Freedom: The Greatest Chapter in the Bible

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. The gospel message is not stop sinning. That would be an impossible message. The gospel message is behold the love and the acceptance of your God and then you'll have the power to stop sinning. That's why we always say around here God's acceptance is the power that liberates us from sin.

It's not the reward for us having liberated ourselves. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. If some part of your life feels dead because of the effects of sin, then you need to hear today's teaching.

Why? Because there is resurrection hope for you. Pastor J.D. turns to what many people consider the greatest chapter in the Bible, Romans 8, to show us how surrendering to the Holy Spirit and committing to walk in step with Him sets us free. We don't have to pretend like everything's okay.

Isn't that reassuring? And most importantly, it gives us the power to change and move toward freedom. As you know, we're in a year-long study through the book of Romans, so let's join Pastor J.D. in Romans chapter 8 here on Summit Life. Romans chapter 8, which many people regard to be the greatest chapter in the Bible. John Piper says the greatest book in the world is the Bible. The greatest letter in that book is the book of Romans. The greatest chapter in that letter is Romans chapter 8, and I would add the greatest verse in chapter 8 is verse 1.

If you were writing the soundtrack for the book of Romans, I think when you rounded the corner into chapter 8, you'd probably start playing the Rocky soundtrack. Paul has just finished now seven chapters of exploring the basics of the gospel, and now he transitions to how it should transform your entire outlook on life. Paul is going to begin asking a series of questions, so to speak, that sound like, these are my words, not his, but this is basically what he's saying. If the gospel is true, well, how does that change how you see your life? How does that change how you see your problems, how you see the world? It's easy for us to believe the gospel in like, you know, kind of out here in a doctrinal sense.

It's a creed that we sign off on, but never actually connected, practically speaking, to how you see your day-to-day life. In chapters 9 and 10, Paul is really going to press into the implications of the gospel for what we do with our lives, the implications of the gospel for mission. If the gospel is true, he's going to ask, how could we not be telling our friends about it?

I mean, think about it. How could you claim to love somebody, to care about them, to be their friend and not have told them about this message? If the gospel is true, he's going to press on us.

How can we not devote ourselves to seeing it spread into every country on earth? Now, that's just an implication of the gospel being true. That's what Paul is going to press in on that. How could you believe the gospel is true and not be be into that?

That's all coming in chapters 9 and 10. But today, this weekend, we're going to start chapter 8, where Paul discusses how the gospel transforms how we see ourselves. One of the key themes in this chapter is freedom. Freedom, the gospel, Paul explains, sets us free.

You probably know this from experience. Most religious people don't feel free because most religious people are caught in two traps. I'm going to call them the performance trap and the pretending trap. The performance trap is thinking that you got to maintain a certain standard for God to accept you or bless you. And you think, if I fail to meet that standard, then God will punish me. He'll withhold blessing from me. He'll make bad things happen to my life.

Maybe even send you to hell. So you're always wondering, have I been good enough? Have I done enough? And if something unfortunate happens to you, well, then you start wondering, is God paying me back for something?

What did I do? This kind of life leads to constant anxiety. It leads to eventual exhaustion. Closely related to the performance trap is what we'll call the pretending trap. That's where you're always trying to act on the outside, like you got everything together, even when you don't really feel like it on the inside. Listen, I will say this, as now a pastor for 17 years, church people are the absolute worst at this or best at this, depending on how you want to look at it. You see some perfect little family coming in on the weekend, Sunday morning, they're all bows and Bibles and smiles. And the husband sticks out his hand and says, bless you brother. And I got a little, as he smiles at you, you see this gleam in his teeth and a faint glow coming from behind his head. And the kids are all standing there politely in their little matching outfits and their lavender colored Bibles.

And it just, everything looks so perfect. Y'all listen, I know from personal experience that there's a really good chance that on the way to the church in the car, that his wife and he were totally screaming at each other. And now that he don't even want to talk to each other. And as they pulled into the parking lot, he was leaning back in the back seat, trying to swing one of the kids in there.

And it's just not like it looks like on the outside. Or sometimes you see somebody at church and you're like, how you doing? How you doing? And they'll be like, amazing. I'm just so blessed, too blessed to be stressed. But man, you look at their Facebook page and they don't look too blessed to be stressed. They look plenty stressed.

In fact, it looks like their life is on fire. And so this pretending trap, where we're always trying to maintain righteousness and happiness on the outside while keeping these sinful impulses under control. Joby Martin, a friend of mine describes this kind of religious life like trying to hold a beach ball under water. If you've ever tried to do that, you gotta really concentrate because the beach ball is always trying to wriggle out and pop up.

And that's kind of your life. It's like, you're always trying to hold these things down. And then every once in a while, it just pops up and shoots several feet into the air and it's really embarrassing. And you got to get a hold of it and shove it back down under the water. So that people can't see what their struggle that's going on down there. The gospel Paul explains in Romans 8 sets you free from both of those traps.

Both of those traps. The key is freedom. You know that scene in Braveheart, that epic scene where Mel Gibson is like, freedom, you know, at the end there.

That's kind of what you need to think. I asked them if I could paint my face blue for this sermon and they said, no, but I want you to have that image because this is Paul's cry of freedom. All right, so let's dive in. Chapter eight, verse one. Therefore, he says, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Has there ever been a more powerful therefore in the entire history of the English language or any language? This is Paul's answer to his dilemma that he put out in chapter seven. If you remember throughout chapter seven, Paul has lamented about how much he struggles with sin. And in fact, he ends chapter seven by saying, the good that I want to do, I can't make myself do.

And the evil that I hate, well, that's what I ended up doing. And then he kind of throws up his hands and he says, oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Then he answers this question right at the end of that chapter.

He says, thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So now beginning this chapter, Paul asks, well, since I continue to struggle so much with sin, how much condemnation, how much punishment can I expect to experience? Because I mean, I've tried to be honest, my life is still a struggle with all this sin. Paul's answer, there is therefore no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. Condemnation, of course, is a legal term. It means that there is a charge that is being held against you.

It means that you owe a debt or a payment. For those in Christ, that debt no longer exists because Paul says that debt has been paid in full. Charles Spurgeon used to say that for those in Christ, it would be unjust for God to ever punish you for sin. He could never punish you for sin because that would be requiring two payments for the same sin, right? I mean, if our electric bill at my household is super high one month because I keep the air on 55 degrees, that may or may not be accurate, but if it's super high one month because of that, and my wife pays it in full, but then the electric company contacts me and says, hey, we expect you also to pay because you're the one, you're the fool that sets it on 55, and so because you're the one that's doing it, we want you to pay also. Well, I would say, that's not fair.

That's not fair. She paid that bill in full, and so you have no more claim on me. Paul says, if I'm in Christ, God literally cannot condemn me. He cannot condemn me for my sin because Jesus was fully condemned for me. For God to hold me accountable for even an ounce of my sin would be to require two payments for the same debt. This declaration of no condemnation applies to both your past and your future sins. You see, many Christians get that Jesus paid the penalty for their past sins. It's like you wipe the slate clean on those, so to speak, but they think, you know, if you commit future sins, well, well then you might get re-condemned for those. Paul says, not if you are in Christ.

Look, let me ask you a simple logical question, right? When Jesus died on the cross, how many of your sins had you committed yet? Not a single one of them, right? And so he paid for them all in advance. Before you'd ever committed a sin, he had already paid for all of them. In fact, when Paul wrote these words 2,000 years ago, there is no condemnation, right?

He is speaking, what, 65 AD, something like that? When he said that, had you committed any of the sins? No, and he's already declared that there's no condemnation that exists for that because Jesus had already atoned for your sins, even before you were even born.

Jesus' death wiped out not only the presence of existing condemnation, he wiped out the possibility of future condemnation. And that means there is literally nothing that you could do right now that would make God love and accept you any more than he does, and nothing you could do that would make him love you any less. You are in Christ, which means there is nothing that could impede or endanger God's love and his acceptance of you. You see, a lot of Christians think God loves you more, the more that you become like Christ, the better Christian you are. I love to hear the words of a guy named Rankin Wilborn, who says it this way, God doesn't love you to the degree that you are like Christ, he loves you to the degree that you are in Christ. And that's always 100% because now he loves you like Jesus. That means that he is just as pleased with you on your very worst day as he was with Jesus when Jesus had just finished preaching the Sermon on the Mount. Can you imagine the Father's joy when Jesus finishes that sermon and the Father just beaming with happiness and pride and acceptance? That is the love and acceptance that God has for you because you and I are in Christ.

You need to let that sink in for a minute because when you do, that will free you from the performance trap. I don't ever have to be unsure of God's love for me. In all my mess, in all my Romans 7 struggles, I've got the unconditional love and I've got the absolute acceptance of the Father. And see, watch this, that then frees me from the pretending trap because I don't have to pretend anymore that I'm something that I'm not in front of you. There is literally nothing about me that could be revealed that Jesus has not already seen and that his blood has not already covered. That means you point out something about my life that is inconsistent or embarrassing and I say, yep, God saw that too.

And he set his love on me anyway and he's promised to change that in me. What are you embarrassed of right now? What is there in your life that you would be mortified if somebody found out about it?

What secret is there that you want something from your past or even a struggle in your present that you're like, I hope nobody ever knows about that? God has already seen it and God has already declared no condemnation. Jesus paid that for that in full and I receive you. There's an old hymn.

We haven't come up with a modern tune for it. Long may the accuser roar of sins that I have done. I know them all and thousands more. Jehovah knoweth none. Right? Freedom. That's Paul yelling freedom. What a verse.

Amen. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. Before we dive back into today's teaching, I wanted to take a minute to tell you about our latest premium resource. It's a Bible study on the first half of Romans by the late Pastor Tim Keller, one of Pastor JD's most significant mentors in ministry. This study, called The Grace of God, will help you experience and learn from the deep, rich teaching in the book of Romans in a whole new way. Each of the seven lessons includes key verses, practical application questions, and prayer prompts, which are designed for your own individual reflection or for facilitating group discussions. We'll send you a copy with your gift of $35 or more to this ministry, and you can give now by calling 866-335-5220 or by visiting us online at jdgreer.com. As always, we want to express how grateful we are for all of our generous donors and gospel partners. You truly do make Summit Life possible.

Now let's get back to today's teaching on Summit Life. Here's Pastor JD. Verse two, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. Key word here in this verse is the word because, because it connects it to the previous verse. Here's how I know I'm under no condemnation.

Pay attention. The reason I know that I'm under no condemnation is because I see a law in me that is leading me away from sin and death. Now, real quick, don't let the word law there throw you, because this is not law in the Old Testament mosaic law sense.

You need to read that word law in this verse. Read that like the word principle. There is a new principle at work in me. We used to operate according to the old principle that if we kept the law good enough, we would be accepted. The problem we discovered was that the law couldn't change our hearts, and if anything, the law just made us more fearful and more sinful.

But now, Paul says, there's a new principle. There is a new law that is at work in my heart and life, and that new law, new principle is the life-giving power of the spirit. The mosaic law said, only if you're good enough, only if you do enough, only then will you be accepted. God now says, nope, I'll produce righteousness behavior. I'll produce righteous behavior in you through the power of my spirit. The spirit is the other big theme of this chapter. Again, don't miss a connection between those first two verses. How do I know that there is no condemnation for me?

It is because I see the spirit of God at work in me. Listen friends, the necessary complement to forgiveness of sin is a release from the power of sin. It's like the other side of the salvation coin. If heads is freedom for the penalty of sin, then tails is freedom from the power of sin. If you are forgiven, you will be changed. If Jesus' death has released you from the penalty of sin so that there's no condemnation, then Jesus' spirit, his resurrection life starts to release you from the power of sin.

And the two were always going to go together. This was illustrated in the life of Jesus to the miracles where he would heal people. And sometimes in those miracles, he would say something honestly kind of strange. Somebody would be brought to him that was lame. They couldn't walk. And Jesus would say to them, your sins are forgiven.

Now rise, take up your bed and walk. And it's a little bit of an odd coupling because they hadn't mentioned anything about their sins. Why does Jesus bring up their sins?

It's because these miracles are illustrating salvation. When Jesus forgives your sins, then you will begin to rise up and walk spiritually. And if that is not happening in you, it is doubtful that he has forgiven you either.

So that is my question for you. It is awesome that your sins have been forgiven, but the question is, are you walking? I have bemoaned to you before the question we always use to determine if somebody's saved. The question we always ask, if you died tonight, do you know for sure that God would let you into heaven? Now, listen, that's a great question. It's a great question.

And you should have the right answer for it. The right answer for it is if you were to die tonight and God were to say, why should I let you into heaven? The only answer is because Jesus paid my sin debt in full. And because he said, there's no condemnation, therefore there is no reason not to accept me in heaven because Jesus paid it all.

So it's an important question, but equally important with that question is this other question. And that is not if you died tonight, but if you get up tomorrow, is your life going to be different because the spirit of Jesus is inside you? Are you up walking? You prayed and asked Jesus to come into your heart and pay for your sins.

That's great. But did you let him come in and take over your heart? He said your sins are forgiven, but did you rise, take up your bed and walk? Here's another example from the life of Jesus. It comes from John chapter eight. A woman is brought to Jesus who was caught in the very act of adultery. It says, Jesus says to her, your sins are forgiven. Neither do I condemn you. But then he also says to her, now go and sin no more.

In other words, right? I forgive your sin, now start walking again. Forgiveness is always accompanied by change. And I've told you before that the order that Jesus puts those two phrases in is important also. Neither do I condemn you comes before go and sin no more.

I've told you it's significant because most of us would want to reverse those. We would say something like, if you go and sin no more, then I will consider not condemning you. So why did Jesus put him in that order? Why did Jesus put neither do I condemn you before he said, go and sin no more?

Well, let me just ask you this. Why do you think this woman was an adulterer? Maybe if human nature is the same back then as it is today, maybe this woman felt starved for love. Maybe she'd grown up at a home where her father barely paid attention to her. Maybe she felt unappreciated in her marriage and by her husband. And this guy made her feel special and this guy made her feel attractive. Or maybe she felt pressured into this. Maybe this guy threatened her. Maybe he was just using her. Whatever it is for Jesus to tell this woman to just go and cut it out, wouldn't fix the problem.

The attracting power of sin was just too strong. Jesus had to assure her of a love and acceptance that was greater than whatever was drawing her toward the arms of that man. That's why he assured her of his acceptance of her before he gave her the command to change. Because the command to change would never be able to take root in her until she had felt the strength of his acceptance. He basically says to her, what your soul is craving for is not in him. What you're looking for has been in me.

The arms you've been looking for in romance have actually been my arms. We find the power to change only in the assurance of acceptance. You see the gospel message is not stop sinning.

That would be an impossible message. The gospel message is behold the love and the acceptance of your God and then you'll have the power to stop sinning. That's why we always say around here, we always say it this way, God's acceptance is the power that liberates us from sin.

It's not the reward for us having liberated ourselves. God's acceptance, most religions are gonna say this, God's acceptance, his entry is allowing you to go to heaven is gonna be the reward for having liberated yourself from temptation and sin. But the gospel says, no, God's acceptance is the power that liberates us from sin, not the reward for us having liberated ourselves. That's why God always puts, neither do I condemn you before he says, go and sin no more. It's why he says, your sins are forgiven you, now you can get up and walk. When in the hymns we sing, this is how he breaks the power of canceled sin. You ever think about that phrase, canceled sin means just forgiven, but he's gotta break its power. And the way that he breaks its power is through the assurance of acceptance, that is freedom. So in verses one and two, Paul articulates the two kinds of freedom from sin that come from salvation. He says, by Jesus's death, he's freed us from the penalty of sin, but now through his spirit, he has released you from the power of sin.

These two always go together. Now, verses three and four, Paul further unpacks the unity between these two kinds of freedom. He says, what the law, the Old Testament law, the Mosaic law, the thou shalt not law, what it could not do since it was weakened by the flesh. In other words, the law was making all these commands to us about being righteous that we just couldn't obey. What it could not do, God did.

How did God do it? He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own son and the likeness of simple flesh as a sin offering in order that the law's requirement would be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. In other words, Jesus released us from the law by being born in our flesh and then living the life we were supposed to live, which is a life of perfect obedience to the laws of God, and then dying a death as a sin offering, right? A sin offering for those of us who had not lived that way. And that offering, that sacrifice, freed us from the penalty of sin. And that made way for the spirit to come into us and to begin fulfilling the law's requirement in us.

What was the law's requirement? The law's requirement was that we do righteous. Jesus summarized it as loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and then loving your neighbor as yourself. He said that when the spirit comes in you, he'll actually start to produce those things in you. Because remember what I've told you, God is not just after obedience.

He's after a whole new kind of obedience. He's after an obedience that grows out of desire, an obedience where you seek God, not because you have to, not because you're told to, not because you're threatened with hell if you don't, an obedience where you seek God because you crave God, an obedience where you do righteousness because you love righteousness. Paul says that desire was not able to be produced by the law. The law could tell you all day long what you should do, but it couldn't produce the desires to do it. Those desires could only be produced in you by the life-giving power of the spirit. What the law could never do, the spirit does in the gospel.

So how practically does this change get produced in us? Well, Paul says it happens when we walk not according to the flesh, it's when we walk according to the spirit. And you say, what does that mean? All kinds of Christians have different ideas about what it means to walk according to the spirit. It's a great question.

Let's just keep reading. We'll let Paul answer his own question. Verse five, for those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit have their minds set on the things of the spirit. Walking according to the spirit is accomplished, in other words, by setting your mind on the things of the spirit. Notice, by the way, it doesn't say setting your mind on the spirit. It says setting your mind on the things of the spirit. The reason I draw that distinction is because a lot of Christians are obsessed by the spirit. And when you get really spiritual, you think that you relate to him all the time and you're always hearing his voice.

And he's like, it's like a scar on you, like the Harry Potter scar, which always tingling when something bad is about to happen. Setting your mind on the things of the spirit means thinking about the things that the spirit thinks about. It means you love what the spirit loves. It means you seek the things that the spirit sees. If you've trusted Christ as savior, you are in fellowship with the spirit. And most importantly, his power is within you. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. To listen to today's teaching again or to catch up on our Romans series or any other message from our entire Summit Life library, head over to jdgreer.com to listen for free. Along with all of the free resources available on jdgreer.com, we are also offering a new featured resource to those who support Summit Life with a gift. It's the first volume of a two-part Bible study through the Book of Romans written by Pastor Tim Keller. We'll offer the second volume later this year, so don't miss out on your chance to get volume one. Each of the book's seven studies walks you through passages in Romans with application questions and prayer prompts that Pastor Tim put together to help personalize the message. We'd love to get you a copy of this study called The Gift of God, and it comes with our thanks when you donate to support this program.

Summit Life is only possible because of listeners like you. So when you tune in, you've got another listener to thank for the message, and you can extend that gift to someone else by doing your part to keep this program going. You can give today by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or you can donate online right now at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us Wednesday when Pastor JD continues working through the greatest chapter in the whole Bible here on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.