituted the new covenant through the Lord's Supper, he says, this is my blood. As he lifted the cup, he says, this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. In other words, at the heart of the new covenant is the forgiveness of sins. He really reiterates this over and over and over again. As he talks about this warfare that we are in and we are in a warfare, God has called you not only to a glorious work in the kingdom of God, what she has, and he's equipped you. He's gifted you. He's called you to something that's going to have eternal value to it instead of being garbage after 10 years. And not only has he brought you into the family of God, made you his own, he wants you to know it, he wants you to experience it and he wants you to fight for it because there's going to be resistance.

Don't be a pansy spiritually. Don't just live in sin. Don't live your life deciding, well, I've got this set of four or five here that not many people know about. I just kind of keep that off the side. Come to grips with the fact that God has given me this spirit so you could be set free from the law of sin and death. You don't have to live in this death that sin brings. You could be set free to actually worship the living God. You put the spirit in you so that you could use your mouth to praise him and glorify him so that your heart would be freed up so that you could actually dance before Almighty God in worship and adoration. That's what he's called us for. And yet some of us are so stov up because we're not free.

We're in bondage and he wants to free you. He wants to free you. So that is willing to pay the price of his own son and give you the spirit of God to live within you so he would be free and live in this freedom. Look back at chapter 7 verse 6. Notice how our freedom from the curse of the condemnation of the law precedes and grounds our practical daily transformation of the service of God. As we live for God as we serve him, he says the ground of it, the basis of it is this great deliverance in Christ Jesus. The fact that I've been forgiven. And every time we come to the Lord's table we're celebrating the fact that we've been forgiven, we've been forgiven. We are the fellowship of the forgiven.

Listen to this verse. But now by dying to what once bound us we have been released from the law. This is the decisive removal of guilt and curse and condemnation which we should have borne. It was ours. We should have borne it into the law but we have been released from it because Christ died in our place and became a curse for us. That's what he's saying. He goes on in verse 6 so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code. It's exactly what Romans 8 2 is saying. God wants you to serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. He wants there you to experience the deep profound work of the cross in your life with the power of the spirit and to live out of that and not out of the external pressures that anybody puts on you.

The church or anybody else but out of this power that dwells within to set us free. What's the big deal? Why are you going into such detail over there? What's the big deal? What differences it make? Well, it's the difference between fighting fearfully to get justified and fighting confidently because we are justified. Are you right with God? You better believe I'm right with God. Oh, you've lived perfect this week? No, I've sinned this week. I've failed this week. I've lacked faith this week. I've been filled with fear this week. But I'm right with God because Jesus has declared me to be righteous in here. It's the difference between your heavenly court trial being behind you with irrevocable judgment of God.

This verdict is not guilty. The difference between that and the fact that you live as though you're on trial and this trial is in front of you and one of these days you're going to stand before God and he's going to, depending on your performance, he's going to pass judgment. It's a difference between freedom of confidence and the bondage of fear. He wants you to have freedom. It's a difference between giving Christ a double glory of both being our righteousness as well as being as well as working righteousness in us and giving him only the single glory of helping us become our own righteousness. I'm going to tell you that's called semi-pollagenism and it's what most of the church in America believed by all the literature and all the TV programs called semi-pollagenism and it means that you're not quite all bad and if you will work hard God will help you to become what you ought to be.

You know what that is? That is not the gospel. The gospel is you have to come to grips with the fact that you are truly and really a sinner that deserves to be separated from God because of your attitude towards him and yet he has sinned his son in the world to bring him into the circle of fellowship with the living God simply by putting their trust in Jesus Christ and when that happens and you are declared righteous that verdict is good for time and eternity. Let me tell you something. A million years from now, a million years from now we will still be talking about justification by faith alone in Christ alone. Isn't it wonderful? Absolutely. That's what we sing about it all the time. We're going to sing about it all during our life and all through eternity.

Let's stand together and pray. Our Father, we confess to you that we are so prone to look into ourselves instead of looking up to you in the nitten grid of life and what we find there is that we are always lacking and our hearts either get filled with pride or fear. You know, we look to you, our hearts are filled with peace because of what you have done in Christ Jesus. I pray you make us a church that majors in the majors that continually encourages one another in the faith. God, we want to be transformed. I want to be changed. I want to grow in the faith. I want my character continually changed. That's what we desire. This ongoing transformation by the Spirit. Father, we pray that you help us to count to be true and to rest in our justification Christ so that we can experience our transformation by Christ in our lives.

Help us to encourage one another as we leave this place to incite one another to love and continue so we'll give you the thanks. Amen.