Let Freedom Ring! Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Paul says, I disappoint myself.

Do you do that? Do you ever disappoint yourself as a believer? Like, wretched man that I am. He says, who will set me free, and there's the key word, from the body of this death?

Now, he knows. He goes on and says, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, he said, but on the other with my flesh the law of sin. Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Who set us free from this? He said, Jesus did.

That's a very important thing to understand. I'm free. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. David Jeremiah tells this story. He said, several years ago an issue of the New York Times featured a story about a 50-year-old ex-convict named Robert Salzman. After a horrific childhood, Salzman spent most of his adult life in prison. And when he was released from prison in 2001, he found it very difficult to enjoy his freedom. He didn't have any money. He couldn't pay his rent.

He didn't know what to do. He lived so much of his life in prison that he didn't even know how to live on the outside. But finally on June of 2010, Salzman had a grace-like experience. He was riding a New York City subway and he was found by a man named Rashad Ernesto Green, a writer and director who was searching for someone to play a tough-looking former convict in an upcoming film. After an audition, Green surprised everyone when he gave Salzman a key role in the film. In the following months, Salzman found it hard to believe that he actually had been set free from prison and that he was outdoors.

He was outside doing what he wanted to do for the first time. On one occasion, when he was filming with Green on location in a Long Island penitentiary, an exhausted Salzman fell asleep on a cot in the prison cell. When he woke up, he became very confused and he thought he was still a prisoner. Salzman started crying in despair until slowly it dawned on him that he was a free man. Salzman was overwhelmed by joy, the joy of knowing that at any moment he could walk out of the cramped cell through the prison doors.

On the other side of the prison walls, he finally could enjoy his new life of freedom. Jeremiah says this then, In a certain way, Salzman's story reminds me of you. Many, many Christians, he said, we have been set free by the gospel of Jesus Christ, but we still live like we're prisoners of our past. One of the sadder things as a pastor that you run into all the time is that to pastor Christians who live defeated lives, it's a shame to watch it. Christians that are full of anxiety or worry or fear or guilt and they're not living. You know, the Bible calls us more than conquerors and all that, and yet we're not living.

We live like we're still prisoners. But the Bible's clear. We've been set free. I want you to open your Bibles to Romans Chapter 8. Romans Chapter 8. This is an amazing chapter.

I don't know if you've really thought about it very much. One writer described Romans 8 this way. It's the greatest chapter in the greatest book in the word of God.

What a way to describe it. The greatest single chapter in the greatest book in the word of God. Romans Chapter 8. Now, I want to give you some context. It comes after seven. You know that.

And six. And the Book of Romans is an interesting book. It's really the theology of Christianity. The book begins when Paul says that God has a case against everybody, all humans. He said if you're a sinful, immoral person, God has a case against you. If you're a moral person, God has a case against you. If you're a religious, moral person, God has a case against you. He concludes that section by saying all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's none righteous.

No, not one. And so after he makes his case, then he brings in, in Romans 3, the solution for man, if God has this case against all men. And he says there in Romans 3 that man is justified by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. And he says it not only justifies man, but it propitiates the Father. The word propitiation means satisfies.

It satisfies God's holiness. So then he basically goes in chapters 4 and 5. He gives a couple examples with Abraham and his faith in David. And then he says, look, all mankind identifies with one of two people. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ. In Adam, all die. You see, all are judged. In Christ, all live.

He said and you're going to identify with one of those. And so consequently then, some of the Jewish believers in Rome probably had the thought then, I'm still struggling with this, but what's the point of the law? Why do we have the law and it's so important to us? And so what Paul talks about is he says, look, what you have to understand is that the law had a specific job to do. And it wasn't for you to say, I can obey the law and live great. It was to basically tell you through the Ten Commandments, but especially the 600 laws and ordinances, I can't keep the law. I just simply can't do this law.

I can't keep it all. That was the point of the law. So if you look over to when he gets into 6 and 7, what he ends up saying here in chapter 7 was this in verse 12. He said, so then the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

He said, therefore, did not that which is good cause death for me? May it never be. The law is good. I'm not. That's the point of the law.

The law showed me that it's good and I'm not. He talks about that in Galatians as well. Then Paul right before this, he wants to say something else. He wants to tell you that even though you're in Christ and it's a wonderful thing, you still are going to struggle with sin. As long as we have these bodies, what we call flesh, we're going to struggle with sin. We don't stop struggling with sin until we're absent in the body present with the Lord.

Notice in the eternal state, we get a resurrected body, a new body. So he says then in 714, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I'm of the flesh. I'm sold into bondage to sin.

Then he goes through a description of himself. He said, for what I am doing, I do not understand. I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I'm doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing the law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. He said, for the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing that I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one, he said, who wants to do good. A lot of play on words there, but what he is saying is, look, he finds himself in the same place you find yourself.

It does not mean that he is a terrible, horrible sinner, but he is very much aware of his own shortcomings. He said, look, I want to live right, but I do not. I want to do the right things, but I do not always do it. I do not want to do certain things, but sometimes I find myself doing that. Sin is present.

He said, now that is not me. That is the sin principle in me. That is my flesh. That is my old nature.

That is my weakness. I do things that I do not want to do. So he goes on then and he says, I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members. So then he makes this statement, and I think he does it for us because of the way we feel. Wretched man that I am. Kind of interesting. Paul says, I disappoint myself.

Do you do that? Do you ever disappoint yourself as a believer? You see, like wretched man that I am, he says, who will set me free, and there is the key word, from the body of this death? Now, he knows. He goes on and says, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, he said, but on the other with my flesh the law of sin. Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Who set us free from this? He said, Jesus did. That's a very important thing to understand. I'm free.

You see, that whole section that Paul was talking out in Romans 7, in the context of this sermon, you know where you say that from when you're living in prison? Oh, wretched man that I am. It's just so terrible. My life's so bad. I have no peace.

I have full of anxiety. It's because you're living in prison. You've done this. He said, but you've been set free. See, don't you understand you've been set free? Now, watch out. Now we go to these four verses.

He says, therefore, there is now, he says, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Wow. Now, do you read that? Do you ever think about it much?

You should. First of all, let's look at the great words in this verse. Therefore.

What's that mean? You hear me say it all the time. Whenever you see a therefore in the Bible, ask the question, what is it there for? OK.

It's always there for the same thing. He's now coming to a conclusion from everything he said beforehand. Actually, the whole first seven chapters. Therefore, he said, I've come to this conclusion. That's the way he ends up saying it. He goes on and he says, there is now. Now. What's now mean? Now. Now means now. Right now.

Not back then. Not will be. It's now.

When you get up tomorrow, what would be? Now. Next week. Now. He wants you to know it's always now.

It's always present. There is, he says, now, no. And there's the word no. Uketi is the word, and uketi is placed as the first word in the Greek sentence. It's not like it is in English. The sentence starts with the word no. Whenever Greeks do that, what they mean is this. I don't put an exclamation point on the end of the sentence, but I want to emphasize one word in particular.

And here's the word that he wants to exercise. No. Absolutely not. Nada. Not a chance.

That's why he put it first. There is, therefore there is now no. Absolutely not a chance.

No way, Jose. Condemnation. Wow.

That's what he emphasized. Condemnation. Kata crema. Compound Greek word. It's a forensic word. It's the word that deals with your verdict and the punishment. It combines both. There is now no condemnation.

Wow. It's only used here, by the way, in Romans 5, 16, and 18. And both of those refer to the sin of Adam. And they both say because of the sin of Adam, we're all condemned. But he says there is no condemnation.

No judgment. The wages of sin is what? Death.

Separation from God. You never face that. Ever? There is no condemnation. Wow. Absolutely not. You and I will never, ever, ever, ever face the judgment of God for our sins.

Think of an unbeliever. Do they have a judgment coming? Yes.

Great right throwing judgment. Everyone, everyone will stand before it who doesn't know Christ. You and I? No.

Why? Our sins were judged. Not forward, but backward at the cross. All of our sin is judged at the cross. Every single one of them. So there is no condemnation at all for us. How does that make you feel?

How does it make you feel? The average Christian? Yeah. Nice verse. And that's one of the reasons you stay in prison. There's no condemnation. You know who you are. You know what kind of sins in your life. You know how great the grace of God was. You know what you deserve.

You know all these things. And now you're told there is no condemnation at all for you. None. Donald Grey Barnhouse, the late Donald Grey Barnhouse said this. If the members of the human race are permitted to yell because their football team won a game or because their candidate won an election or because their drilling produced a gusher, then let us shout for joy because we are in Christ Jesus and there is no condemnation on us. But we don't. We yell our guts out at a saint's game. It's so great.

This is so great they won a game. Really. But you'll never face the judgment of God and it's not that great to you. See, you're free. You're really free. You've been given freedom. You are free.

That's the point. Because of Jesus Christ you are free. That should excite us.

But we're a lot like Salzman. I don't feel free. I feel like I'm still in prison. I don't have any joy, any hope. I don't. Wow.

He said you've got to know you're free. In Adam we're condemned. In Christ there's no condemnation. There is a magnificent illustration of this. Hold your place here and go back with me to Genesis chapter 7. Genesis chapter 7.

Way back in the beginning. This is the Noahic flood. Verse 1. When the Lord said to Noah, Enter the ark, you and all your household. For you alone I have seen to be righteous before me in this time. God is going to judge the world.

He's going to judge everybody. Except Noah and his family. That's it.

In order to avoid the judgment they have to go in the ark. Okay? We know that. Now watch.

Look at 614. He said, make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. You shall make the ark with rooms and you shall cover it inside and out with what? Pitch.

Now, why aren't they judged? Pitch. What do you mean? Inside. Why didn't the ark leak? Pitch.

On the inside and pitch on the outside. So it never leaked. And so they were spared. Now, you're still going, I don't quite get it.

No, not yet. What's the word pitch in Hebrew? Kaphar. Because the inside knot you'll have to have kaphar. And you think, okay, pitch, right?

No, not most of the time. Kaphar in Hebrew is almost always translated atone or atonement or appease or forgive. It's the word for atonement and forgiving. It's what covers the ark on the inside and the outside. It's the reason they're not judged. It is because of atonement. In the ark, they are safe from judgment because the pitch sealed off the judgment of God. In Christ, we are safe from judgment because of the atoning work of the cross. The reason they were saved in the ark is the same reason you and I are saved now. The atonement of the ark and the atonement of Jesus Christ.

What a beautiful picture of this, how this works on our behalf. Why we have no condemnation at all that we have to face. Now back to Romans 8. He then says the next word is for. And again, just to repeat myself, whenever you see the word for in the Bible, always ask yourself the question, what is it there for?

For always it's called an explanatory gar in Greek. It means I'm going to explain what I mean here in verse 1. For, he said, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

I've been set free from what? The law of sin and death. Now is there anything wrong with the law?

No. But it can only do one thing to me and you. It can only condemn you. You see, if you think keeping the law will save you, you're mistaken because you can't keep the law.

No one can keep the law. Religion, no matter how conscientiously you follow it, will never deliver you from the sin and judgment of God. All the good deeds in the world will never free you from the law of sin and death.

Not ever. And that's the great mistake of religion. You see, it's the great mistake of religion. He said, no, you've been set free from that.

People need that. You see, it's an interesting thought when you think about it that it says there that for us, the law of the spirit of life in Christ has set you free. The spirit of God has set me free. Think about the spirit of God.

The moment you become a Christian, what happens? I've been baptized by the spirit of God. I'm indwelt by the spirit of God. I'm sealed by the spirit of God.

You see how this works? The spirit of God does all these. He sets me apart. I'm regenerated by the spirit of God. You know what the Holy Spirit is in your life the moment you come to Christ? It's your birthmark. You know what a birthmark is? A birthmark is a mark that means I was born once. The Holy Spirit is a birthmark that means I've been born again.

I've been born twice. We all got the same birthmark, the spirit of God. He said he has set us free in this basis of what he has done.

Now, in the rest of this short chapter, he mentions the word spirit 20 times. This is all about the spirit of God indwelling you and I and every one of us. He has set us free, he says.

It's an interesting thought. Now, we know it's not for perfection. We don't always do the right thing.

But we have the power to do the right thing. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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