What We Have Freedom From Series

Romans 8:1-17

Getting on the Same Page as God about what we are free from

Introduction

A. In America we love our freedom

B. We are really proud, and should be, that we live in a free society

C. We have people over in Iraq doing what, defending our freedom

D. We have people who for 228 years now have been defending our freedom

E. We take our freedom very serious in this country, and that is a good thing

F. But what are free from in our Spiritual lives?

G. What are we no longer slave to?

H. We also know with freedom comes responsibility, freedom does not equal anarchy

I. That is why we have people defending our freedom

J. So what are our responsibilities in our Spiritual lives?

K. Today we are going to explore our freedoms and responsibilities

L. We are going to look at

1. Freedom from Condemnation

2. Freedom from our Sinful Nature

3. Freedom from fear

I. Free From Condemnation

A. Explanation

1. Verse one is one that we have heard many times, why? Because we sing the song, in fact we just sing it

2. The one word in there that is hard to understand because we do not use it that much today is condemnation

3. Condemnation means blame, guilt, shameful, stuff along that line

4. That law causes condemnation

5. However, because of what Christ did, dieing on the Cross and raising from the dead, we are free from the law

6. The law had no power to do what Christ did

7. The law as we have said the past couple of weeks is good at pointing out our sin but can not save us

8. Because we are guilty of breaking the law, there had to be some payment

9. And that is exactly what Christ did

10. Christ took on the sin of the world to meet the righteous requirements of the law

B. Application

1. Ok that is all good, but what does that have to do with me?

2. How many of you are ashamed of something you ever did?

3. Now if you were to examine the law and compare it with your life guess what?

4. You would find out that you broke the law many times, you would feel horrible you would have this heavy feeling of condemnation

5. However, we are not under the law

6. We are “In Christ Jesus”

7. That means that no matter what you have done

8. No matter what sin you have committed

9. No matter how many times you have messed up

10. You are free from condemnation

11. You are free from the burden of guilt

C. Illustration

1. When I ran Cross-country, the day of a meet I would sometimes wear ankle weights. I would walk around all day with these 5 lb weights on my ankle. When it was time for the race I would take them off and my ankles would feel really light. So I would be starting the race with “super light feet” which in turn would make me run faster

2. The same thing is true once we are “In Christ Jesus”

3. Here we have been caring this burden around caring this heavy load, basically just feeling the pressure of everything, and we turn it over to Christ

4. Suddenly we have light feet

5. Suddenly we have that huge burden lifted,

6. Everything that we had done in the past, wiped clean

7. All the bad stuff we really do not want people to know about, gone

8. We are free from Condemnation

II. Free From Sinful Nature (5-11)

A. Explanation

1. In these verse you have basically 2 Paragraphs, looking at this real quick you realize the one is a positive and the other is a negative

2. Paul is focusing on the sinful nature of our minds

3. When our minds are focused on anything other then God, we can not do good

4. Our minds are so corrupted that nothing good can come out of them

5. Look at verse 8 (read 8)

6. Now looking to the positive side of this, is being controlled by the Spirit

7. Interesting to note in verse 9 its says if the Spirit of God lives inside of you.

8. This being controlled by the spririt cannot and will not happen with First accepting Christ

9. That is why it is impossible to expect a non Christian to live up to Christian standards, it will not work, and can not work

10. Look at verse 10 and 11.

11. We get this picture of our earthly body being totally controlled by the Spirit of God

12. You find your purpose your meaning, everything, from the Spirit of God