God calls on everyone to reject the idea that they can justify themselves by their own good works. That’s what everyone who has yet to come to Christ is doing - seeking to justify themselves in the sight of God, in the sight of others or in their own sight.
Religion leads to the “comparison game.” I compare myself to others to prove my worth (Luke 18:11). Whether it’s an atheist, comparing himself to “religious hypocrites,” or the “good old boy” who justifies himself by saying he’ll never darken the church door because “most of those folks in church on Sunday are with me in the bar with me on Friday,” or the church goer who points out the sins of non-church goers - religion, justifying oneself, always leads to the comparison game because deep down, we know everything isn’t right and so we point to those we think are worse than us. Religion is a dead-end road.
One can never successfully justify himself by means of his good works; but in Christ, God has come and performed the one work necessary for our justification - He paid the penalty for our sin through His sacrifice on Calvary and demonstrated that sin’s penalty had been fully paid through His resurrection.
“He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” - Romans 4:25 (NIV)
But not only can we not be made right with God by means of our own effort, but once we have been declared right with God through faith in Christ, when it comes to living right for God, we cannot do that on our own either. Paul speaks of the futility and frustration associated with trying to live a God pleasing life by means of my own energy, effort, and ingenuity in Romans 7:14-24.
Paul illustration is that in New Testament times capital punishment was sometimes carried out by tying a murder victim’s body directly onto the perpetrator’s back. That way wherever he went he was literally weighed down by his crime, with no way to escape the stench of decomposing flesh. Eventually the bacteria-filled corpse infected him too and he died an agonizing death.
We can’t be right with God by our own effort & we can’t live right for God through our own effort. A “religious” approach is doomed to fail. That’s why Paul declares that my deliverance from this “roller coaster” experience of recommit, try & fail, recommit, try & fail, is my personal love relationship with the living Christ (v. 25a)!
Now, the question is, how to we “flesh out” that newness within us (v. 25b)? The key is choosing to reject religion for real power - the power of the Holy Spirit.
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1. We have a new law to live by - vs. 1-4
Rather than being subject to the law of sin and death, we can live by the law of the Spirit of life. As we live by the power of the Spirit, rather than self, we pass beyond the life of constant failure and self-condemnation described by Paul in chapter seven.
Picture a coin falling toward the ground under the influence of the law of gravity. The coin is powerless to overcome that downward pull. It is in its very nature to fall. But before goes too far, someone reaches out, catches the coin, and then lifts it higher and higher in defiance of the law of gravity. The law of the spirit of life in their arm overcomes the law of gravity. This doesn’t mean the original law has ceased to operate, but it does mean that a higher law has come into force. When I try, through my own effort, to live for God, the law of sin and death comes into play and I will fail. But “in Christ Jesus” a higher law operates, “the law of the Spirit of life;” and this law sets us free from the lesser law of sin and death.
The limitation of the coin illustration is that the coin has no will of its own, while we do. If we choose to submit to the law of the Spirit of life, we will not remain subject to the law of sin and death; and escape the condemnation associated with the “roller coaster” experience of recommit, try & fail, recommit, try & fail.
2. We have a new Lord to live for - vs. 5-14
If we are going to reject religion to live according to the Spirit’s power, we must choose daily to live under Christ’s Lordship! No longer am I to be Lord of my life, but I must submit to Christ’s Lordship over me.
When describing the life of religious self-effort in Romans 7, the words “I,” “me,” and “my” are prominent. When describing a life lived by the Spirit’s power in chapter 8, the Holy Spirit is mentioned 19 times!
But how do I submit to Christ’s Lordship and allow the power of the Holy Spirit to change me from the inside out?
A. I must let the Holy Spirit transform my daily attitudes - vs. 5-7
“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” - Romans 8:16 (NIV)
The Holy Spirit works to teach us how to live like God’s children by helping us not only understand whose we are, but who we are!
1) He teaches us to think as a child of God ought to think.
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” - Romans 12:2 (NLT)
2) He teaches us to desire what a child of God ought to desire.
“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” - Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
3) He teaches us to choose as a child of God ought to choose.
“It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” - Philippians 2:13 (NIV)
“There is something finer than to do right against inclination; and that is to have an inclination to do right.” - Henry Van Dyke
“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.” - Ephesians 3:16 (NLT)
B. I must let the Holy Spirit transform my daily actions - vs. 8-14
1) The cross makes living a new life possible - vs. 8-11
Remember that “body of death” Paul mentions in Romans 7:24? He’s referring to our old way of life before we met Christ - the religious, self-effort way of living! We need to realize that our old way of living, that religious, self-effort way of living, has been put to death. What Paul describes is the trouble we get into when we try to live for God through self effort. When we try to live for God by means of religious self-effort we are strapping that “dead body” onto our back!
“As our Substitute He went to the cross alone, without us, to pay the penalty of our sins; as our Representative, He took us with Him to the cross, and there, in the sight of God, we all died together with Christ. We may be forgiven because He died in our stead; we may be delivered because we died with Him.” - Miles J. Stanford
2) My choice makes living a new life reality - vs. 12-14
You can’t move ahead with ‘the old man’ still clinging to you; you must bury him. You see, funerals are for the living; they give people an opportunity to accept that the deceased is gone and the relationship they once had is over. We need to bury the old “religious” way of trying to relate to God. It’s didn’t bring about our salvation; and it won’t bring about our transformation.
“When believers get sick and tired of spinning year after year in a spiritual squirrel cage -- sinning, confessing, but then sinning again -- they will be ready for God’s answer to the source of sin, which is death to self, brought forth from the completed work of the cross.” - Miles J. Stanford
Conclusion:
“What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.” - Galatians 2:19-21 (The Message)
