Romans 8:1-8 - Beyond a Manual

Have you ever wished there was a manual for how to do life?  If you just thought, “there is one!  It’s called the Bible!”  you’d have a pretty good point. But… if you’ve ever come to the Scripture and thought things like “this is overwhelming” or “this is too high of a standard to live by” or “I keep trying and I keep failing” you’ve come across a very important truth.  This isn’t just a manual to live by, it’s the revelation of Jesus, the One that the Scriptures say changes everything when we put our trust in him. We’re in Romans 8:1-8, the part of the letter where Paul leads us out of confusion and turmoil and into life and freedom.

Transcript

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Have you ever wished that there was a really good manual for how to do life? Now, if you just thought, well, yeah, but there is one and it's called the Bible, you'd have a pretty good point. But maybe you've come across these scriptures and you've thought things like, this is a little overwhelming, or maybe something like, I keep trying and I keep failing, or even, this standard feels impossible to attain, then you've actually come across a pretty important truth. This isn't just a manual for life, it's the scriptures that point us to Jesus, the one who absolutely changes everything and empowers us to live differently. On that happy note, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am so glad that you've joined us today. We're in Romans chapter 8, verses 1 through 8. It's the part of the letter where Paul challenges us and moves us beyond the turmoil and confusion of chapter 7 and into life and freedom. Go ahead and open up your copy of the Word to Romans chapter 8, and we'll read the first eight verses together and process them. But before we do anything else, let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for this wonderful day that you've given us. God, thank you for your scriptures that we get to to read and to learn more about who you are and how you care for us. But God, thank you more than anything that these scriptures scriptures point us to you. We love you. We're here to meet with you. Amen. All right, let's read these first eight verses together. Paul writes, Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires, but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their minds set on what the spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. Let's pause and take a moment to listen to what God has for us. Once again, if it's helpful for you to have that moment a little longer, go ahead and pause this podcast and then we'll observe the text together. All right, let's move into this passage and we're gonna break it into three, I guess, kind of uh little little chunks here. We're gonna begin with those first two verses. And you know, I don't know about you, but after going through Romans chapter seven and even a little bit of of chapter six, I'm like, finally, this is a brush, a brush, a breath of fresh air, and and I'm excited about uh about how this you know comes out of that part. So I I've kind of encaptioned this part, like when we are in Christ. There are some things that are true for us and about us when we are in Christ. The first thing that just screams out in the best possible way is that there is no longer any condemnation. And and I find that to be like such life-giving and like lifts the weight off of your shoulders, kind of news. Because when we're going through uh Romans chapter 7 and we're we're engaging with Paul in the way that he's engaging with like the law and that battle uh that he is expressing in Romans 7, the the thing that I want to do, I can't do, the thing I don't want to do, I keep doing that, all of that is there, and he talks about the way that that sin sprang to life by knowledge of the law, all of that stuff is going on, and then we get to this point, and and he says, There is no condemnation, it's gone, it's done away with. So when we are in Christ, that condemnation that we feel outside of Jesus is immediately taken from us, and that spiritual truth leads us into a completely different way of living. So condemnation is gone, and then we are set free by the Spirit of God. That really is highlighted there in verse 2. Uh, he gives you life. The law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. And it's just glory, right? It's just the best possible news that we could receive at this point. And then we move into verses three and four. And I wanted to say that Jesus met the mark. And and I'm saying that, uh, using those words intentionally, because he talks about this idea of sin and and what that all means. Now, one of the definitions, like one of the literal definitions of that word for sin, which is hamartea, it means to miss the mark, right? That's a good way to think about what sin is. It's missing the mark. What Jesus didn't do that, he met the mark, he hit the mark, and because of that, uh, we have this this new life and this new hope because of him. Uh God recognizes that although his uh his law was and is good, there's nothing uh wrong with the law itself, but sin seizes that opportunity, right, and and comes, I guess, to life in a in a certain way. It's he says it's it was powerless to change us, verse three. The law was powerless to do it because uh it was weakened by the flesh, right? And and so it's not that the law was bad, it's that the flesh doesn't know what to do with it and um and then kind of drags drags us down. Uh and so we he we read there in the end of verse three, and so he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, right? How is it fully met in us? It's through Jesus. Jesus met the mark. And and because of that, we no longer live by the flesh, but according to the spirit. And when we recognize that essential idea, our walk with Jesus dramatically changes and we begin to experience victory. Uh, and it's not that we don't have moments where we get things wrong or make mistakes, but the the characteristic, the trait of our lives uh absolutely and in essence changes. It's that idea that we're no longer just looking at the scriptures as a manual or a set of rules or uh just a book of guidance in black and white, or even red and white. Uh we're looking at it as as the revelation of Jesus. And then when we're connected to Jesus, then we get to live completely differently because we're not just trying to achieve something on our own. We recognize the power of God in us and we're connected to a person more than we're connected to the text. All right, let's move on. Verses five through eight, that whole second paragraph, at least the way it lays out in uh in my copy of the scriptures, I'm asking this question. What is your mind set on, right? Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires, is how he phrases it there. And and I I wanted to just kind of uh bring this back to us in maybe a slightly different format. So if we insist on living according to the flesh, like if that's the direction we choose to go, we desire what the flesh desires. Makes sense, right? We do we desire what the flesh desires, but the problem with that is that leads us into death, it leads us into hostility toward God, and an inability, and I'm really being precise with my words here, an inability to follow God's law and to please God. You know, I keep the vibes pretty positive here on Meet Me in the Word. That's intentional, by the way. I think that we need that. I want us to look forward to our time together here with Jesus and with each other and in the Word. But if we ever think that we can somehow please God without the power of God and the Spirit of God in our lives, then then we're we're fooling ourselves and we can't like play around with that sort of stuff. So when we move into that kind of thinking, like, oh, yeah, I'm I'm okay, you know, Jesus accepts me as I am, which is true, but the idea that that we don't need to change or that we don't need to be surrendered and submitted fully to God, uh that's that's a myth. That's a that's something that will lead us to disappointment and despair ultimately and uh a separation from God. So if we think that we can you know please God while opposing God's design and standards, uh then we're in deep, deep trouble. So that's the last positive part of uh part of our meditation today. On the other hand, if we live according to the Spirit, we desire what the Spirit desires. And that brings about life, that brings about peace. Those are the things that we all not only need, but I think crave, even in this life. I think we all recognize that the world we live in is broken to varying degrees in different places and in different people, but broken nonetheless. We fight disease, we fight just the the afflictions of people, right? All over the place. That's a that's a part of this existence. And so we yearn for true peace. We yearn for that holistic sense of belonging to God and to understand who we are in that context. And and when we live live according to the Spirit of God, then He does that transformative work in us. He does change us, and and the things we used to maybe crave or desire or yearn for begin to fade away, sometimes dramatically and sometimes slowly, but they fade away. And instead of those things, we get to gaze at Jesus and we have this newfound hope, this life that is free of condemnation, this life that is free from that really harsh fleshly response to the law. Now we get to live completely differently, according to the Spirit, because of the person of Jesus. All right, two things uh for us to to take with us to reflect on as we uh move towards the rest of whatever God has for us today. The first one is is thank you, right? Thank, thank you, Jesus, for the freedom you've given me, right? So thank Jesus for the freedom that he's given you. It's important, I think, that we live lives filled with gratitude. So take a moment to thank him for all that he's done for you, specifically the freedom that you can experience in him even this very moment. And the second part is an encouragement. The encouragement is keep your communication with the Spirit open, keep it wide open, uh, be intentional about it. Take moments even throughout your day. It doesn't need to be a long, drawn-out thing, but just to say, uh, Lord, are you leading me in this way? Is this from you, or am I operating in something else? It can just be a quick, you know, prayer to the Lord, but just get into the habit of listening, carefully listening well to what the Spirit has for you. Let's go ahead and pray. Jesus, thank you for this amazing day that you've given us. God, thank you for your spirit. Thank you that we are no longer under any kind of condemnation. Thank you that we can rejoice in who you are. Be with us now. Amen.