Romans 8
Romans 8
[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to God's Plan, your part, year two, where this year we're reading through and studying the entire New Testament, one chapter at a time. Thanks again for joining us in discovering God's plan and your part in it. Today we are looking at Romans chapter eight, and essentially what's going on in Romans chapter eight is, I think, Paul is wrapping up Um, probably like one of the second or third cases he's been making.
This argument starts around the end of Chapter 5. In Chapter 6, he says we have to die to sin. We talked about that two days ago. In Chapter 7, he talks about we have to die to the law. We talked about that yesterday. Now in Chapter 8, he's saying we have to live according to the Spirit. So he says die to sin.
That's for the Gentiles who, like, most likely dealt with a lot of sin. He says die to the law. That's for the Jews who, most likely, Found themselves to be bound by the law. And now to both parties, he's saying, Hey, die to those things and live by the spirit. So this is a powerful chapter because it's saying, this is how you should live.[00:01:00]
This is how we do it. Um, I was thinking, actually, this one also has a lot of straightforward language as well. Um, it's like, if this, then that, and I really appreciate that, especially when I'm trying to understand something that seems like it could be pretty complex and lots of like, areas of like, well, what about this?
And when I'm like, no, if this is the case, then this is the result. And I really appreciate that. So I think this chapter really walks us through what it looks like to live by the spirit. Um, and essentially like when you are in the spirit, don't. Abuse that. Okay. So just to set up some of the theology that gets unpacked here, uh, if you look at verse three, 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.
So, so he's setting up, we live by the spirit. We don't live by the [00:02:00] flesh anymore. He's also setting up that Jesus came, Jesus lived a sinless life of complete obedience to God. He gave his life and by giving his life and sacrificing his blood, he satisfied the requirement of the law. That is, he paid the ultimate price.
He paid the ultimate sacrifice. The propitiation we talked about the other day, uh, for our sin, he paid the penalty that we all owe. And when we accept Christ, um, the Holy Spirit comes and lives in us. We'll talk about that in a second, but also we accept his payment for our sin and we then enjoy right relationship with God.
So Paul unpacks that just in three or four verses. Uh, but it's a really big deal. You don't want to miss that. Essentially that Jesus is the ultimate payment, uh, for our sin and he satisfies the requirements of the law. Well, I also kind of appreciate in verse two, um, where it's talking about the spirit has set you free in [00:03:00] Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
Um, and what really sticks out to me in that, I guess, a different perspective that I didn't really. Think about before is that, like, sin no longer has, like, the overall power over you because the workings of the spirit, um, in your life. is the evidence that you are in Christ. That's what our, our, uh, study Bible says.
I really appreciate that language because it's like, I just envision like someone before they experience like the life changing decision to follow Christ. And just like that burden, some like overpowering power in their lives. And when the Holy spirit is within them, It, like, helps and, like, does that work.
It's so cool. There's another pretty significant theology piece in here since we're talking about being essentially indwelt. That's the fancy word for having the Holy Spirit in you. If you look at verse, um, nine, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. In fact, the spirit of God dwells in you.
Anyone who does [00:04:00] not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. So Paul is making the case that if you are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit is not present in your life, you do not belong to Christ. So if you are someone, and I don't, I don't mean to be disrespectful or anything, but if you are someone who believes that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a secondary baptism, some people will say, like, you can come to faith in Christ, but then you must be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
It's a second thing. You would have to make sense of these couple of verses here. Because Paul seems to be saying that when you are a believer in Christ, when you truly believe and truly accept Christ's payment and sacrifice, you are immediately indwelt by the spirit. And so this, these verses do not support two separate baptisms.
They support one baptism. Hmm. Uh, something else I was talking about, like, if this, then that language at the beginning, uh, versus five. Essentially through 8, right before the verses you were talking about, [00:05:00] kind of gives a couple of those examples. Basically, if you live according to the flesh, your mind is going to be focused on things of the flesh.
Same if your mind is, uh, focused on the spirit, your mind will be set on things of the spirit. Just kind of makes sense. Um, if you set your mind on the things of the flesh. That is essentially, like, it's death because you are outside of the spirit and, um, like God's leading. Uh, for the mind, this is verse 7, 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. So that to me is, like, that's actually really powerful language. I feel like there's a lot of, like, mindsets and mentalities that Where, like, there's this gray area of, like, well, it's actually not that big of a deal for this sin and this sin or whatever the case may be. But it's interesting that, like, our minds, if we are fixated on the flesh, it is hostile to God.
Like, it is hostile to what God's law says. And so, in fact, it cannot [00:06:00] submit to God's law, verse 7, um, and it just, like, it makes so much sense to me, like, of course that's the case. If you're so fixated on Sin and what's permissible and what's not or how close can we get to the edge? You're not focused on what the spirit is requiring.
You're focused on the things of the flesh which leads to death It is interesting and I would just say personally when I've experienced that in my own life It's been a mark of spiritual immaturity Anytime you're asking like where is the line and how close can I get to it? You're you're essentially most likely I guess I don't want to make like a broad You Too broad of a statement, but most likely you're not living to honor Christ.
You're trying to think of like, what is the minimal payment I can make and still get by? That's, I mean, that's not a good way to do anything. Like, I mean, if that's how you're doing your job, if that's how you're doing your parenting, if that's how you're doing it, whatever, that's not responsible in any way of life, but particularly in your life in Christ, it's not a great.
Way to go, and we're [00:07:00] not serving ourselves very well. We're not serving our churches. Well our communities. Well When we're living that way So I think Paul is making pretty compelling case that life by the Spirit is defined by how do I honor God all in? How do I follow the Spirit? Yeah, exactly Like we we should we live lives that are defined by worship because we've died to sin and we've died to the law The only option left is to live by the Spirit.
I think you had made a pretty funny. Oh boy You I don't know, it was like, maybe not even funny. It was just like a really compelling Thought about, I guess, just like how, how we do certain things with faith these days, where you compared it to like professional athletes, explain it. Cause you did a really good, cause I think it's helpful with this because this is kind of riding out the whole, like, well, I can kind of like get rid of some of this sin or I can kind of live by the law and it's okay.
But it's like, if we're not all out, like this is telling us to be. It's almost like you're just like shorting yourself. So obviously [00:08:00] this is just an allegory. It's just an example. Correct. But I would say like if you, if you play soccer or you watch soccer and actually you can imagine any sport, baseball, football, whatever, if you're going to coach, whatever, you don't sit around thinking like who's going to put forward the least amount of effort possible and we want to make sure they're on the, like, that's just not how you do anything like you, you don't, you don't hire prospects based on like who seems that they meet the best.
Bare minimums and we'll do nothing else. Um, so for some reason, we're really passionate about making sure we have really good quarterbacks on our football teams. Um, really, I don't know many other sports positions, unfortunately. It's good to say where you go with that one. That's going to be fun. Because, because we want our guys to win games, you know, we, we want.
people that win. We want people that perform. Uh, unfortunately, when it comes to discipleship, a lot of times we're asking ourselves, uh, how can we get the people, how can we get the most people at the least cost? Which is interesting because I feel like this chapter in, in and of [00:09:00] itself, it is alluding to discipleship.
Like you're here and you need to move forward. And it's not a great way to do discipleship. I think we should be asking the opposite questions. How can we get the most out of everyone? Because we want to honor God as much as possible. Now, please don't, don't hear the wrong thing. Um, Salvation is a free gift from God.
It's not based on your performance. It's based on the performance of Christ and accepting what Christ has already done. So I'm not talking salvation. I'm talking discipleship. Like we want, we want to pursue extremely strong and extremely healthy. Christians. And we do that by encouraging people to live lives defined by the spirit, defined by, um, the way of God, not defined by the flesh.
I think what's important to hear is as we're reading through Romans eight, Paul's letter does say in verse nine, like you talked about earlier, you, however, are not in the flesh, but you are in the spirit. And if in fact, the spirit of God dwells in you. So it's essentially [00:10:00] saying like you've committed your life So, like, you have the spirit in you.
You are no longer in the flesh. This isn't even an argument of, like, Well, you haven't decided yet. Like, no, you've committed to this. So now that discipleship piece is 100 percent like relevant in this conversation. So moving a little bit forward, we spent a lot of time in the opening verses. Hey, it's cool.
Um, really good. One of the things that comes with being indwelt by the spirit, being marked. Um, by a life of living by the spirit is that we actually become adopted sons and daughters of God co heirs with Christ. This is a huge deal. The original Roman audience would have understood it probably in a more impactful way than we do today.
Um, however, if you have adopted kids or if you have adopted siblings or if there's adoption in your family, you are adopted. You understand this. Like you get this because you. Come from a completely different family. You become part of another family. And [00:11:00] when you become part of that family, you're a hundred percent in, you have all of the rights and privileges of.
Part of that family and one of the interesting things that I always think about is particularly in Rome some of the emperors were actually adopted and The the reason that happened is because an emperor wanted to pick like a worthy leader and then adopt them into their family so that they're heir would be their adopted son, um, that would have all the rights and authority and permissions that comes with the emperor.
And so that language would have been really powerful to them. Uh, and, and basically what it means is like, we're not, we're not living by the flesh anymore. We're not defined by sin anymore. We're not defined by mortal carnal decisions. We're defined by our father, God. We're defined by Um, the family lineage that is the family of God.
That means we process things differently. We make [00:12:00] decisions differently. We're actually seen in a different light. Uh, it's a big deal to be a son and daughter of God and a co heir with Christ. Don't take that lightly and don't read over those verses. It's just like, Oh man, that's nice. Like it's a whole new identity for us.
And what a, what a weird thing it would be, uh, for the adopted emperor to be like, you know. It's cool to be an emperor and all, but man, I really miss being a nobody. So, so it's kind of odd to be like, man, I am a son of God, but I sure miss being, you know, a son of wrath. It's like, no, that's not how this works.
Like. Move forward, honor your adopted father and honor the family that that comes, that comes with that. So with that thought, um, we kind of move into the next couple of sections of the chapter and, um, verse 26 is what kind of stuck out to both of us. Uh, it says, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray [00:13:00] for as we ought, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Um, And he who searches the hearts knows what is in the mind of the spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So this part is actually kind of cool too, because it's like a reminder as well. Like, you are in the spirit, the spirit is here to intercede for you, um, and it does help us in those weaknesses, whether it be an issue with sin, an issue with thinking you can gain your salvation through the law.
Like it's, it's again, kind of bringing us all to this point where we need to be discipled and you're not alone. On the path, I would say like a real world application here for me, and this is something I've grown in the last couple of years, like the Holy Spirit is in us. It actually in this chapter talks about like the spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in us.
Um, I don't want to ignore the Holy Spirit. I don't, I don't want to. Um, not live according to the Holy Spirit and the promptings and all that kind of stuff. But this groaning passage is a big [00:14:00] deal for me because there are things that we experience where we're like, man, I know I need to go to God with this, but I don't even know where to start or what to say or how to handle it.
Well, the good news is you don't actually need to feel that pressure at all because the Holy Spirit is in you. God is in you through the Holy Spirit. He knows what you need. And, uh, what needs to happen. So it's okay to trust the fact that the Holy Spirit is going to groan on your behalf. You, you don't need perfect words.
You don't need perfect asks. You can trust the Holy Spirit is groaning on your behalf, um, to bring about what needs to happen to honor Christ in whatever your situation is. I also think like jumping off of like what you just said is in experiences that I have felt those same things where you're going through these like.
Really tumultuous times the event itself is what you can fixate on But it's interesting how when you do go to God and you're like, I don't know what to do. It's interesting how like patience [00:15:00] or Wisdom or thankfulness or kindness those like specific things come to mind and end up being the thing that you grow in even more then just figuring out like a resolution to the problem itself.
So it is interesting because I think the Holy Spirit definitely like works on your character like we talked about the other day. Um, character, it produces righteousness. It like goes through the whole thing. So it's interesting how sometimes when those horrible things happen or just crazy things happen that.
The Spirit does intercede and does groan on your behalf, but also teaches you some of those other things that you would have never expected would have been the result of that. So we're here at the end of the chapter. Is there a verse that stuck out to you, Ryan, that could kind of like bring a your part?
to this whole chapter. Unfortunately, I'm going to pick the cliche one. Probably. Um, unfortunately, Romans 8 28. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his [00:16:00] purpose. This does not mean brand new cars and bigger houses and tons of money.
Although, you know, Sometimes it does mean actual provision for your needs. Um, basically what this means is God is going to take care of you. You are a son and daughter of God. He's going to look out for you. He's going to care for you. Now I'm saying those things and claiming those promises, uh, assuming that you are obedient to Christ and under the, the sacrifice under the, the power of his resurrection, like you've accepted Christ, you're living as a believer.
Um, And we know that all things work together for the good of those called according to the purpose. Um, so check out that verse, it's, it's a powerful verse and I encourage you to be encouraged by it. I would also add that little last part for his purposes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That is something that sometimes we can be like, Oh yeah, his purpose, whatever.
Well remember. We're living by the spirit. We're living for God. We're pursuing his will. We're trying to honor and worship, which has no space for selfishness. That's not about you. [00:17:00] It's about honoring him and, and, um, completing his purposes. So I would, I would take that with you for the day. Uh, we'll be back again to actually, we'll be back again on Monday.
I always say tomorrow, even though it's the weekend and I always fuss about it. We'll be back again on Monday, uh, Romans chapter nine. We'll see you then. Thanks for joining today's episode of God's plan. Your part, as always, please consider partnering with us as we are a listener supported podcast that we hope to continue to grow with support from listeners.
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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 [00:18:00] 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 Christ from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus [00:19:00] Christ 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 you live by the Spirit, you will put to death the deeds of the body, and 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 will be revealed to us.
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not [00:20:00] willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption, and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who are the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit.
Amen. Because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for [00:21:00] good, for those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he for knew. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified.
What, then, shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is it to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are being [00:22:00] killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything, in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of God's Plan, Your Part.
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Thanks again for listening. We'll see you again [00:23:00] tomorrow.