The Bible Top 40
“The Secret to Spiritual Success”
We are nearing the final few weeks
of our study of the “Bible Top 40.”
We’ve been identifying those passages of scripture that I believe every
Christian ought to know. Some have been
memorizing the verses each week, and some of those passages have been more
difficult than others to commit to memory.
There have been weeks when I’ve put the passage on the screen, and jaws
have dropped all over the room! Well,
today we’re going to look at an entire chapter – Romans chapter 8.
Chuck Swindoll has called this
chapter “the inspirational highlight of the book of Romans”, while another
writer says, “Romans 8 is without doubt one of the best known, best-loved
chapters in the Bible”. Last week I mentioned
that if you were going to memorize a chapter of the Bible, this would be
it. Just look at the transformation
that takes place in Paul’s writings in this one chapter - we go from the lament
of the last verse in chapter seven, “What a wretched man I am!
Who will rescue me from this body of death?” to the triumphant words of Romans 8:37-39,
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What
a difference! From futility to victory,
all in three dozen or so verses! What
is the secret of this spiritual success?
The first four verses relate the
conquest over sin for the Christian,
Therefore, there is now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the
Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 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, who do not live according to the sinful nature
but according to the Spirit.
Verse one provides one of the
greatest promises of all the Bible, and is the verse I have given you in your
programs this morning. There is
therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk
according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Think about the implications of that
statement. John MacArthur says,
No sin a believer can
commit—past, present, or future—can be held against him, since the penalty was
paid by Christ and righteousness was imputed to the believer. And no sin will
ever reverse this divine legal decision.
We need never fear the judgment of
God if we have placed our trust in Jesus Christ! Franklin Delano Roosevelt was famous for his quote, “We have
nothing to fear but fear itself.”
According to the Scripture, the Christian has nothing to fear at
all! That does not mean that we will
make no mistakes, experience no failures, or commit no sins. Christians do fail and make mistakes,
and we do sin. We may suffer consequences
because of our sins, but we will not suffer condemnation . As members of God’s family, we may be disciplined
for stepping out of line, but we need never fear being disowned.
How did we arrive at this state of freedom from
condemnation? Verse two explains, because
through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of
sin and death. On my own I live under the principle of sin and death, but
when I come to Christ I live under the principle of life and freedom through
the Holy Spirit. The New Testament
writers often link the Holy Spirit with the concept of freedom. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:17, Now
the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. The theme of the entire book of Galatians is
Christian liberty, and Galatians 5:18 states, But if you are led by the
Spirit, you are not under law. The
Christian life was intended to be a life of freedom.
Verses 3&4 tell us how this
conquest over sin was accomplished.
Jesus took human form—this is the meaning of in the likeness of
sinful man—in order to be a sacrifice for mankind. Though He was sinless, He took the sin of all humanity on Himself
when He was crucified, and thus He paid the penalty for all sin. This is the meaning of the “righteous
requirement of the law” in verse four. The word translated requirements is in the singular.
It means the complete requirement of God. God dealt with sin in the death of
his Son so that those in Christ have met the complete requirement of God as
expressed in the Law.
This freedom, though, is not freedom to do whatever we
please. God did not save us from sin
to let us wallow in it. Verse four
ends with the words, who do not live according to the sinful nature but
according to the Spirit. These
words are descriptive of the Christian, an identifying characteristic that is
true of every child of God. Some churches
teach that being “Spirit-filled,” or to have the Holy Spirit living inside is
only for the “super saints,” those select few who are really serious about
being a Christian, like preachers or missionaries. But, in fact, the Holy Spirit lives in every Christian, not just
a select few. Every Christian has the
Holy Spirit living inside them. He creates in us a new orientation toward righteousness,
and a desire to conform to Christ.
Furthermore, the indwelling Holy Spirit enables us to walk in obedience to God’s will and gives us the power to obey His commands. This is the difference between legalism and liberty, between religion and Christianity: Rules do not empower, but the Spirit of God does. We have the power to choose right over wrong. And so every one of us, in Christ, has the ability to reject sin. We can resist temptation and choose to live righteously. The legalist cannot do that, because he is trying to live righteously in his own strength. But the Christian, under the influence of the Spirit of God, can do it.
This is not perfectionism; it is simply to say that
obedience is a necessary and possible aspect of Christian discipleship. The conquest over sin not only frees us from
the penalty of sin—death—but it also frees us from the power of sin – we have
the conquest over sin.
We also have…
The Control of the Spirit
Paul moves on in verses five through eleven to
contrast two lifestyles—one controlled by the sinful nature, and the other
controlled by the Spirit of God:
Those who live according to the
sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who
live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit
desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit
is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to
God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot
please God.
You, however, are controlled not by
the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if
anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if
Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive
because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to
your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Paul first speaks of a
mindset. The person controlled by the
sin nature (what Paul earlier called being “a slave to sin”) is consumed by his
own selfish desires. That person’s life
is marked by saying, “I will” and not “Thy will.”. The Christian, however, is one who is controlled by the Holy
Spirit. The force of the word
translated “controlled” really means, “dominated.” John R Stott has said,
It is a question of what preoccupies us, of the ambitions which drive us and the concerns which engross us, of how we spend our time and our energies, of what we concentrate on and give ourselves up to (223).
In short, are we living for
ourselves or are we living for Christ?
Paul was confident of the answer
to that question for his readers, as he says in verse nine, You, however,
are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God
lives in you. The “if” there is not
expressing any doubt about the fact that the Spirit lives within them. This could be paraphrased “if, as indeed is
the case,” and they point to its results of the fact that the Spirit does
indeed live in them.
Once again, this is not reserved
for a special few believers who are more holy than everyone else. The hallmark of the authentic believer is
the possession or indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and this is every believer’s
privilege from the beginning. In fact,
Paul says that if we do not have the Spirit, we are not Christians. Don’t let anyone convince you that you do
not have the Spirit of God within you unless you have some certain experience
or ability! So all who believe in Jesus
have the Spirit of God, but does the Spirit of God have all of those of us who
believe?
What does the Spirit-controlled life look like? A person under the control of the Holy Spirit listens to God’s instructions (through the Word) and does His will from the heart. This obedience and desire is neither sporadic or impulsive, but the regular, habitual lifestyle of the believer. The main difference, though, between this life and the life of the religious legalist, is that it comes from within. The motivation is from the heart, and the power is from the Spirit living within us. The legalist tries to follow a list of rules, supposing that the longer the list, the more holy he is. In fact, Paul points out that the longer the list, the more frustrating the failure becomes, because mankind cannot live righteously in his own strength.
Sometimes an athlete or a team is
described as “trying not to lose” rather than trying to win. Afraid to make a mistake, they pressure
themselves into more mistakes than they might otherwise make. The same is true for the legalist. But as Christians, we are not under bondage
to Law and afraid to act. We have the
liberty of the Spirit and are free to follow Christ (Wiersbe, 91). That is the secret to spiritual success—we
are free to live for God without the fear of losing our place, because our
place is secure in Christ.
We not only have the Conquest over
Sin, we have the Control of the Spirit.
We that controlling Spirit gives
us…
Our standing before God is defined
for us in verses twelve through seventeen:
Therefore,
brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live
according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die;
but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not
receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the
Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit
himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are
children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we
share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Paul
again points out that freedom in Christ is not freedom to sin; if anything, it
is freedom from sin. The slavery to sin
has been broken, and we are free to live as God had originally designed us to
live. The Holy Spirit, who lives within
every Christian, enables us to “put to death” the sins of our lives. What does that mean? It is a
clear-sighted recognition of sin as sin, leading to such a decisive and radical
rejection of it that no words can describe it except “putting to death” (Stott,
228). How does this take place? Again, John Stott says,
It is we who must take the initiative to act. Negatively, we must totally repudiate everything we know to be wrong, and not even “think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (13:14). . . . Positively, we are to set our minds on what the Spirit desires (5), set our hearts on things above, and occupy our thoughts with what is noble, right, pure, and lovely (229).
Unfortunately, the ideas of
sanctification or holiness are often seen as negative—the long lists of what I
can’t do (which is probably all the stuff I really want to do)—and this turns
off many would-be followers of Christ.
The positive is just as important—the putting on of the Lord Jesus in
such complete preoccupation with him and his will that the believer does not
make provision for the flesh (Expositor’s Bible Commentary). This dedication is seen in the chorus of a
contemporary song by Steven Curtis Chapman,
You are everything I want,
You are everything I need
I want You to be my one
consuming passion;
Everything my heart desires,
Lord, I want it all to be for You—
Be my magnificent obsession.
Satan tries to fool us into thinking that the Christian
life is a miserable existence we must endure so that we might have something
better in Heaven. That is a lie! The Christian life is an abundant life
beginning now, on earth, as we live the way God originally designed us to!
When we come to Christ and submit to
the Holy Spirit’s control, we receive what Paul calls “the Spirit of
adoption.” In other words, the Holy
Spirit reminds us that we have become God’s children. God has adopted us into His family, and we are His children. True, it
may be said that all human beings are God’s “offspring” by creation, but we
become His “children” only by adoption.
Paul writes that, as God’s
children, we call God “Abba, Father.”
In the original text, the first term is Aramaic and the second Greek,
both meaning “father.” The first word,
though, is an informal word that conveys a sense of intimacy, like our terms
“Daddy” or “Papa” (MacArthur Study Bible). In fact, the Hebrew word for “father” is ab, which is seen
in such Old Testament names as Abraham (meaning “father of many
nations”) and Absalom (meaning “father of peace”). Therefore, the first word many Jewish babies
would learn would be “ab-ba.” This is
the imagery Paul is giving us. As God’s
children, we can come to Him like a toddler, crawl up in His lap, and call him
“Da-da” or “Pa-pa.” There is no fear in
the heart of a child doing that, and we should have no fear in coming to our
Heavenly Father.
Now there may be some who read
this text and think, “Well, this certainly does not describe my life. I still struggle with sin—and lose more
often than I would care to admit—and I don’t see that I’m under the control of
the Holy Spirit. I must not be a
Christian, then!” That is not
the emphasis of Paul’s letter, or of this message. Let us not fall back into the legalistic mindset of measuring
ourselves by some external standard. The
Expositor’s Bible Commentary puts it this way:
All too often a believer may come
to the point of doubting his salvation because his sanctification has proceeded
so slowly and so lamely. The Spirit, however, does not base his assuring
testimony on progress or the lack of it in the Christian life. He does not lead
us to cry, "I am God's child." Rather, he leads us to call upon God
as Father, to look away from ourselves to him who established the relationship.
The whole secret to spiritual
success is not to depend upon our own efforts.
God the Holy Spirit lives within every believer, enabling him to conquer
sin, fixing his mind on the things of God, and conforming him into the image of
Jesus Christ. This is not an immediate
action, but a life-long process. Just
as the little child can’t see his own growth because it is slower than he would
like it to be, so we are not always the best gauge of our spiritual growth.
Most importantly, as God’s
children, we do not need to live in fear.
We are not trying to earn God’s favor, nor do we have to make every
effort to keep it. He is our Father,
and we are His children. He wants to
live His life through us, if we will only let Him.
Magnificent
Obsession
by
Steven Curtis Chapman
Lord, You know how much I
want to know so much
In the way of answers and
explanations
I have cried and prayed and
still I seem to stay
In the middle of life’s
complications
All this pursuing leaves me
feeling like I’m chasing down the wind
But now it’s brought me back
to You and I can see again
This is everything I want;
this is everything I need
I want this to be my one
consuming passion
Everything my heart desires,
Lord, I want it all to be for You, Jesus
Be my magnificent obsession
So capture my heart again,
take me to depths I’ve never been
Into the riches of Your grace
and Your mercy
Return me to the cross and
let me be completely lost
In the wonder of the love
that You’ve shown me
Cut through these chains that
tie me down to so many lesser things
Let all my dreams fall to the
ground until this one remains
You are everything I want; and
You are everything I need
Lord, You are all my heart
desires; You are everything to me
You are everything I want;
You are everything I need
I want You to be my one
consuming passion
Everything my heart desires,
Lord, I want it all to be for You
I want it all to be for You
You are everything I want;
You are everything I need
I want You to be my one
consuming passion
Everything my heart desires,
Lord, I want it all to be for You—
Be my magnificent obsession
__________
©2001 Sparrow Song / Peach
Hill Songs / BMI / Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing