THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM
Text: Romans 8:1-11
There is the story of a child who was all dressed up with some place important to go. That place was a photographers shop. That little boy and his family were going to have a family portrait made. Dad was going to meet them there. The appointment was half an hour away. They lived 10 - 15 miles away from the portrait studio. The phone rings, the little boy aged 4 or 5, slipped out the back door and went to play in the mud. Mom gets off the phone and finds her son out in the back yard. He is muddy. Even though she is unhappy at the sight of her muddy little boy, she does not throw him away. Why? Because even though her little boy got muddy she does not quit loving her son. Mom scolds him because she reminds him that she told him not to get dirty. Then, she washes him off and gets him dressed again and is able to keep her four o’clock appointment. God is like that with us. It hurts Him that we do not always do what He asks of us. But, He does not throw us away.
The one common thing that makes all people prisoners of the guilt of sin is their inability to defeat sin. God’s law continues to remind us of our trespasses. Since we cannot defeat sin, we try to earn our righteousness. The only problem is that we never feel free from our guilt until God sets us free through Jesus Christ.
God wants us to succeed and experience freedom. Without God’s help, we cannot and will not succeed. God therefore provides a way through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ so that through Him, we might have the chance to become God’s adopted sons and daughters. God’s love for us is unconditional. Our conscience usually lets us know when we have sinned. God knows that until we receive the freedom that He gives to us that we are prisoners and slaves to sin because of our guilt.
LIBERATION FROM THE LAW
The law of sin and death means that the consequences of sin are death. In Romans 6:23, Paul tells us that the wages of sin are death. In Romans 3:23, Paul reminds us that all of us have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Without the law, we would not know what sin is. Someone has likened the law to an X-ray that reveals the cancer of sin within us. (Alan F. Johnson. Everyman’s Bible Commentray: Romans: The Freedom Letter. Volume 1. Chicago: Moody Press, 1974, p. 105). Consider Romans 3:20: "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather through the law we become conscious of sin" (NIV). There is no way that we can be justified through the law unless we obey everything that is written in the book of the law (Galatians 3:10). Though the law makes us aware of our sinfulness, it does not break the power of sin. Only Jesus Christ can break the power of sin over the sinner.
Jesus Christ frees us from the condemnation of the law. The requirements of the law had to be met. Jesus was the only One who could meet those requirements. There was no way and is no way that we could do all that the law required. That is why God sent His only begotten Son who was without sin to come and fulfill the law’s requirements. Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. Jesus is God in human flesh. When Jesus met all of the requirements of the law, He made it possible for us to live as freed men and women, because He has broken the power of sin. Jesus freed us from the power of sin when He became our sin offering (Romans 8:3). We do not have this victory unless we believe in Jesus who saves us because our faith in Him.
Go back to the story of the little boy who got dirty before the family portrait was made. Sometimes we are like the little boy in that story. Although we did not mean to, we got dirty and get dirty because of how we took our minds off of how God wants us to live and behave. Sometimes we still find how we get dirty when God wants us to live a life that is in harmony with the Spirit. God wants others who do not know Jesus to be able to see the life of Jesus Christ reflected in the way that we live. God wants us to reflect Jesus. God wants us to be His pictures of Jesus. How we reflect who Jesus is a picture of how well or how poorly we yield to the Holy Spirit who lives in Christians.
LIFE IN THE SPIRIT
What is born of the flesh will die. The flesh is our corrupted nature. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (First Corinthians 15:50). Romans 7:5 says, "For when were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit of our death" (NIV). Unless there is a change, a transformation when death occurs and the soul and body separate, then there is nothing more that can be done because flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. God provides for our salvation and has predestined that we should be conformed to the likeness of His Son (Romans 8:29). Even though God has predestined us for salvation, it is up to us to respond to God’s invitation of His saving grace.
All who are born of God’s Spirit will have everlasting life. Consider Romans 5:24-25: "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit" (NIV). How do we keep in step with God’s Spirit? The nature of the flesh is at war with the Spirit because it wants what is contrary to the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-18). If the two natures are at war, then how do we keep the sinful nature with its passions and desires crucified? We walk by the Spirit and yield to the Spirit and refuse to yield to the flesh.
Think about how the flesh seeks nothing but its own selfish desires. "Flesh is the Bible’s word for unperfected human nature". (Billy Graham. The Holy Spirit. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1988, p. 102). Consider how Billy Graham relates the flesh to the selfish desires of the human nature. Graham says that if you remove the "h" in flesh and reverse the spelling then you will have "self". Although our "fleshly nature" might behave most of the time, it can misbehave at other times. Graham labels these moments of misbehaving as the flesh living a "self-life" --- a selfish life (p. 102).
AN ESKIMO FISHERMAN CAME to town every Saturday afternoon.
He always brought his two dogs with him. One was white and the other was black. He had taught them to fight on command. Every Saturday afternoon in the town square the people would gather and these two dogs would fight and the fisherman would take bets. On one Saturday the black dog would win; another Saturday, the white dog would win—but the fisherman always won! His friend began to ask him how he did it. He said, "I starve one and feed the other. The one I feed always wins because he stronger."
This story about the two dogs is apt because it tells us something about the inner warfare that comes into the life of a person who is born again.
We have two natures within us, both struggling for mastery. Which one will dominate us? It depends on which one we feed. If we feed our spiritual lives and allow the Holy Spirit to empower us. " (Billy Graham. The Holy Spirit. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1988, pp. 92-93).
If there is anybody betting against us and hoping to cause us to trip, then it is none other than the devil himself. He does not quit in his goal to trip us because he is a sore loser.
Jesus justified us and made us right with God. Jesus has fixed what was broken about our past. Jesus broke the power of sin over us. Jesus wants us to keep walking with the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us.
It has been said that there are three parts to being sanctified. First, when we received Christ wherein we were immediately sanctified. Second, is "progressive sanctification" which John Wesley called Christian Perfection. Third, our sanctification becomes complete when we get to heaven which is also called "glorification". (paraphrase of Billy Graham. The Holy Spirit. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1988, p. 100). We have to work on the progress that we make in our journeys of sanctification.
"It is never a question of how much you and I have of the Spirit, but how much He has of us". (Billy Graham. The Holy Spirit. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1988, p. 99). Second Corinthians 3:17 tells us that wherever the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. The amount of freedom that we have depends upon how much we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit. We have to work with fear and trembling to work out our salvation (Philipians 2:12). God is always at work in us to make us willing and able to obey his own purpose (Philipians 2:13). God the Holy Spirit is always urging us to conform to the completed work that He is wanting to achieve in us.
