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*ECF 31st August 2008 Romans 8:1-4*
A man went into a hardware shop one morning and asked to buy a new saw.
The salesman took a chain saw from the shelf and commented that it was their “newest model, with the latest in technology, guaranteed to cut ten cords of firewood a day.”
The customer thought that sounded pretty good, so he bought it on the spot.
The next day the customer returned, looking somewhat exhausted.
“Something must be wrong with this saw,” he moaned.
“I worked as hard as I could and only managed to cut three cords of wood.
I used to do four with my old-fashioned saw.”
Looking confused, the salesman said, “Here, let me try it out back on some wood we keep there.”
They went to the woodpile, the salesman pulled the cord, and as the motor went /Vvvrooommm/, the customer leaped back and exclaimed, “What’s that noise.”
It’s ridiculous to think of someone trying to cut wood with a chain saw without using the power of the saw!
And yet maybe we do something similar in our Christian lives?
Maybe we try to live for Christ without using the power that he gave us!
Maybe we try to live out this new life in Christ, but do it in the exhausting “old-fashioned way”?
Read Romans 8:1-4 There are four things that Paul says makes this new life possible!
! *1) **New Security*
First of there is a new security!
One day, in 1975, Judge Thompson from Louisiana, apologized for arriving at court late.
He had been stopped by the police for driving at 42 miles an hour in a 30-mile zone.
But an even stranger occurrence happened a little later when his driving offence later came before his own court.
It was then, Thompson stepped down from the bench, stood before it, and pleaded guilty to his crime.
Then he sentenced himself to a fine of $17.50.
Have you ever done that?
We look at how far short of God’s standards we daily fall; at our failures, at the missed opportunities to do good.
And like this judge, we put ourselves on trial and declare ourselves guilty as charged!
There’s someone else who wants to condemn us!
The Devil is called: “the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night.”
Revelation 12:10.
He accuses us and seeks to shame us with all our past mistakes and sins.
And living under condemnation, can paralyse us in our lives.
It makes us insecure in God’s family; it makes us timid in our evangelism, hesitant in our service.
But this is not how God wants us to live.
Paul says to Timothy “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7
This way of life starts from recognising our security in Christ!
!! a) *No Condemnation for us*
For all of us who struggle with guilt.
Who fear that we’ll one day fall too far, that we’ll exhaust God’s grace.
Here’s the promise we need.
“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
v1
God, our Father, the eternal Judge has for all eternity declared us righteous in his sight.
We have been “justified by faith” Romans 3:28.
We have been truly forgiven – all past, present and future sins!
God has promised: “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Hebrews 8:12
And so today, if we have trusted in Jesus.
And so there is no condemnation remaining for us.
No punishment hanging over us.
No judgement that we need to fear!
!! b) *Sin has been condemned!*
Our security does not lie in our ability to live a perfect life.
In fact, it doesn’t depend on us at all.
This new life is a life without condemnation.
It is not a life without sin or failure or mistakes.
Our security rests completely on what God has done!
A security that comes because God “condemned sin in sinful man.”
v3!
God did not move the goalposts.
He did not brush our sin under the carpet.
He didn’t throw away his law.
Instead Jesus satisfied God’s law! Jesus said about the law that “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.”
Matthew 5:17
The law condemned us because it showed that “The wages of sin is death!”
Romans 6:23.
But Jesus completely paid this price.
He satisfied the demands of the law.
And so our sin has been dealt with – fully, once for all, completely.
And God will never demand payment for it again: “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?
It is God who justifies.”
Romans 8:33
!! c) *We are Saved Now!*
And so we’re not more saved when we are doing well as a Christian.
We’re not less saved when we are struggling.
When we lose our temper, or wake up in a bad mood, or fail to overcome temptation – our names are not temporarily removed from the Book of Life.
Our salvation has got nothing to do with what we do or don’t do!
It is all about God’s grace.
As Jesus said: “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”
John 5:24
Guilt, fear and failure does not need to dominate our lives.
Our victory is secure, and so we can live with joy and with courage.
Joy in our secure relationship with God.
Courage to live for God with commitment and excitement knowing that we are held securely in our Father’s hands.
!
*2) **New Freedom *
And we have this new security because we have this new freedom in Christ.
v2 states: ”because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
Again Paul emphasises that this freedom is not something that we have worked for.
Rather it is through Christ!
And it is something which from the tense that Paul uses is something which is a once-for-all act!
!! a) *Freedom from the Law of Sin and Death*
If we are in Christ this morning, if we have trusted in Jesus, then we have been set “free from the law of sin and death.”
This is God’s Law, the Torah, the commandments given through Moses.
And as Paul has said, God’s law is “holy and righteous and good.”
Romans 7:12.
However we have also seen in Romans, the close connection between sin and death.
The law reveals sin.
It provokes sin.
It condemns sin and in the end brings death: “For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.”
Romans 7:11
This is “the law of sin and death” that we were under.
The law rightly judged us guilty of sin and sentenced us to death!
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