Citizens Of The Kingdom - 2022 Advent Series

Church, we are in the Advent season again.

We are in Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Romans is in the New Testament.

It's between Acts and 1st and 2nd Corinthians after the Gospels.

We're going to go to Romans chapter 8 this morning.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

I don't know how familiar you are with God's word, if you grew up in the church or not, or any of those things, but something you need to know is that the book of Romans is often one of the kind of mountain pieces of theology for Christians.

So much theology is packed into that one book.

And then in that book, Romans 8 is well known for being this tremendous passage that answers so many questions for us.

See, chapter 7 of Romans ends with this question of will we ever overcome our flesh?

Will we ever experience victory over sin in this life?

Are we truly God's people?

And Romans says yes.

Yes, we are.

For those who are in Christ, yes, we're in Christ.

Christ has redeemed us, He's sanctifying us, He will hold us fast.

What a gift Romans 8 is to answer, again, so many of our questions.

So if you will turn with me to Romans, or if you're already there, hopefully, we'll read from verses 1 through 11.

This is God's holy and sacred word.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus, from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do, by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin.

He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death.

But to set the mind on the things of the Spirit is life and peace.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.

For it does not submit to God's laws, indeed it cannot.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

This is the word of the Lord.

So for those who are citizens of heaven, they belong to Christ, they belong to that kingdom.

Romans 8 is one of the greatest encouragements for us.

And we're going to be going through Romans 8 through this advent in the next four weeks.

I encourage you, brother, sister, turn to it and read it often.

If you don't know Jesus Christ, you've rejected his offer for salvation, or you simply don't know what he's offering you.

I encourage you to turn to Romans 8 and read it often.

And ask the Lord to open your eyes.

For it is one of the most sobering passages in the scriptures because it clearly lays out what God is doing and how he's redeeming his people and what it means to be his people.

So Romans 8 begins with this language of no condemnation.

This idea of love for his people.

No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Every single verse that I'm going to go through this morning, 11 verses I feel like could really be a sermon.

They really could.

Like every verse I'm reading it in my preparation, like, well, we could just do a series on that verse.

We can do a series on this verse.

And every one is a sermon.

So we're kind of going to try to put 11 sermons into one this morning.

We'll see how it goes.

But it begins with this language, this bold declaration.

No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

What a statement.

What a reality if that's true in your life, that there is no condemnation.

The world is telling you to do things, the world's condemning you.

The evil one, the enemy, is condemning you, saying you're not worthy, you're a sinner, you deserve hell, and then your own flesh, the verdict is guilty.

I'm messing up, I fall short.

So then you read this in Romans 1.

How is there no condemnation?

Is the Lord ignorant of my behavior?

Does he not know the things of my heart?

No.

He's well acquainted with your heart.

Well acquainted with your sin and your rebellion, your need for a savior.

He knows those things.

There's no condemnation.

Verse 2, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

There's no condemnation because Christ has set you free.

For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do.

This is the reality for all of us.

We're in our sin.

Before God, we're guilty.

Before God, we deserve punishment.

We've broken his law.

We've not measured up to his standard of perfection.

But Christ has come.

Christ has come and he's met that standard for us.

This is the beauty of the gospel.

This is what love is.

This is what we're celebrating at Christmas.

That we stood condemned without hope.

Guilty by the law.

But by sending his own son.

This is the second part of verse 3.

By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

So the reason you can read Romans 1 and say, how is it that there's no condemnation?

Well, what we know that we are guilty.

We did not measure up.

We broke God's law.

God gave the Ten Commandments.

Said, This is my standard.

This is what it means to follow me.

Keep these commandments.

And don't just keep them on the outside.

Don't just do the things.

Don't just not sleep with this person or not covet this thing or not tell a lie.

But don't do it in your heart.

It's not beyond comprehension to think, well, someone could keep the Ten Commandments on the outside.

But nobody, nobody can keep the law in their heart.

They cannot do it apart from the power of Jesus Christ.

So He has come for us.

This thing that just kind of seeps into our life, the thing that we're all born into, the condemnation we all have from conception.

Then God sends his son to deal with that.

In order that the righteous requirement of the law, the requirement that you stand perfect in order for God to adopt you end, that that requirement be met in Jesus Christ.

There is no other way.

There is no other way to meet that standard.

You can't give enough, you can't serve enough, you can't give enough compliments, you can't be a good enough person.

It is only through the life of Jesus Christ.

That the righteous requirement of the law be fulfilled.

For us.

It's not this kind of blanket statement.

It's just not like a blank check, like, hey, here you go for whoever, just kind of cash it in whenever you want.

It says, for us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

Those who are not living according to the flesh, they're not doing whatever the flesh, whatever impulses, whatever the world says to do, but they're walking according to the spirit.

Capital S Spirit, Holy Spirit, who is God.

He sent him for us.

The law stands.

The standard stands.

God doesn't, he doesn't just become lenient.

Like, well, you know, there's some things.

Just don't do the major things, and you're good.

He doesn't grade on a curve.

He holds his standards.

That's why he is just.

Perfectly just.

That's why we can say that he will deal correctly with all sin.

He deals with all sin, all injustices.

Everything will be dealt with because he is just.

And Jesus Christ paid the price.

For those who walk in the Spirit, for those who are His.

God is still just because Jesus has endured the wrath for our sin.

So He loves us.

So when He says no condemnation, it's a declaration of His love because it's only made possible by His work on the cross for us.

So He shows us this great love that we've been set free from this system of the law.

Again, not because the law is done away with, but because Christ has fulfilled the law.

He's met the requirements.

And now we're free to obey from a genuine heart.

A genuine heart.

Look with me at verse, look with me at verse five.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's laws.

Indeed it cannot.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Now in this passage, there's all kinds of legacy.

The flesh and the law and the spirit, what's flesh?

What's spirit?

All this kind of back and forth.

The spirit is God's spirit.

Those who set our mind on the things of God rather than the flesh.

The flesh is our fallen nature, the nature we're born with, the nature that, as Ephesians will say, is rebellious to God.

It does not want to submit to God, it wants to follow and serve itself.

The flesh wants us to be our own king and our own master.

But as Christians, those God has redeemed, we're called to follow the Spirit.

I love how clear and simple this passage is.

It's a wonderful passage to memorize, especially if you're fighting sin.

If you're a Christian, let me tell you, you're fighting sin.

It reveals such a simple truth.

Struggling with sin, feel like you're giving into sin.

You're probably not setting your mind on the things of the Spirit as you ought.

Set your mind.

Verses 7-8 just seven and eight brings this clarity and sobering clarity.

For to set your mind, to be determined, I'm gonna do what my flesh wants.

I don't care, I don't give a rip about what God wants.

I'm gonna set my mind on the flesh.

It's hostile to God.

It's not just like, I kind of you do your thing, God, I'm gonna do my thing, and we'll just kind of see how it pans out.

It's hostile.

It's aggression, it's rebellion against God.

Because you're not submitting to God's ways.

The reality is without Jesus Christ, even your foe or fake obedience, even though you might think it's genuine, it's not from the heart.

Because those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

This is why it's so important to realize that even if we're just doing the right thing, if we're doing the right thing from the wrong heart, it's still the wrong thing.

You can act like a good person, you can go to church, you can give, you can do all those things.

But if your heart doesn't desire to worship God, to follow Him, to find your purpose and your meaning and your salvation in Him and Him alone, you're still operating out of the flesh.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

So we need to ask ourselves, is this a pattern in our life?

What's the pattern?

Do we set our minds on the things of the Spirit?

Do we see that pattern increasing in our life?

Are we growing in our sensitivity to the things of the Spirit?

The things of God?

Are we growing more, or are we growing more callous to the things of God?

Man, if if if God was here, I probably wouldn't be watching this show.

That's the old thing.

Would you want to be watching this when God returns?

Well, God is here, right?

He's with us.

But are there things in your life that you're maybe, I just, if people found out about this, I would be ashamed.

And there's two reasons you'd be ashamed.

One, because you have this false idea of what God commands and you're submitting yourself to a false law, and that's wrong.

Or you're ashamed because it actually is shameful.

It's wrong and sinful.

We need to ask ourselves, what are we setting our minds on?

I think sometimes we just we go through the day, and it's not that we're like setting out to set our mind on the things of the flesh.

But the day just kind of happened.

Just woke up with the kids screaming and everything's going crazy, and you get to the end of the day, it's like, I don't remember being intentional about setting my mind on anything.

It just kind of happened.

And as Christians, we're called to live with intentionality.

We know again from verse one, there is grace for us, there is mercy for us.

But as God's people, there is a longing for obedience, a desire for obedience.

Not because we just want a gold star at the end, and we think it's just what we've got to do, what we gotta do, but we know that when we are obedient to Christ, we're obedient to God.

There is life in that, there is joy in that.

Our intimacy with the Lord is greater, our joy is greater.

Not because there's some kind of formula, we're just being obedient to the Lord.

And when there is obedience, that should be a clear indicator of those who are Christians.

Those who are Christians should be striving for obedience.

Again, we we always meet people who maybe they admire God, they appreciate the Bible, they're cool with the church and stuff, but they don't belong to Him.

They're still hostile in their minds to God because they're not obeying His word.

Obedience is a clear and evident mark of a Christian.

When we read verse 1, it says, There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

That is a heart that longs for obedience.

It's evident.

No desire, no interest in obedience, no pattern of obedience.

That's true in your life.

There's no desire to obey, you are still under condemnation.

There is hope because of what Christ offers us.

But for those who are in the spirit, there is life.

There's life, there's love for the Lord, there's obedience, and there is life.

Look with me in verse 9.

You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit, who dwells in you.

As Christians, we're to be people of life.

People of life.

We're alive because of what Christ has done for us.

We're alive because Christ is alive.

Because the Holy Spirit, as he raised Christ from death to life, so he's brought us from death to life.

This is what happens, this is our picture of this in baptism.

This is why the church is given the ordinance of baptism.

It's a symbol for us, an identification that Christ has done a work in us, and that we have been buried in our old nature, buried to Christ.

We're dead to that, and Christ Jesus has raised us up to new life in him.

So we walk in this life.

Yes, our bodies are dying.

Our bodies are dying, and they will continue to die.

They will die.

But our spirit lives for eternity.

It's set free from the consequences of sin.

And it will not die.

When we read a passage like this, you're alive in Christ.

Christ, He who raised Christ, the Holy Spirit, He will raise you as well.

We can read that and we just kind of gloss over it.

We're thankful for it.

We appreciate it.

We mean that, but the weight and the magnitude of this reality just slips by us.

It doesn't sit with us.

It doesn't really move us a lot.

You have been given life.

See, there's these qualifications through each kind of one of these passages saying, for those who have the Spirit, for those who are in Christ, for those who trust in the Lord, this is the qualification.

There are those who do not trust in the Lord.

Again, maybe they don't know the Lord.

They just they've never been exposed.

They don't know what the what's going on with Jesus in the Bible.

And there's some who have, and they're just rejecting God's means of salvation.

But the reality is God has brought us to life because He's created us for life.

We're created for these things.

So often we're just kind of plowing through life, thinking, man, we're just gonna work our jobs, we're gonna serve our families and do these things and just accept what comes to us.

But the reality is God has redeemed his people and given them life so they may have joy and hope and peace.

See, these aren't just Christmassy things, these are the things that come with redemption.

When God redeems his people.

But without the redemption, without trusting in the Lord, Following after him, there is no hope.

There is no joy.

There is no salvation.

Because your method of going through life is you're left to your own devices to figure out should I do this or should I do that?

Is this what my heart desires or is that what my heart desires?

And then you get a little older and you realize my heart desires things that are empty.

I've acquired things that my heart desired, it's empty.

John 10, 10 says that the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

That's the enemy.

That's his mission.

I have come.

Jesus has come.

That we may have life and have it abundantly.

This abundant life doesn't mean that we just hit easy street.

Things are great.

Relationships are perfect.

Life's just super chill.

It's wonderful.

But it means that we have purpose that will not fade.

We have hope that will not delay.

We have this joy that sustains us because we're walking with our creator.

And so, as citizens who belong to God's kingdom, our lives are to be marked by this reality that God has shown us his love.

That God has called us to obedience, and we're obedient to him.

Again, we all struggle with that, right?

We're all trying to grow, we're working our way in our obedience to the Lord.

But there is obedience in our life.

There's a longing for obedience.

And over the long haul, there's an indicator, there's a growth in our maturity in Christ.

And then there is life.

This is what the opposite of what the world will tell you, and what your flesh will tell you.

They say, Do what you feel is right, and in that your life will be good.

But Jesus says, I love you, I'll redeem you, follow my way, obey me, and in that you will have life.

So Jesus was faithful to come.

He was obedient.

In verse 3, he was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh to condemn sin in the flesh in order that you and I may have life.

Not just kind of meandering around, wondering what is our purpose, but that we would have life.

My encouragement to you is to begin to just ask yourself Am I setting my mind on the things of the Spirit?

Do I desire the things of God?

Do I feel encouraged?

Am I turning to the Word?

And pray.

Pray that the Lord would work the theology and the truth of Romans 8 into your soul if you're a believer and be built up.

And if you don't know the Lord, read Romans 8 and pray that God would reveal your need for a Savior and how good of a God He is and that He can save you.

Let's pray.