What Our Victory Looks Like And Means Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: April 25, 2012

Date Preached: April 29, 2012

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: A Journey thru Romans

Sermon Title: What Our Victory Looks like/means

Sermon Text: Romans 8:12-17 [ESV]

Introduction:

12Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. 14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” 16For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

For the most part you hear sermons from me that divide up the Scripture and pull it all into 2 or 3 points with some sorta clever title, but today that is NOT what you are going to get…

This morning you are going to get MEAT… I am going to take this passage and we are going to discover what God has to say about us… NOW that we are HIS!

So far in this letter to the Roman churches we have learned a great deal about WHO WE ARE!

We have heard how we ALL are sinners and we have NO excuse before God!

We have heard that we are hopeless against our sinful nature and sinful desires!

We have heard that there is NO amount of work we can do to gain forgiveness from God

But then we heard what Christ did for us on the Cross!

We heard that when we accept Christ- He forgives us...

We have heard that when Christ forgives… he wipes our slate clean!

We have learned that ‘in Christ’ we are justified before God! We are blameless of the guilt and penalty of our sin!

2 weeks ago we learned that ‘in Christ’ there is NO condemnation against us as Christ has done all that needs to be done and we stand NOT GUILTY before God!

Today Paul continues in his teaching about what that MEANS for those who have Christ…

What does it mean that we are forgiven?

What does it mean that we are redeemed?

What does it mean that we are justified?

What does it mean to stand blameless before God?

In these verses today we are going to begin to understand just what our freedom in Christ really MEANS for us… so let’s get to it!

12Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.

Now here in this verse we find Paul transitioning from a teaching to an explanation… he uses the word THEREFORE to signal that transition…

We have been taught of our freedom and NO CONDEMNATION in Christ and now Paul wants to explain what that means for the believer!

Now the ESV reads like this, 12So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh…”

What Paul is saying here is translated very well in the NLT where it reads, “Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.”

When Paul says we are debtors… what he is saying is that because of what Christ has done we still owe a debt, but our debt is NOT to the flesh and the sinful nature that once held us in bondage….

Do you remember in chapter 7 where Paul taught us that we know what we SHOULD do, but we do what we KNOW to be wrong… what we KNOW to be against God, and that we have NO control over this because we are slaves to sin…

BUT here Paul paints a MUCH different picture! He has just told us that we are FREE… free from condemnation and the bondage that had once held us captive… and BECAUSE we are free, we no longer have to be held captive by sin!

So he puts it like this… “you have NO obligation to do what your sinful nature URGES you to do!” In other words, we are NO longer slaves to sin, and we can walk away from our sinful desires and begin to live as Christ desires us to live…

Not only has Christ FORGIVEN us, but we have be released from sin’s control and our obligation to submit to the sinful desires of our heart! We are FREE! Free to serve Christ and be obedient to His calling!