Lent 4
Romans 8:1-10
Perhaps you saw last weekend that the serial killer known as BTK was finally caught after eluding police since the 1970’s. His three-letter name was one that he had given himself, those letters standing for what he did to his victims, “Bind, Torture, Kill.” Now that he’s in custody, this story has been broadcast quite a bit during this past week. Why do you suppose he’s gotten so much attention? Murderers are caught by the police all the time. We don’t hear about each of them on the news. I suppose one reason that BTK is getting so much press is because of the length of time he was able to stay ahead of the law. But I also think there’s another reason, and it’s in his self-given name. It’s a horrible enough crime to murder another human being. But to do the things that he did to his victims, to bind them up and torture them, takes what he did to an entirely different level of cruelty. What he really did before taking the victim’s lives was he took away every bit of freedom away from them first.
I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s another BTK out there that the police haven’t gotten. And the law enforcement will never catch this murderer. It gets even scarier. This serial killer was last seen in Orlando. He’s at your place of work; he’s in the school you go to; he comes to your neighborhood and even into your home often. This murderer is sin, who binds, tortures, and kills victims each day. This BTK enslaves people everywhere, tortures them with guilt and pain, and finally kills them in the fires of hell. And as I said, the police will never catch him. No amount of detective work will stop sin.
This morning, we are going to see that Jesus Christ has freed us from the murderous clutches of sin. As we continue our series on “A Time of…,” we will learn this morning that we live in A Time of Freedom. 1. We are free from sin’s condemnation. 2. We are free from sin’s control.
Part I
Our synod used to have a prep high school in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. This was a campus that was purchased from the Catholic church in the 1970’s. For many years, it has been a Jesuit school…but for reasons it had been forced to close down. There all these empty buildings stood until we bought the campus and made those structures into classrooms, dormitories, libraries, and other things. But the biggest building on that campus was never used. It was a beautiful, huge, old three-story building…it looked kind of like a mansion. But it wasn’t used because it had been condemned. When a building is condemned, that means that it doesn’t measure up to safety requirements, and because of that, it is condemned to be destroyed.
We could think of God as a code-enforcer, not for buildings, but for people. The Lord has some requirements that human beings have to attain. We have to always be kind to our fellow people. We can’t take a day or a minute off from this. That means we cannot ever say a nasty word to or about someone, because if we do, we don’t measure up to God’s code and we are on the slate to be condemned. Another thing God’s building code says is that we have to love God more than anything else…even more than we love ourselves. And if a person loves God totally, they will never miss church; they will pray to him often; they will always delight in studying his Word. God’s standard even states that our thoughts need to be pure; we can’t even think about sins that we’d like to do. It doesn’t work for people to look at someone like BTK and think, “well, at least I didn’t do the horrible things that he did.” We human beings stand condemned before God by the first sin we commit. Sin sneaks into our homes and binds us up and takes away our freedom, our freedom to be able to stand in front of God and expect him to let us go to heaven.
There we stand, ugly, crumbling buildings, scheduled to be demolished by hell’s wrecking ball. But before the destruction, comes the news that God has decided to renovate us. He’s going to fix us up. He’s going to bring us all up to code. Look at the first verse of our text, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Imagine you are looking at a map of a city. All the buildings of the city are condemned. But then the mayor takes out a compass, draws a circle on the map, and announces, “all the buildings within this circle will be fixed up to code and spared by the city’s expense.” That’s what God is saying in this first verse. All who are in Christ’s circle are spared sin’s condemnation. Where did God get the resources to be able to fix up so many deteriorating buildings? Verses 3-4 have the answer, “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us.” What St. Paul is saying is God’s building code, the law, is good. But all that code can do is show us what is wrong with us. God’s law makes it very clear that we deserve hell, but that same law is powerless to show us a solution. And so comes Christ, God’s Son, condemned on the cross as our sin offering, who in turn condemns sin itself. Jesus commands sin, “Get away from my people! You no longer can lay claim to them. I suffered and died for the sins of the whole world. The world is free from your condemnation, sin.” We live in a Time of Freedom. We are in Christ’s radius, and so we are free from sin’s condemnation.
Part II
But what does that mean, to be “in Christ Jesus?” Didn’t Jesus die for the sins of everyone? Of course he did. But many people choose sin over the Savior. They’d rather live in sin’s bondage than Christ’s freedom, and so they miss out on the freedom Jesus won for them. And for us who recognize that freedom, God teaches us something else about that circle. We are either in it or out of it. We are either in Christ Jesus or not in Christ Jesus. We can’t be “sort of in Christ.” And so St. Paul teaches us another freedom that we who are in Christ enjoy, a freedom from sin’s control.
In verse 5, Paul talks about two different kinds of people, “those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on that that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” Once concrete sets, you aren’t going to be able to change its form. Some people have their minds set on the sinful nature. They don’t know any other way to live. They live for the here and now. Have as much fun as you can, get as much pleasure as possible, and if you end up hurting some people in the process, well, that’s just how life goes. The three favorite words of the sinful nature are: “self, self, self.” What a horrible bondage sin has over the mind like this! What a shallow unfulfilling life one leads while under the iron grip of sin’s control!
But look at what God says to us who are “in Christ Jesus.” “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.” Jesus freed us from sin’s condemnation, and now the Holy Spirit frees us from sin’s control. He lives in your heart, this Spirit of God. Unlike the unbeliever, you don’t have to sin. Just think about that. Unbelievers have no choice. They are set in the sinful nature and they have to sin. And sin leads us into so many of life’s problems, doesn’t it? All the trouble that you got into as a youth was always because of sin. But now you have a better option. You can be controlled by the spirit living in you. In Galatians, Paul talks about the kinds of actions this Spirit produces in you (which by the way cannot be found in the heart of the unbeliever), “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” And then Paul adds an interesting note after this list, “against such things there is no law.” In other words, there are many laws against the things the sinful nature does, but if we follow the spiritual nature, nobody is going to get upset at us. You can’t get in trouble for following the Spirit of God who lives in you. And so we have another freedom – freedom from punishment.
There are approximately 6 billion people on the earth right now. 1 billion of them profess to be Christian. That means that at least 83% of the world’s population is still under sin’s cruel control. That explains why our world is so immoral and mean and violent. But that also shows what a great opportunity we have in these last days. Jesus said, “Do you not say, ‘Four months and then the harvest?’ I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” I don’t know what percentage of people in Orlando are still under sin’s control, but just by reading the paper or taking a walk around town, that number has to be high as well. We all know people who have hearts set in the concrete of sin. Those hearts cannot ever change, unless God changes them. And God won’t change them unless they hear the life-changing Word. You live in a Time of Freedom, where you are free from sin and all its vicious power. You also live in a Time of Grace, a time to use your minutes and hours to help pull them out of sin. How do you do this? Of course we work, we witness, we invite. But in less than a month, you will have another tool, and it is the prayer of a lot of people that this will be an effective use of the Gospel. When the Time of Grace TV show comes on the air on March 27th, you will be able to say to friends and neighbors still stuck in sin, “there’s something really fascinating on Channel 18 Sunday mornings at 7:30. Maybe it’s for you and maybe it isn’t, but would you watch it once and just tell me what you think?” You probably don’t have a problem telling people about good movies you see or good restaurants you eat at. Then why have a problem telling a friend about a good, no a life-saving, message they can hear every week? The Gospel is the only way that people will learn something that you take for granted, namely that they are free from sin’s control.
Conclusion
Sin binds people. Sin tortures people. Sin kills people. It is the worst killer out there. But in Christ, people have freedom from this sadistic murderer. You have been given freedom from sin’s condemnation and freedom from sin’s rule in your life. Pray that the Lord uses you to bring his freedom to another person, after all, we are living in a Time of Freedom. Amen.
sdg
