Life in the Spirit

Romans 8  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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In order for others to hear the good news we must lay down our own cross and sacrifice certain things in order to bring them to christ. Salvation comes through Jesus suffering on the cross.

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Pray

In order to live in the Spirit, we must die to the flesh.
Salvation comes through suffering (double entendre)
In order to be with Christ we must suffer with Christ.
Salvation through suffering
Live out your salvation by living in the Spirit. This requires suffering and sacrifice.
In order for others to hear the great news about Jesus, it requires us to sacrifice and suffer.
As we look at the whole of the book Romans, Paul, from beginning to end is pleading for the salvation of souls. This angle is a thread that flows through the whole book of Romans. We see it in Paul’s declaration in chapter 1 that he is unashamed to proclaim the Gospel which is the power of God to save. We see it in Paul’s explanation of the Gospel and how God saves sinners in chapter 3. We see it in Paul’s explanation in chapter 4 to sinner of their need for faith in order to be counted righteous. We see it in chapter 5 as Paul explains how sinners can have peace with God and pleads for us to accept the gift of salvation. We see it in chapter 6 when Paul explains how sinners must die to sin so they can be made alive in Christ. We see it in chapter 9 as Pauls speaks of the Jews. We see it in chapter 10 as Paul declares the necessity of evangelism and preaching for people to be saved. I could keep going. Paul rehearses the Gospel over and over again both so that non-Christians will understand it, but also so believers will be inspired to proclaim the Gospel to unbelievers for the salvation of souls.
Salvation comes through Jesus’ suffering on the cross to atone for our sin.
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Introduction

Have you ever listened to someone describe something and thought, “There's a sense in what you're saying is true, but I can tell you don't really know what what you're talking about"? Have you ever had that experience? May of you here are teachers. Imagine if someone describe your jobs as teaching students simple math, coloring, and throwing in a movie from time to time. There's a sense in which you do all of those things, but you know that that description is an extreme oversimplification. You know that the person speaking has never really been a teacher and they don't really know what they're talking about. You know they haven't labored through a day where your students won't stop talking, parents say harsh things, kids aren't focusing, and you have mountains of assignments to grade when you get home. You know they haven't experienced the pains of walking through life with some children who have hard family lives or intense medical issues. You know they haven't been there for crying students or had to break up bullying or mischief. You know that person hasn't experienced the exhaustion of your job, even though technically, the few words they said were true of your job in some sense.
In many ways, I think many of the things we hear about the Christian faith can be like that. We can hear powerful sermons, read good books, and listen to interesting podcasts, but we can sometimes walk away and wonder if the speaker or author has ever experienced the pain and hurt of life. We can wonder if they have really meditated on the melancholy and monotony of humanity. We can wonder if they've ever struggled with a dry season of faith where God feels distant and we wonder if He's even there. We can wonder if they've ever looked upon the suffering of the world and wondered if there really is a good God out there. We wonder if they have ever experienced a broken relationship, the death of a loved one, the hurt of estrangement, or the deep depression of loneliness. We hear the words they are saying, and there's a sense in which they're true, but those words have trouble preaching to a troubled soul. I think there are few topics where see this as clearly as the topic of the love of God. We all probably have some instinctual sense of what the love of God is, but could we actually articulate it? We hear sermons on the love of God all of the time, but how many of those sermons give us wisdom to sustain us in the darkest nights of our lives? It's easy to acknowledge the love of God when things are going well. But do we know how to experience and understand the love of God as we go through the motions of everyday life, or as we experience deep tragedy or confusion? Do we know how to experience and understand the love of God when death comes, or rejection comes, or estrangement comes, or conflict comes, or doubt comes? Do we actually understand what the love of God is? We all want to experience, but do we actually know how? Is the love of God just a vague, squishy, undefinable idea to us, or is the solid rock and foundation for how we persevere through the pain and trials of life until we get to glory? Don't assume that just because you've been a Christian for years that you know how to experience and understand the love of God deeply. As a ministry, we have experienced a lot of hurt over this last year. As I've walked alongside you all and done life with you all, I know you've experienced tragedy, hurt, family crisis, rejection, estrangement, and more. In light of that, I want to help you know in a deep way what the love of God is and how to experience it more deeply as we close out 2019 and enter into 2020. I want to help you see what the love of God is in a way that's not shallow or glib, but give you fuel when the floor falls out from beneath you and you're not sure where to go or what to do. In order to do that, we're going to spend our remaining time together in 2019 studying Romans 8. For many people, this chapter holds a special place in their hearts. It's the favorite chapter of many Christians. Puritan preacher Thomas Jacomb spoke of Romans 8 like this: "The Holy Bible is the book of books; in some...respects, [Romans 8] may be styled the chapter of chapters. From first to last it is high gospel, it is all gospel,...and it is all the gospel,...it having in it the very sum...of all gospel-revelation. It is indeed the epitome...of all the saints’ privileges and duties: you have in it the love of God and of Christ displayed to the utmost, and shining forth in its greatest splendour. Blessed be God for every part and parcel of holy writ; and, in special, blessed be God for this eighth chapter to the Romans." Romans 8 is one of the clearest expositions of the love of God in all of the Bible. And we'll be walking through it over the next few weeks.
Before we dive into our first passage from Romans 8, I want us to begin with some table talk. We don’t just want to talk about the love of God when things are easy. We want to talk about how the love of God can help us when things are difficult. So at your tables, I want you to talk about this question:
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Group Question 1:

For you, what is the hardest part about being a Christian? What about being a Christian is most difficult for you?
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Romans 8:1-18

In our passage tonight, I think we will see how the love of God encourages us when things aren’t easy; specifically when we think about the trials and temptations of our everyday Christian lives. In order to kick off our time in Romans 8, turn or tap with me there. As you turn to Romans 8, I want to preface tonight be saying a couple of things.
First, there is so much in this chapter, and in our passage tonight, that there is no way we could cover it all tonight or over these next few weeks. There’s no way we could say all that could be said about this passage in our brief time together. Puritan preacher Thomas Jacomb, who I just quoted, spent multiple years preaching over just Romans 8. When asked to publish his sermons, Jacomb filled nearly 400, extra large, double columned pages with just some of the sermons he preached on the first 4 verses of Romans 8. To say there is a deep well of truth in this chapter is an understatement. If Romans 8 was a diamond, we could hold it up until the end of time and turn and turn it in the light and see facet after facet of beauty from the chapter. Tonight, we’ll only be able to look at one or two facets of the beauty of Romans 8. This leads me to my other point of preface.
My job as an undershepherd of this ministry and as someone teaching the bible, is to take the truth of Scripture and apply it to your lives so that you might love and obey Jesus more. That means I’m taking what I’ve learned about you as I’ve talked with you, celebrated with you, wept with you, and done life with you and applying the truth of God’s Word to you in the best way I can. My goal in preparing this message has been to take all of the great truths of our passage and finding the truths that we most need to hear tonight to help us love Jesus more. As I’ve labored over how to do that with our passage tonight, I felt the Lord’s prompting to totally change my outline late last night. I’ve prayed more about this message than I have about any other in recent memory because I so felt the weight of how this passage applies to us. My prayer is that you would walk away both challenged but loving God even more than you did when you walked in.
So with those prefaces in mind, let’s dive into our passage. We’ll be looking at Romans 8:1-18 tonight. You may have seen that we were supposed to be going through Romans 8:1-11 on social media. That wasn’t a typo. Like I said, I felt a prompting from the Lord late last night to change both my outline and the length of the passage we’re looking at. Let’s dive in.
Romans 8:1-18
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
As you can see, there is so much we could say about that passage. But for our purposes tonight I want us to focus on one single truth
Salvation comes through suffering*Repeat*
This comes straight out of verse 17, but is echoed throughout the whole passage
We’ll break this truth down in three ways over the course of our time together. So 1 thesis, explained from 3 angles.
This one truth is the sum of all that we’ll talk about tonight.
In order to make sense of that truth I want us to start by breaking down the bulk of our passage as it refers to life in the Spirit versus life in the flesh. We’ll look at the first and last verses of the passage in just a bit.

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Life in the Spirit: Life in the Flesh

There’s so much here that we could cover. We’ll come back to verse 1 a little later, but I want us to start out by focusing on the middle bulk of this passage. It is here that we will see the first angle of our thesis that salvation comes through suffering. The best way for you to live out your salvation, or confirm your election and calling as Peter says in 2 Peter 1, is to fight against sin and temptation. It’s to fight against the deeds of the flesh. Paul goes so far as to say in verse 13 that in order to live life in the Spirit we must die to the flesh. That requires suffering and sacrifice on our part, but it will be totally worth it as we live life in the Spirit.
In order to understand this, we need to understand the distinction between life in the flesh and life in the Spirit.
Living life in the flesh means to live as an unbeliever, a non-Christian. Life in the flesh is a life focused on the things of the world. Someone living life in the flesh is a life centered around one’s self. It’s centered ar0und job, school, dating relationships, money, and more. Our passage says that it is a sure pathway to death, not just of the body, but the soul. It is a life that is not centered around God. And let me just say this. There are a great number of people who attend church on Sundays thinking they are living life in Spirit when they’re actually living life in the flesh. There is a way to make church and your faith walk all about yourself. Some of those people will step into church for free childcare, entertainment, and seeking a nice spiritual pat on the back. They don’t serve, they don’t give, they don’t seek the Lord unless life comes crashing down, and they wrestling with God in the hard things. When they step out of the church building, they go about their week living as if there’s no God. Sure they might claim to believe in Him, but nothing about their life reflects it, even if they’re not in egregious public sin. Their whole life centers around themselves. That’s a picture of life in the flesh; a life centered around one’s self, not God Himself.
Life in the Spirit, looks radically different. Living life in the Spirit means to live as Christian, a follower of Christ. It’s a life addicted to making much of Jesus. Is it a perfect, sinless life? Of course not! But it’s a life where there is a consistent upward trajectory of looking more and more like Jesus every single day. Will there be dry seasons amidst life in the Spirit? Yes! Will there be times It’s a life focused on seeking Jesus through His Word, through worship, through service, through community, through evangelism, and through a dogged devotion to make God’s name famous. To live life in the Spirit is to have the very Spirit of God dwelling inside of you fueling your life to the glory of God.
To live life in the flesh is to live as if you sit as king on the throne of your heart. To live life in the Spirit is to submit to God in joy as He sits on the throne of your life.
As we said a moment ago, we must fight against the flesh in order to live life in the Spirit. Like we said, As Paul tells us in verse 13 that in order to live in the Spirit, we must die to the flesh.
In order to live out our salvation, we must live life in the spirit. Again, this is the first way we see that salvation comes through suffering.
To continue to flesh out the distinction between life in the Spirit and life in the flesh, I want us to take time to think about it at your tables.
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Group Question 2:

What are some practical examples of what it looks like to live life in the flesh? What are some examples of what it looks like to live life in the flesh?
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It’s the Little Things

*Feel out answers to see if this transition works*
*The answers you all gave were good, but what I want you to notice is that most of the examples you mentioned were obvious and public ones. Here’s why that’s significant*
Most of us here have been Christians for the majority of our lives. Most of us have grown up in church. In light of that, here’s what I know. I know that it can be easy to sit through a message like this and think, “I’m not sleeping with my girlfriend or boyfriend, I’m not addicted to porn, and I’m not getting blackout drunk on the weekends, so I’m good.” It would be easy to sit through a message like this and subconscious assume that it doesn’t really apply to you. You’re not stumbling and sinning in the big and obvious ways. You go to church on Sundays. It looks like you’re doing everything right. You think you’re good. And that dulls our heart from repentance. But sometimes there are sins in us that we can’t see that are obvious to others. Those are the scary sins.
H
Video example of non Christian most similar to them
“Lord, to your eyes, nothing about us is hidden from you. You see it all, whether or not I can see it. What could be hidden within me, even if I were unwilling to confess it to you? I would be hiding you from myself, not myself from you.”
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Calling to ministry

God placed a clear calling on my life.
I didn’t feel gifted to do what was being asked so I thought I was being wise by saying, “No”
I was missing something obvious. I couldn’t see it, but others could.
Turn my fear to faith.
Intimacy with God.
I didn’t feel equipped, but God equipped me.
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Family conversation

Part of the way I can manifest God’s love for you is that I tell you the truth. I love you all too much not to. I’ve walked alongside you, prayed with and for you, been there in family tragedy, been there to celebrate success, been there to talk at 2 in the morning when the world is crashing down, been there to support you. I love you all too much not to tell you of the obvious sin I believe we’re falling into that we don’t even realize.
God has placed a clear calling on us as Christians, but also as a ministry
Matthew 28:19-20
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
God has placed that clear call on us as a ministry and I don’t believe we’re living that out together.
New people
Cliques
Not welcomed
How would an outsider feel walking in?
I believe we’ve grown comfortable
Let me explain: History of Twenty-Somethings
Minnicks
Community but no outreach
Family convo
Moved back to the church.
One of my great joys was seeing you all step outside of your comfort zone and grow.
God equipped you.
People came to Jesus
Lived changed
Baptisms
People served for the first time
We were leading the way for the church in many ways.
There was so much life change because you all were stepping out of your comfort zone for God.
We’ve grown comfortable as we’ve found our identity as a ministry and are not living out our calling.
I want that to change. We should make people feel so welcomed.
Not at the decrease of community, but to have deeper and better community. Twenties mission field in the Northland. So much potential.
I realize all of this might be scary but that’s ok. It’s when we are afraid that we are actually forced to rely on God.
Jesus told us in Matthew 28 that He will always be with us. We will never be alone.
Living in the Spirit means having the Spirit of God living inside of you, encouraging and empowering you. You are not alone.
You may not feel equipped, but God will equip you.
I don’t want us to miss out on intimacy with God in that.
We have to tell the world about the great Gospel that has changed our lives. That will require sacrifice and suffering from us, but it will be worth it.
This is our second angle: The salvation comes through our sacrifice to tell others about the Gospel that they might hear the message of salvation.
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Jewell opportunity

We have an opportunity to live this out.
Explain
Veritas/Suzy example.
I served because of it
We can do that and change lives
I love you too much to see you miss out on intimacy with God here
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No Condemnation

Salvation through Jesus’ suffering
We have been freed to share the gospel and live in the spirit.
We don’t see the no condemnation of verses 1 as sweet as it actually is because we don’t understand how lost we really are.
Sin even in thought
More lost than we realize
Good deeds outweigh the bad. Even if it could it doesn’t work
It was 1 sin in the Garden that separated Adam and Eve from God. Surely their good deeds outweighed their bad.
Even if we walked out of the room and never sinned again we would be just as lost
One sin separates us
Unbelievers cannot please God (Romans 8:8)
Most moral unbelieving friend who thinks they are right with God is still lost and headed for hell
Part of the reason we don’t feel the weight of that “No Condemnation” is that we misunderstand how it works
Slate example
We have to tell the world (Romans 10)
If this doesn’t fire us up to step out of our comfort zone for Jesus, then what will?
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Pray for us and unbelievers

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