Best News Ever!

INTRODUCTION

SLIDE

Let’s suppose that you commit a crime that is a capital offense

And, after a chase, you are caught & arrested for that offense.

When you go to trial, your life hangs in the balance.

If you’re found guilty, as you deserve to be, it means death sentence,

but if you’re acquitted, it means life and freedom.

And let’s suppose that as the trial begins,

the judge decides to treat you with leniency

and so, he gives you two choices.

ONE CHOICE is that, even though you are guilty,

he will commute your sentence completely, permanently

and release you to go free and live a life with no strings attached

(with the hope that you will no longer live as a law-breaker

out of gratitude for his leniency.)

The other CHOICE is that the judge will release you,

but he will require you to wear an ankle bracelet

so that your every move can be tracked

and he will also assign a parole officer

to monitor everything you do.

Now, at the end of fifty years,

the judge will determine whether or not to carry out your sentence

and put you to death – all based on how well

you have proven to the court that

you have changed your life over that 50-year period.

Any variation from living totally innocent, will result in death.

Which of those two options would you choose?

I imagine that every single one of us would choose the first option, right?

Well, the gospel of Jesus provides us with the ability

to essentially make that same choice in the spiritual realm.

Through faith in Jesus, we have the ability to have our death sentence,

one which we deserve, commuted completely and permanently

so that we can live freely and righteously

out of gratitude for what Jesus has done on our behalf.

But unfortunately, it seems like,

in spite of what Jesus has made possible,

that many people choose the second option –

that of trying to achieve that commutation

of their sentence on their own

by the way that they live their lives.

My guess is that all of us have done that at some point in our lives.

I certainly know I have.

And if you’ve ever attempted to live like that - even for a brief time

– you know what a frustrating and unsatisfying kind of life that is.

So go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Romans 8.

Let’s see what God told Paul to write down for the believers in Rome.

And put to bed, once and for all, God’s truth.

Let’s understand that believing what God has told us in Romans 8:1

is the BEST NEWS EVER!

When the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee, he thought of the Law as physical.

Intended to control man’s outward actions.

But after Paul met Jesus,

then Paul realized that the Law actually condemned to death

Because he had to physically keep ALL the Law – without fail.

Before meeting Jesus, Paul was operating under Option 2.

He was guilty – the Law showed him that…..

But he was trying and trying to live his life in such a way

that how he lived would prove

that he was good enough

to have his guilty death sentence commuted.

Paul wrote concerning that very subject in the first part of Romans.

Paul showed us in Romans 1:1 thru Romans 3:20

That we are ALL condemned (guilty) before the Judge (God)

Paul concludes in Romans 3:23,

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

Paul confirms for us that the sentence of sinning is death.

Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death…..”

Ezekiel 18:20, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die…..”

Hebrews 9:22, “….. without shedding of blood is no remission.”

Without Jesus, Hell & Lake of Fire awaits those who are guilty.

But the GOOD NEWS Paul gives us in Romans 3:21-5:21.

Paul gives us the summary before the details in Romans 3:24

“Being justified freely by his grace

through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Paul talks about the POSITIONAL sanctification

we have in Christ, free of charge, in Romans 6

Maybe we’ll provide more detail in the near future.

Suffice it for now to say that, in Jesus,

we stand before God the Father

as pure, clean, sinless, guilt-free as Jesus, Himself.

(key phrase is IN JESUS)

In Romans 7 Paul talks about PRACTICAL sanctification.

That is, trying to live out the POSITIONAL sanctification

that we already have (if we are in Jesus).

He discovered that he, Paul, was carnal.

Therefore he found himself in a dilemma,

whenever he would intend to do good, evil was present with him. Often times, the good that he would do, he didn’t do.

Many times the evil that he wouldn’t do, he was doing.