Power In The Wind

By Bobby Blakey on April 30, 2023

Romans 8:1-4

AUDIO

Power In The Wind

By Bobby Blakey on April 30, 2023

Romans 8:1-4

I invite you to open the Bible with me and turn to John chapter 3 before we get to Romans 8. We're going to begin to study Romans 8 here today, a chapter we've been looking forward to. But I have a concern before we get into it. My concern is that as we're trying to live the Christian life, and we want to be a good person, and we want to do the right thing, that that's what we're doing, it's just us trying to do it. And my concern is that when we go to a passage like Romans 8, it is great! This will encourage me so that I can live my Christian life. And I want to take us back to this conversation that Jesus has with Nicodemus. Nicodemus, he was like a teacher in the synagogue. He was like a leader among the Jewish people. He was a good guy, you would have thought, and look what Jesus says to Nicodemus here in John 3:1-10:
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?
See, this is my concern for those of us who go to church in Southern California, I want to be a Christian, I want to live for Jesus. Do we understand that we can't live for Jesus, and we need the power of the Spirit to cause us to live for Jesus? Like, do we understand that we needed to have a whole new life and a part of that new life is not just being cleansed of our sin, but we are born of the Spirit and just like the wind blows, and you can see the power in the wind. So, the only way we're going to grow as a Christian is the power of the Spirit working in us. I've been excited for us to get to Romans 8, a long time, I've been ready to preach through Romans 8. I've been thinking, this is one of the most encouraging series of passages in all of the Bible, I can't wait. But as I actually have studied Romans 8, I found out this isn't just an encouraging series of passages. This is about an encouraging person that we have inside of us, who is the Holy Spirit. And if you're trying to live for Jesus, I hope you stop trying today. And I hope that from today forward, the Spirit causes you to walk in a new way for Jesus Christ.
So, turn with me, everybody, to Romans chapter 8. And we are going to start a study called “power in the wind” and we're going to see what the Spirit can do in our lives. And we're going to be studying this for weeks, we're going to be talking about it in our fellowship groups. I'm hoping that the month of May 2023 is… May first starts tomorrow morning, I'm hoping that this will be the most empowered, the most enabled the best month of your life because you're not trying to do it, but the Spirit is doing it through you. And I want to introduce what the Spirit can do in your life. In the first 4 verses of Romans chapter 8, Romans 8:1-4. And out of respect for God's Word. I'm going to invite everybody to stand up for the public reading of Scripture; even if you're watching this on a screen or online, if you could stand up and give this your full and undivided attention. This is the Word of God. We're just going to get through the first 4 verses of Romans 8 please follow along as I read.
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.
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and have your seat. And if you just keep looking with me through Romans chapter 8, can you see how many times the word Spirit appears. Like, just keep going into verse 5, and you can see verse 6, and you can see it, even down there in 9, and 10 and 11. This is all about the Spirit in your life. Even when you get to verse 12, you can see there's a strong contrast here between the flesh and the Spirit. And Romans 8:14 says, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Romans 8:16 says, “the Spirit himself bears witness with our Spirit.” And even when you get to Romans 8:18, and you think, okay, well, this is about something else. Now, look at Romans 8:23, it gets back to the fact that we have the first fruits of the Spirit. Even Romans 8:26. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. So, all the way through to Romans 8:27, the Spirit is being referred to as the subject. So really the first half here of Romans 8, it's not just encouraging scripture, it's an encouraging person that has been given to us. If you are in Christ Jesus, you have the Spirit of life. That's what it's saying here in our text.
So, we're going to see, and you've got a handout there in your bulletin. If you want to take some notes about what we're going to learn here together, you can see if you pull that handout out that some of this is review, restating things we've already learned in our study of the book of Romans. And then some of this is new to the book of Romans, as it's directing us now into the Spirit of life, and don't, hey, don't keep walking according to the flesh, you can walk now according to the Spirit. So, a little review, and a little something new here as we go through these four verses together.
Let's start in Romans 8:1. And it says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” So, if you have believed in Jesus, I've got good news for you here today. You are never going to be punished for your sins. Anybody want to say Amen that I hear today? All right. All the things that you have done, where you deserve to be judged according to what you have done, and that kind of judgment, that is punishment, paying you back for what you have done. That is condemnation. And if you have believed in Jesus, there is no punishment for your sin, because you are now in Christ. This is good news I have to share with you here today. And this is something that we've already learned in Romans. And it's been a while since we were in Romans, so, we'll have to remember it here. We've already learned this. And now he's going to use this to teach us the new things about the Spirit. So go back to Romans 5:16, where he already talked about this idea of condemnation, that when Adam sinned, we all sinned. And because we were all in the one man, Adam, we were all going to die, the wages of our sin was going to be death, and after death would come judgment, and we would be condemned for what we had done. That was the idea of the one man Adam. But then he introduced the one man, Jesus. Jesus, who comes to us as a gift by the grace of God, Jesus, who doesn't want to condemn us, but Jesus wants to justify us. Instead of saying we're guilty, he wants to declare us not guilty. He wants to declare us righteous. Look at how it says here in Romans 5:16. It says, “And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.” So, in Adam, we're all going to have sin, we're all going to die and then we would be condemned. But in Jesus, when we transfer our trust to Jesus, we are justified; that means God declares us righteous on the basis of our faith in Jesus. Jesus pays for our sin, and we get the righteousness of Jesus imputed to us. Look at Romans 5:18, where it says the same idea again, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” So, one act of righteousness the sacrificial death of the pure blood of, Jesus being shed for us on the cross, one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. So, we weren't going to be condemned but in Christ, now we are justified.
In fact, go back to Romans 3:21, because that was the big transition. But now you've been trying to keep the law. You've been trying to live up to God's glorious standard, but you can't do it. But now look what Christ has done. Romans 3:21-24. “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” So, if you have now put your faith in Jesus, there is therefore no condemnation for you, because you have now been justified in Christ. So, I'm sure there are some people here, you're feeling guilty over things that you have done, you're feeling a sense of shame over your sin, maybe you are feeling like bad things have happened to you, because God is punishing you for your sin. Or maybe you're even afraid that you've done some bad things. So, something bad is going to happen to you, God's going to get you for what you have done. I am here to tell you today that you don't have to ever be worried about God punishing for your sins. If you have trusted in Jesus, Jesus has already paid it all; he's already paid it in full. It is finished. There is no condemnation for you. So, if you're feeling that way, you’ve got to rethink the way that you're feeling, based on the truth of Romans 8:1.
Let's get point one down like this, and all the points here they go along with the verses. So, point number one goes along with verse one, which is a review. Let's “rethink feeling like you will be punished.” Rethink feeling like you will be punished. Okay, if you're feeling guilty, if you're feeling ashamed, and it's right for you to feel bad about sinning, right? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! I mean, sin is wrong before God. And if you're thinking what I did was bad, and I feel bad about it, I get you. But you don't need to keep feeling bad. Because when you feel bad, what you're focused on is what you've done. And you see what God's glory is. And you see how you fell short of it. You see how you hurt that person, or you see how you did this thing that now you feel like that was twisted, I should have never done that. And now you're looking back on it, and you're feeling bad about it. But all of your focus is on you and what you have done. And I'm here to tell you today that you don't have to have a party of pity over what you have done and feel terrible. You can actually look to the one who had pity on you, and he died on the cross in your place. And when you stop looking at what you've done, and you look to what Jesus has done, you can love Jesus that he already paid for that sin. And you don't have to be feeling bad about it. Because Jesus, he already took God's wrath for you, and you are now forgiven, you are now cleansed. And instead of just feeling bad about yourself, you could be loving Jesus, instead. Does that sound good to anybody else here, right? Do you realize that moment where you're broken about your sin and you're convicted, and you're feeling terrible about what you've done? That could actually be an awesome moment of praise and worship, if you would stop looking at yourself, and you turn your eyes to Jesus? Yes, that sin was wretched. But Jesus loved you so much, he already took the punishment for that sin. And if you look to him, you won't be feeling bad. You will be rejoicing in Jesus; you'll be giving him thanks. You'll have a moment right there, maybe even through tears, where in your heart, you are worshiping Jesus, that he would love you so much to pay for your sin like that. So don't look at what you've done. Look to Jesus and celebrate what he has done for you.
I remember this story that Pastor Mike Fabarez shared in one of his sermons when I was back at Compass Bible Church down in Aliso Viejo, the ones who sent us up here to Huntington Beach. He told this story about one day, he opened up his front door to walk out and out onto his porch there and to go out to live his day. And when he opened his front door, there were a bunch of grown men sitting and having lunch right outside of his door. So, you can imagine that that would be awkward if you opened your front door. And here's some grown dudes eating lunch right there when you're trying to walk out and get your day going. And he's about ready to tell these guys to get off his lawn. He's feeling awkward. He's feeling territorial. Why are these guys eating lunch right here outside of my front door? And then he remembers, oh, yeah, I hired these guys to trim my trees. That's why they're here, hanging out in my house, right? And he's like, oh, yeah, well, I'm actually happy these guys are here having lunch, because I don't want to trim those trees. And I'm so glad they're doing it. So, I'm not going to say anything to these guys about eating their lunch right here.
See, and he used that to say that, like, guilt has a job, there's a reason you feel guilty. There's a reason you feel shame. There's a reason that you feel bad about your sin. And the whole point of feeling bad about your sin is so God can open your eyes, that you can see, hey, I am a sinner. And then you can see Jesus up there on that cross, sacrificing his body, shedding his blood; there's Jesus dying for your sin. And as soon as that guilt and shame turns your eyes to look at Jesus, and you can believe in him, then you can tell that guilt to get off your lawn, because you're done with it. And it's done its job, and you don't need it there anymore. So, some of you are still putting yourself in the penalty box for sins that you have done. And I'm here to tell you today, Jesus already paid for that sin. There's no condemnation for that sin. Now, you don't need to keep feeling that way. Look at Jesus and tell that guilt and shame, stop eating lunch on my front porch, I'm tired of you. Now, you've already done, already looked to the one who died on the tree for me, I don't need this guilt and shame anymore. Now that's review.
Let's go back to Romans 8:2, because we're supposed to go right from that thought about our justification and our sin being forgiven, and us being declared righteous by God and heaven. And we're supposed to go right to the next thought in verse 2, which is the new thought that he's introducing here in Romans eight. “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” So, if you are in Christ Jesus, if you have transferred your trust to what Jesus did for you, rather than what you've done, you're trusting in what he's done. And immediately along with that, the moment you believe in Jesus, if you're in Christ Jesus, you now have the Spirit of Life. This is how he's introduced to us here. In the Spirit of Life, he sets you free from sin and death. So, this idea of you trying to live your Christian life, that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible never encourages anybody to go live their Christian life by themselves. You can't go live the Christian life by yourself. Instead, God puts his Spirit in you, and his Spirit is going to empower you to live a new life. Can I get an Amen from anybody on this? So, you have the Spirit of life inside of you. And this is going to help you now stop living according to the old way of the flesh, where you are always trying to live up to the law, but never able to live up to God's glorious standard, always falling short.
You don't have to live according to the flesh anymore because you have the Spirit of Life now and the Spirit of Life, you want to know what he does? He gives you freedom from sin and death. That's what it just said right there. If you have believed in Jesus, you also have the Spirit. Go back to chapter 7, where he already told us that he was going to get into this. Romans 7:5-6. So hopefully, if you've been here, hopefully you remember, let's even go back to Romans chapter 6. Let's just do some review here Romans 6:3, hopefully you remember how we learned about our union with Christ. Where it says here in Romans 6:3-4, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” So hopefully you remember that. We learned that earlier this year, that you have died with Christ, you are now dead to sin, and you have been raised with Christ and you now have a new life; you are alive to God. Okay, so hopefully, we're all seeing what it means to be in Christ Jesus. But then, when it finished that thought, go to Romans 7:5-6, because then there were two things that wanted to get into after this thought that we’re in Christ. And it says in Romans 7:5, “For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.” So, your flesh it wants to do sin and now that sin is going to kill you. And even God's law that tells you don't do that sin, all you want to do when you hear the law is go and do that sin, then it's telling you not to do. So, that's what Romans chapter 7 was about, the flesh. And then look at Romans 7:6. “But now, we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the who everybody, we now have a new way of the Spirit.” So, I'm sorry, it's taken us so long, because in Christ, we don't have to live according to the flesh and the new way that we live, it's all by the Spirit, because it's not just you anymore, you now have the Spirit of the Almighty God in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of God is now in you.
So, let's get this down for number two. Here's the new thing that we're going to be talking about for weeks, you need to “Believe in the new covenant of the Spirit.” Believe in the new covenant of the Spirit. Jesus came to usher in this new covenant through his body and his blood. And Jesus, after he died and rose again, he went up into heaven, because the plan wasn't for Jesus to stay here with us. The plan was that he would send his Spirit and his Spirit is not just even with us, his Spirit is in us. And Jesus introduced this new covenant of the Spirit to his disciples in John 14:16. So turn with me to John, chapter 14, verse 16, this is the last supper, and Jesus tells the disciples, I'm not going to be here anymore. I'm going to go and be with my Father in heaven. And you can imagine after three years of these guys following Jesus, the fact that he wasn't going to be there really got them concerned, they'd seen the miracles, they'd heard his teachings, they knew who Jesus really was. What do you mean, you're not going to be here, Jesus? Look what Jesus says to them in John 14:16-17, where he starts to introduce what he wants for his people. And he says, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” So, Jesus says, I'm going to go be with the Father. But hey, I'm going to send the Spirit to you. And the Spirit will be in you.
Go over to John chapter 16, verse 7. Look what Jesus says, I don't know if you've really ever studied this verse before. If you've really thought about what Jesus is saying here, because if I offered you the choice right now, hey, this week as you begin May 2023, would you rather have Jesus living at your house this week? Or would you rather have the Holy Spirit living inside of you this week? Which one would you want? See, I think naturally, we'd be like, sign me up for some Jesus, please. Right. I'd like to have Jesus over to my house. I'd like to have Jesus go to my work. I'd like to introduce him to a few people over there, right. I'd like to see what miracles he could do. Maybe we could visit the hospital and we could see what Jesus does over there. I'd like yeah, maybe we'll have Jesus come and teach the church, right? If Jesus is ever at your house, feel free to bring him up here. We'll hand him over the pulpit, right away. See, we have this idea of Jesus was with me, that would be awesome. Do you see what Jesus says here in John 16:7. “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
Jesus is telling you, it's better, rather than having Jesus beside you, you want the Spirit inside you. He's saying that's to your advantage. And notice, I don't know how this happened that all we usually call him is the Holy Spirit. Most times when we refer to this third person of the Trinity, the Spirit, we don't call him, He was introduced in Romans 8:2 as the Spirit of life. Well, we usually just say, Holy Spirit, like that's his one and only name. But go now back to John 14:16, and look what Jesus calls him because Jesus calls him by other names, and Jesus, he knows the Spirit. He's sending the Spirit. Look at what he calls him in verse 16. “I will ask the Father and he will give you another…” What does he call him there everybody? The Helper. Could you write that down under point number two, you have a Helper you have and really you could translate that word Encourager, you have an encourager living inside. You are never alone. You are never just you. It's never just you against the universe. You trying to make it through another day, you trying to live the Christian life. It's never just you, you have a Helper, and he lives in you. He's the encourager, how you can translate it, the Greek word for to encourage is parakaleo, to call alongside, to speak into one another's lives. The word here is parakaleo, that you have the encourager, and he lives in you. Whenever you are feeling weak, he is strong; when you feel empty, he gives grace; when you feel tired, and you're like I'm done, there's no way I can keep obeying, there's no way I can keep going for Jesus, I've just been too much. You have the everlasting energy of God working in you, you have a Helper that can help you do more than you would ever be able to do by yourself. That's what Jesus calls it. He says you did you live this last week of your life, like you had help inside of you, something greater than you was in you. That's who you've got. And then notice what else he calls him in John 14:17. Even the Spirit of Truth, let's write that down, is another name for the Holy Spirit. And I'm hoping that as we're going to be studying the Holy Spirit over these next few weeks of Romans 8, I'm hoping that we'll start calling him the Helper; we’ll start calling him the Spirit of Truth, or the Spirit of Life that will start to really understand all that the Spirit is ready to do in us. Because he's the Spirit of Truth. If you can understand what the Bible is teaching, if you can see things by faith in the Spiritual realm, things that can't be seen, physically by your eyeballs, but you can still see what is true. The reason you can understand the truth of God's word is the Spirit of Truth is illuminating your understanding. He's opening the eyes of your heart to see. He's giving you those Spiritual ears to hear if you feel bad, and convicted about your sin, if you're able to see the right thing that God wants you to do, that's because the Spirit of Truth is revealing it to you.
We’ve been doing this church now for almost nine years, and I can't tell you the amount of people that have said to me over these nine years, you know, I don't really like reading books. I'm not really a student, I didn't do well in school. I don't like school. I mean, even last night, when we had our celebration of reading through the New Testament, some people came up and gave testimonies. And one of the things that somebody said their first word out of their mouth, and their testimony about reading the Bible over the last year is, I hate reading. That was the first thing they said, right? But see, reading this book is different than reading other books. Because it's like you have a tuner built in with this book. It's like you have a Spirit of Truth. And all of a sudden you're getting things, things that are not just because you feel physically intelligent, things that are Spiritually discerned that the Spirit of Truth is teaching you. And then when you need to remember that thing, he brings it to remembrance, and then when he needs to teach you something else, he teaches you that too, because he is the Spirit of Truth. See, there's a reason people can read this book more than any other book they've ever read, because they've got the Spirit opening their eyes to get it. Like are you aware that the Holy Spirit is there? Are you seeing all that he is doing that He is the Spirit of Life, who will set you free from sin and death, because we're supposed to understand that God loved us in heaven, and he sent his son Jesus. And as soon as you and I are in Christ, we have the Spirit.
Go back to Romans chapter 8. And let's see how he's building his case. He's starting with things we know, like that the Father loved us, and the Father sent his one and only Son, and now we're in Christ Jesus, where there's no condemnation. And he's taking that thought to the next step, which is and therefore you have the Spirit in you. Look at how he says it here in Romans 8:3-4, goes all the way back to God the Father, for God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. If you were trying to be right by keeping the law, you could never get your own righteousness. There was no self-righteousness by works of the law, but God has done it; he has made you righteous, and here's how he did it. 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 he sent his son for sin. God condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walked not according to the flesh, but according to the who there, everybody? So, this is a Trinitarian passage, this is all three persons of the Godhead. Do you see the Father on his throne, he sends his Son, Jesus is in the likeness of our flesh, and he sends his Son as an offering for sin. And if you have seen your sin get paid for by Jesus, if you know that God punished Jesus for your sin, if you've trusted in Jesus, well, now you have been made righteous. And now you no longer need to walk, live, conduct yourself, based on your flesh anymore; you can now walk according to the Spirit.
And so, Romans 8:3 is now another part of the review. Hey, this is the good news. God loves you. He sent Jesus to die in your place. In fact, look right there at verse three, where it says, “For sin,” and you might notice there's a footnote there, because one of the ways you could translate that phrase for sin is you could say it was a sin-offering, this idea of a substitutionary sacrifice. Let me show you another passage where it gives this same idea in Hebrews 13:11. Let's all turn in our Bibles to Hebrews 13:11, because it talks about this idea of a sin-offering. And the Jewish people that Hebrews is written to they were familiar with sin-offerings, they did that through animal sacrifices. If you've ever read Leviticus, how they would take the animal to the tabernacle, or to the temple where the priests were, and they would lay their hand on the animal like this animal represents my burden of sin, like this animal is now going to have to die because the wages of sin is death. And because I sinned, blood has to be shed, there's going to be death. And so, this animal is then sacrificed and the blood of the animal is taken to the altar, because that animal is like an offering to atone for my sin. And so here in Hebrews 13:11, it's referring to that. It says, “the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priests as a,” here's the same phrase from Romans 8:3, “as a sacrifice for sin.” And we take the bodies of these animals, and we burn them outside the camp, Hebrews 13:12. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate outside the city of Jerusalem, in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Jesus is our substitutionary sacrifice. So, God already condemned sin in the flesh on Jesus; God already punished Jesus in your place. That's why there's no condemnation for you. Because Jesus already got the punishment, that condemnation, when he was offered himself as a sacrifice and shed his righteous blood, all of your sin was punished.
Let's get that down for number three: “Remember, Jesus was punished in your place.” Remember, Jesus was punished in your place. So, when you're feeling bad about your sin, you’ve got to learn to stop looking at what you've done. And you’ve got to remember what Jesus has done. And God condemned your sin in Jesus so that you will never be condemned. So, this word condemnation, in Romans 8:1, now we have the verb form of that same word, that hey, Jesus, he already got condemned, he already got punished in your place. That's why you're never going to be condemned for your sin. Jesus paid it for you. You’ve got to remember that. And if you believe that Jesus paid for your sin, if you're trusting that Jesus died in your place, and that's what saves you. Well then go back to Romans chapter 8:4, because now the way that we're going to see that God has made you righteous is we're going to see it now in the way that you walk, and you are no longer going to walk according to the flesh, but you are now going to walk according to the Spirit. So, it is not you trying to be righteous. God has already made you righteous in Christ, God has already put the Holy Spirit in you. And now the Spirit will cause you to learn a new way of righteousness to live. So, we’ve got to make this very clear. Okay. Problem here is you're going to walk either according to the flesh, or according to the Spirit. And if you have been made righteous by God through Jesus Christ, then you don't have to walk in the flesh anymore; you can now walk according to the Spirit. And when the Greek scriptures when they say this word, Peripateo, this word that means to walk, they're not talking about how your feet move across the earth, they're talking about you and your lifestyle, your patterns, your habits, the way that you choose to conduct yourself. And what I mean, what I'm saying here is such good news I'm telling you. You don't have to go be a card-carrying member of the try-hard club this week, you don't have to go sneak to all do better all stop doing this, I'll finally do the right thing. This time, I'll finally be patient with so and so, I'll finally… No, you don't have to think that way anymore. That's it, that's the flesh, the flesh is always trying, always failing, always giving up and turning to sin. You don't have to walk that way anymore. You now already start at a place of righteousness, and you already now have the power in the Spirit, and the Spirit, he already will set you free from sin and death. And he will enable you to walk in a new way, the life that you have in Christ. You don't have to try to live it, the Spirit will cause you to live it this week. Like you can start from a place of power, rather than always feeling weak, and like you're never going to get there. That's what this is saying.
Now, this has always been hard for people to grasp. Originally, it was hard for the Jews to grasp because they had the old covenant and then you start telling them about the new covenant in the Spirit. And they're like, What about the Old Covenant? What about the law of Moses? What about all the things that I've been trying to do, that I'm familiar with. And so, some of the Jews, they wanted to hang on to the Old Covenant way, and they had a hard time embracing the New Covenant way of the Spirit. Now, I don't think that's our problem in Southern California church these days. People who are saying they're Christians around here, where we live in Orange County or LA County, I don't see a lot of people think and let's go back to the law of Moses. I don't hear a lot of people saying that at all. Here's what I hear a lot of, I hear a lot of people talking about their flesh. One of the things that Christians in Southern California strongly believe in is their flesh. They think, Oh, my flesh is causing me to sin. I mean, I tried, but I mean, what can I really do? I got my flesh, my flesh is always weighing me back. And my flesh is always causing me to stumble. I mean, I just keep trying to do the same things, and I never seem to get to where I want to get. And I always end up back in the same sense. I mean, if you listen to the way people talk at this church, they are very convinced that their flesh is sinful, and their flesh is causing them to stumble, and they have a lot of confidence and what their flesh can do, I want to ask you, what's greater in your mind, your flesh, or the power of the Spirit? Because some of us are walking and talking like the flesh has more power than the Spirit does. I don't hear as much conversation, while the Spirit he really reminded me of this, or the Spirit, he really caused me to do this, you know, I was feeling pretty weak, but then I just admitted to God, I am weak, and I can't do it at all. And I'll never be able to do it. So, I need to stop trying myself. And I need to rely on your Spirit.
And I believe what your scripture says that you've put your Spirit within me and your Spirit, he can set me free from sin and death. And I can walk according to the Spirit today. So today, I'm putting all my hope in what the Spirit is going to do. And I'm here to tell you, Father, I can't do it. But will you please do it? Well, yeah, help me. Will you empower me? Will your Spirit do it through me? Who's believing in that? See? Because there's a lot of people well, my flesh is really bad. No, your Spirit is really good. That's what I'm here to tell you. And you don't have to walk according to the flesh. I sure hope you're not just saying well, I don't care. I mean, if I want to do something, I'm going to go do it. I hope you're not somebody who's out there indulging your flesh. I feel like looking at this. I feel like saying this. I feel like getting angry about this. I'm just going to do it. I hope your desire is to not give into the sin of the flesh. And I hope you at least want to do what is right. I hope that's where you're at. But see, here's the problem. I think that when you don't want to do the things of the flesh, you just try to do the right thing. And you trying to do the right thing is the problem. That's never going to work. Because it's not telling you all right, well, you're in Christ. So don't live according to the flesh anymore. Let me tell you how to do it. That's not where the book of Roman goes. It doesn't tell you how to do it. It says, let me tell you how the Spirit is going to do it in you.
That’s the problem, is you are trying rather than relying on the Spirit to do it. That is the problem. So, we've got to leave behind the old way of thinking. And we've got to learn the new way of thinking in the Spirit. Go to 2 Corinthians 3. And let's see how Paul explain this to some Jews who were hanging on to the old way, the old Law of Moses, the old, try-hard way. Look what he says here, 2 Corinthians 3:4, this is the same kind of confidence I'm hoping that you're going to have in the month of May 2023 as we study the Spirit here at our church, he says, such as the confidence this is 2 Corinthians 3:4-5, “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us.” No, I can't do it. But our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit for the letter kills. But the Spirit gives what, everybody? Hey, I'm able to do it, not because I'm able to do it, but I'm in the New Covenant, and God has given me the Spirit and the Spirit gives life. My sufficiency to live for Jesus does not come from me, it comes from the Spirit. In me, that is a very important distinction. Are you thinking that way? Every single day, we want to take this thought from Romans 8, and we want to put it into your mindset every single day, when I wake up Monday morning, May 1, here we go, the beginning of a new month in my life, I want you to go look in the mirror and tell yourself, I can't do it. All right, we’ve got to stop trying. Our sufficiency will never come from our effort. It comes from the Spirit. Look at how it goes on to say after he gets into the fact, like verse 7, he says the ministry of death is what he calls the old way. Always trying to keep the Law, never able to do it, you're still in sin, you're going to die in that sin. And we're not doing that anymore. And he explains it. Go down to verse 16 here in 2 Corinthians 3, “when one turns to the Lord,” see, when you trust in Jesus, “the veil is removed.”
Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is what, everybody? Freedom. Yeah, say it just like that fruit. Oh, say it in the mirror, say aloud said so the kids can hear it, fruit, new alarm clock for everybody this week, right. And I just want to make it very clear to all my brothers and sisters here today that freedom does not come from the United States of America. freedom comes from being united in Christ and having the Spirit of the Living God inside of you. Okay, you are not free because of your constitutional rights. You are free because God has declared you right in Christ and you now have the Spirit of the Living God, which has set you free from sin and death. That's who you are, you are free. You the Spirit, wherever the Spirit is in the Spirit is in you if you believe in Jesus, and wherever the Spirit is, there is say with really loud, obnoxiously loud, very long. Freedom. That's what you’ve got. You do not have to go live another try-hard week. Please stop, please stop. Just stop trying. Just give up, just wave the white flag that I would keep doing that same thing that I've been doing, I would keep doing that. But I'm going to stop trying to do anything. And I'm going to start experiencing some of this freedom in my life. I'm going to start saying, wow, I can't do it. In fact, look what it says here in this next verse, 2 Corinthians 3:18, this is a verse to memorize this verse to really think about: “And we all, with unveiled face” now that we can see Jesus, now that we can see the Spirit is in us, we are beholding the glory of the Lord. there is God, one God, three persons Look at him. And we because we can now see his glory, by faith through the Scripture, we are being transformed into the same image of God from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. If you have the Lord Jesus, you have the Spirit, the Lord is the Spirit. And as you see God in all of his glory, Father, Son, and Spirit, and you behold the glory of God, the Spirit comes, and he makes you less like who you used to be. And he transforms you to be more like God, who has now saved you. And you stop thinking the fleshly way, and you start thinking the godly way. And so, the Spirit is taking you and over the time that you're in the Word, over the time that you apply God's righteousness to your life, as you learn to walk according to the Spirit, you become unrecognizable to the people who used to know you and you are somebody different, not because you tried to change, but the Spirit made you new and set you free, he transforms us. It's something that he's doing from the inside as we behold the glory of God.
That's why we want to go read the Psalms. The Psalms tell us all who God is, all of his attributes, all of his glory revealed to us. And here's me seeing the glory of God, and the Spirit takes that truth. And he works in me, and he transforms me to be more like God and less like me. See, that's what's happening. If you've got Jesus, you've got the Spirit. And he's setting you free from all of that in your flesh. And he's now making you who God has saved you to be. So it's not up to you to live the Christian life; you have to give it up to the Spirit, and he will do it in and through you.
Go to Galatians chapter 5, here just a few pages over to the right. Galatians chapter five, and we refer to this passage a lot at our church, because it'll tell you whether you're still in the flesh. It'll tell you all the deeds of the flesh, or it'll tell you whether you have been saved by Jesus, and you are in the Spirit. It'll give you all the fruit of the Spirit. But there's a part at the end of Galatians 5:25-26, a part here that I think I don't know that we've all the way thought through. It says here in verse 25, “If we live by the Spirit,” and if you believe in Jesus, you do have the Spirit. And well if we live by the Spirit, “then let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” So, you have the Spirit of Life. Now you need to take that step based on the Spirit, you need to walk according to the Spirit. And then look at Galatians 5:26. I don't hear about this verse, “Let us not become…” what does it say there, everybody? Conceited? Do you realize that if you leave here today, and you think, okay, I'm going to go try to live for Jesus. That is actually an act of pride in that you think of yourself, you could actually be righteous. See, if you don't keep in step with the Spirit, but you're going to go try to do good things, you've actually become conceited because you're actually thinking now that you could do something that you're utterly incapable of doing.
You know, he enables you to obey, he causes you to walk in God's ways. The Spirit is the one who does the work in you so if you just try to do the work by yourself, you're actually a do-it-yourself, Christian, and you don't want to be that, let's get that down for number four: You’ve got to stop the pride of DIY Christianity. You’ve got to stop the pride of doing it yourself. You will become conceited. If you're not learning how to walk according to the Spirit. We’ve got to learn this. This is our first step. Some of us need to admit I am a card-carrying member of the try-hard club. I am just giving it all I've got and I'm not admitting I don't got it. And I need the Spirit to do it. And I've become conceited. It's really dangerous. Some of you might actually think that you are living the Christian life in your own strength. And you will become puffed up with conceit. And you'll start looking at other people like why can't they get their act together? I got my act together, what's that person's problem? And you'll start having this wrong attitude towards other people. Because I mean, that could be the worst thing is, some of us, we try to live and when we fail, and we realize we can't do it, and that turns us back to the Lord. If you've actually been trying to do it. And you think you've actually been able to do it by yourself, you’ve got to confess that is pride. And you’ve got to humble yourself before God because we live in this DIY culture. Like you don't need to hire professionals. You can just do it yourself. You don't need to hire guys to do that remodel. That's what Home Depot is for. That's what YouTube's for. You can just remodel your own house. Anybody want to confess they lived that nightmare before? Anybody want to own up to that? Right? Oh, it was easy. I just saw somebody do it on YouTube. I got some stuff at Home Depot. How's that remodel going, bro? Yes, six months in, we’re still living in our garage right now. It's terrible, bro. Right. I mean, we don't need doctors. What do those guys even know? Right? I mean, medical school residency. What does that stuff even mean? All I have to do is type in my symptoms to WebMD and I know exactly what's going on with my body. I mean, look, I just put in some symptoms. I've got bubonic plague. I know exactly what's wrong with me right here. I'm doing fine, right? I don't need to ask some expert. I don't need to humble myself like I don't know something and maybe somebody else does. I’ve got the internet. Now we have AI. They do the thinking for me. I can figure it out by myself. Right? If you keep trying to live for Jesus by yourself. Some of us we're about to have the best month of our lives. We're about to understand more clearly that we can't do anything. We have that Spirit of the Almighty God in us, and he can do it all. And we're about to put all of our reliance on him and see the Spirit work in a way in our lives more than we ever have before. And if you keep trying to do it yourself, you'll miss out on the whole thing. And so, you’ve got to humble yourself. And you’ve got to say, yeah, if it's up to me, I will walk according to the flesh. And I don't want to, I don't want to live that way. I want the Spirit to do the work in me.
Turn with me to Ezekiel 36. One last passage, we’ve got to finish what we started. Because when he says to Nicodemus in John 3, when Jesus says, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and you don't know this?” He's referring to Ezekiel 36. He's expecting him to know what it means to be born of water, and the Spirit. And he's expecting him to know that he's referring to this prophecy in Ezekiel 36:25, that God doesn't want what happened with Israel, God doesn't want that to continue. He had to judge the city of Jerusalem, he had to condemn his own people, they got punished for their sin, they got exiled to Babylon. And God says, I don't want that anymore. I'm going to bring my people back. And I'm going to start a new covenant with my people. And this is what God says in Ezekiel 36:25, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.” I'm going to wash you so clean from your sin, I'm going to wash you by the one who was sacrificed for you, by the blood of Jesus. I'm going to wash all your sin away. So, there will be no condemnation for you. You will never be punished for your sins. And then he says in Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. The Spirit will cause you to walk for Jesus, the Spirit will make you careful to obey the commands of Jesus. You will not be able to, the Spirit will enable you, that's what God said. And you’ve got to believe in that new covenant of the Spirit. And you’ve got to learn how to stop doing it yourself, and how to rely on the Spirit to do it in you. I don't know if you've ever read the next chapter, the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37, where it uses the Hebrew word Ruah, which is the Hebrew word for Spirit, the Greek word is Pneuma. These words that are used for Spirit, they can also be translated breath. And they can also be translated wind. And in Ezekiel 37, we get this word Spirit a lot of times, and because in the Spirit, Ezekiel finds himself in some valley where there's been some kind of epic battle of armies. And now there's all these bones of all these soldiers, where their bodies have decayed over time. And so, it's just like a valley of dry bones. And all of a sudden, the wind starts to blow over the bones and he says, prophesy have God breathed into these bones, and the bones start rattling in the valley, something's happening in the bones, and the bones start to come together, and the bones start to stand up and flesh starts to grow on the bones. And God is resurrecting an army of his people. And it's a prophecy of a future resurrection. But it's showing us the power in the wind, the power and the breath of God that if God puts his Spirit in, you ain't nothing including you that can stop God's Spirit from raising you up. Do you believe that? Do you believe that there is power in the wind and God has put his Spirit in you?
This is just the introduction. We're going to really get started next week. Let's pray everybody.
Father in heaven, we come to you. And we just want to confess that we are a bunch of try-hards here that we think we can now Jesus did it for us now we can do. And Father, we thank you for Romans 8:12, for showing us that if we're in Christ Jesus, then we've got the Spirit of life. And then if you loved us so much to send your son as a sacrifice for our sin, and you've made us righteous, that we can walk now, according to your Spirit. So, Father, I just pray that this would be something that you would teach our church in such a way that we would experience a power and an ability to live out our new life that we have in Jesus Christ, that your Spirit would cause us to walk in that new way more in the month of May 2023 than we ever have before. Father, I pray that when we wake up tomorrow morning, on the first day of May, we would all be utterly convinced in our hearts that I cannot do it. But I have freedom in the Spirit, and he is going to do it in me today. And I pray that you would show our church over this next month, what your Spirit can do when we stop trying to do it. When we humble ourselves and admit we can't do it, and we rely on you to do it in us. Let your Spirit set us free from our sins. Let your Spirit cause us to walk in your ways. Let your Spirit help us when we feel weak. Let your Spirit teach us the truth when we don't know what to say. Let your Spirit give us life every single day in this month of May 2023, so that we can say that this month, it was not I that lived this month. It was Christ in me because he did what he said, and he sent me a helper. He sent me the Spirit of Truth. And I'm not just me, but God is in me, and I give him all the glory for the work he's doing in my life. Let that be what we can say, every day, this month of May. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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