Romans 8:1-17, “Those who belong to God will live to please God.”
Last week we studied how the Law is spiritual, and we are flesh and blood; how Christ has freed us from sin and death, and has granted us forgiveness and eternal life.
1Corinthians 15:56, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the
law.” (The Law judges us as lawbreakers, guilty before God, and deserving of His righteous punishment.) 57, “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Romans 8:1-4... As a believer and follower of Christ you have God’s promise that no sin you could ever commit will be held against you by God, because of Christ.
God poured out His righteous judgement on sin by making His own Son (Jesus) to be a sin offering, freeing us from sin’s penalty and condemnation, in order to live by God’s Spirit.
Romans 8:5-8... Unbelievers will desire and seek that which feeds and pleases the flesh; whereas believers will desire and seek to do that which honors God, for they are led by God’s Spirit, not by the sinful flesh.
Sinful man is a dead man walking! He can do nothing to please God, for he is an enemy of God; but believers are members of God’s own family, seeking to please our Father in heaven (see Galatians 5:16-24; 6:7-10)!
Romans 8:9-11... But those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord, repenting of their sins and trusting God’s Son for salvation, have God’s Spirit placed in them (John 1:12-13; 3:3, 6; 1Corinthians 12:12-13; Ephesians 1:13-14; 2Peter 1:3-4).
Without God’s resident Spirit, a person is still dead in sin; but if God’s Spirit is in you, you have been made alive spiritually in Christ for eternity.
Romans 8:12-15... We are no longer to be slaves to our flesh, to the sinful desires of the unregenerate body we live in; and so, we struggle to put to death the control our flesh wants to hold over us.
We are to feed upon God’s Word, expressing our love for the Lord by seeking to obey the commands we are given in His Word, telling us how we should then live as those who are born of God’s Spirit, children of God.
God’s Spirit is always in alignment with God’s Word, leading us to do what is right in God’s eyes (Ephesians 5:1-17). God is our Father, Christ our Savior, and the Holy Spirit our trainer, conforming us to the character and nature of God. We have God’s Spiritual DNA in us, marking us as belonging to God.
Romans 8:16-17... All true believers, having been made children of God, will suffer along with and because of Christ, who was hated by the world, rejected by His own people, the Jews, abandoned by His very closest followers, the Disciples, after He was arrested; and yet He sacrificed Himself to set us free from sin’s penalty and condemnation.
The bad news is, that in this world God’s people will suffer because of the name of Christ.
John 15:18-19, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is
why the world hates you.”
2Timothy 3:12, “in fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
The good news is that even though we will suffer in this life, we are heirs with Christ, and we will be given glorified bodies that will enable us to live for eternity in heaven with God.
Matthew 5:10-12, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
2Corinthians 4:7-18, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Those who genuinely belong to God through the death and resurrection of God’s Son, have been born again by the Spirit of God, in order that we will live in such a manner as to bring honor and glory to God, while we are still on this side of heaven, because once we go to be with the Lord, we will never again be able to do anything that offends or displeases Him.
Now that is something to be thankful about!
Pastor Mike